List of fallacies

Relatively Interesting Logical Fallacies in the Lab - Relatively Interesting Errors in reasoning aren’t limited to just us regular folk. Even highly educated scientists – who are taught how to think and are taught how to follow the scientific method – are not immune to committing logical fallacies. Unbeknownst to us, biases find a way to creep into into our thoughts and eventually into the arguments we make. It takes a a lot of effort to avoid using logical fallacies. But understanding them is essential to making rational and reasonable decisions in life. The Upturned Microscope Presents: Logical Fallacies in the Lab, of all places, with a few of our favorites being: For those work work in the lab doing science-y things, you’ll appreciate these even more. Source: The Upturned Microscope

ETHICS MAN | Culture | The Independent IT HAS BEEN more than 10 years since the disaster at Hillsborough football stadium. Ninety-six football fans were crushed to death that afternoon; yet the final victim, 17-year-old Tony Bland, didn't actually die there - at least, not technically. He was trampled so badly that his chest caved in and his lungs collapsed. Cut off from its oxygen supply, his cerebral cortex was destroyed within minutes. Four years later, this is how Lord Justice Hoffman described his condition: "Since April 15, 1989, Anthony Bland has been in a persistent vegetative state. The justices decided not to let that happen. "The day had to come, just as the day had to come when Copernicus proved that the earth is not at the centre of the universe," Singer told me not long ago. Singer is a lean, rangy 53-year-old, with a broad forehead and a ring of hair around his balding head which shoots in wisps straight into the air. Singer's beliefs have led him to places where few others are willing to go.

Chilcot: Why we cover our ears to the facts Image copyright Getty Images Do people moderate their views when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Not necessarily, writes Matthew Syed. We like to think that we apportion our beliefs to the evidence. Or do we? Consider an experiment, where two groups were recruited. These groups were then showed two dossiers. Image copyright iStock Now you might suppose that, confronted by this contradictory evidence, the two groups would have concluded that capital punishment is a complex subject with arguments on both sides. When asked about their attitudes afterwards, those in favour of capital punishment said they were impressed with the dossier citing evidence in line with their views. The opposite conclusions were drawn by those against capital punishment. What this (and dozens of other experiments) reveal is the way we filter new information when it challenges our strongly-held beliefs or judgements. This tendency is called "cognitive dissonance". Image copyright AP

Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy Chapter XV of The Problems of Philosophy Having now come to the end of our brief and very incomplete review of the problems of philosophy, it will be well to consider, in conclusion, what is the value of philosophy and why it ought to be studied. It is the more necessary to consider this question, in view of the fact that many men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is impossible. This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men.

Capital - How to stop lying to yourself Newly divorced, Eleanor Bain thought she’d finally met the man of her dreams. She was in a new city, looking for a new job and starting a new life with her two daughters, when she fell in love, or so she thought. It’s like a boomerang, when you suddenly realise that this is not so peachy But along with the positives of shared interests, there were plenty of negatives. Looking back, Bain says she was in denial about the relationship. Why do we do it? Delusion may make day-to-day living easier, but it usually comes at a price, according to Cam Caldwell, a visiting professor of management at Purdue University North Central, Indiana in the US, who has been researching identity, self-awareness and self-deception for decades. For those who want to avoid burying their heads in the sand, ask yourself this question: What’s worse – a little bad news about your actual situation, or a ‘business as usual’ approach that leads to a train wreck for your partnership, your money or your career?

The Future of Feminism: An Interview with Christina Hoff Sommers Christina Hoff Sommers Over the last decade or two, many women in the United States have distanced themselves from the feminist movement. It appears that a growing number of them associate feminism with anger and hostile rhetoric and have therefore concluded that they are not really feminists. This was reflected in a recent Time/CNN poll which showed that although 57 percent of the women responding felt there was a need for a strong women's movement, a full 63 percent said they didn't consider themselves feminists. This fact is not surprising to Christina Hoff Sommers, author of the controversial polemic Who Stole Feminism: How Women Have Betrayed Women. Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former professor of philosophy at Clark University in Massachusetts. Scott London: What inspired you to write this book? Christina Hoff Sommers: In the late 1980s, I began to have disagreements with some of my colleagues in philosophy. Sommers.

theconversation What happens to your brain when you walk into a shop and are faced with a huge, ultra-high definition, 3D television at the startling price of £37,695? Assuming you actually need a new TV, you might dismiss this as ridiculous; laugh at the spendthrift fools who might buy it. And then, very sensibly, you start looking at more reasonably priced options, maybe at around the £1,500 mark. You have just been successfully manipulated. The above is precisely what happened to me, and it happens to all of us. This example illustrates three key properties of anchoring. Unlike many recent findings in psychology that fail to replicate, the anchoring effect is easy to demonstrate and repeat. Court out The effect is not limited to the lab, but shows up robustly in the real world. The second key thing to bear in mind: everyone does it. Now, occasionally, companies get it wrong. And that leads on to the final aspect of the phenomenon: no one is immune. Checklist So how can you stop getting caught out?

Teaching kids philosophy makes them smarter in math and English — Quartz “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” goes the aphorism commonly attributed (perhaps mistakenly) to Sinclair Lewis. The election of soon-to-be president Donald Trump suggests the prediction may turn out to have been only half-true. As Trump opponents nervously await his inauguration, many are wondering about how to discern the potential signposts of American fascism in the making. What legislative markers should we look for as the government trundles toward authoritarianism, dragging the world’s foremost attempt at democracy into at least four years of retrograde policy and pronouncement? With 2016 drawing mercifully to a close, it’s worth looking towards eastern Europe for a sense of what Washington, and those who would unravel liberal (as opposed to illiberal) democracy in America, may have in store. But Russia’s post-Soviet model of autocracy seems to appeal to the president-elect.

Relatively Interesting A visual guide to Cognitive Biases - Relatively Interesting Cognitive biases are psychological tendencies that cause the human brain to draw incorrect conclusions. Such biases are thought to be a form of “cognitive shortcut”, often based on rules of thumb, and include errors in statistical judgement, social attribution, and memory. These biases are a common outcome of human thought, and often drastically skew the reliability of anecdotal and legal evidence. The phenomenon is studied in cognitive science and social psychology. The slideshow below is for anyone who is trying to study all of the cognitive biases so they can better understand human thought and behavior. The slideshow is broken up into four main sections: social biases; memory biases; decision-making biases; and probability/belief biases. Click the slideshow to begin. This presentation is free to share for non-commercial usage, and much of the contents within is under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

Thomas Aquinas's Proof of God | RealClearReligion One of the unintended but happy consequences of the emergence of the new atheism is a renewed interest in the classical arguments for God's existence. Eager to defend the faith that is so vigorously attacked today, Catholic apologists and evangelists have been recovering these rational demonstrations of the truth of God; and the atheists, just as eager to defend their position, have entered into the fray. In the process, these ancient arguments, long thought by many to be obsolete, have found a new relevance and have been brought to greater clarity through the give and take of both critics and advocates. Thomas Aquinas famously laid out five arguments for the existence of God, but he characterized one of them as "the first and more manifest way." This is the proof from motion, which can be presented simply and schematically as follows. In order to avoid misunderstanding (and it's fair to say that this argument has been misunderstood for centuries), several observations are in order.