Subtle fallacy of analogy; Quote; Points to ponder

Subtle fallacy of analogy; Quote; Points to ponder

By Dr. Sohail Ansari

Conceived and worded by DR Sohail Ansari (originality of concepts and originality of words).

He believes that there can never be a zero scope for improvement and appreciates criticism if it is not for the sake of criticism.

Subtle fallacy of analogy

·       During the summer months that people are more likely to engage in activities involving water such as swimming. The increased drowning deaths are simply caused by more exposure to water based activities, not ice cream therefore to say ‘as ice cream sales increases, the rate of drowning death increases sharply, therefore ice cream causes drowning is not right thing to say. In the same way during Christmas people are more likely to engage in driving, therefore to say as Alcohol is sold much, the rate of deaths increases sharply because of alcohol is not right thing to say.

·       As we have almost no record regarding personal reading practices that can tell the number of books read in an individual life time, we cannot say that book-reading is on the rise merely on the number of books sold. In the same way, ‘a citizen’s group argues that congressional members of party X authorize the spending of more tax payer dollars than do congressional members of party. The group’s figures are based on an analysis of the number of spending bills for which members of congress vote; however we cannot know as the group weighs all vote for spending bill equally, no matter how much tax payers money is involved in each bill’ (more bill less amount is quite possible and it is good; however more books less time devoted to study and it is not good.)

Quote

·       Great news is the great departure from normal; it is as eye catching as headlines relying heavily on unnamed sources and no legitimate well-researched news.

Points to ponder

·       The inevitability of the wide adoption of brain scanning technologies means politician will be using mind reading in architecting politics; getting to slick with the technology and applying it too liberally to voting behavior. This kind of tailoring implies dishonesty about political means and ends as politicians then do not stand for anything.

·       Feasibility of recommendation is judged by how much work one put onto the case from the recommendation.

·      Good speaker appeals to logic and uses non artistic and extrinsic proofs and appeals to emotions by means of the art of rhetoric to find artistic and intrinsic proofs.