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Mycernius

The Hairy Wookie
4 Feb 2005
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This is just a thread to try and ensure that when various discuusions are taking place that we try and remain civil. One way is to avoid several fallacies and to have good practices when posting.

1. The most obvious one is try and keep it civil. name calling is not only rude, but can lead to flame wars and threads being locked down. This is also in Jref rules.

2. Please list sources and articles for any arguments or points. Such things as "my mates best friend told me that x happened" do not give any weight to anything you are trying to say. Links are also good, as it saves space on the thread.

3. Fallacies and straw man arguments: There are planty of various types of fallacies I could go through, but it is easier just to links to this excellent site which lists a great many:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/index.html#index
The most common that you will encounter on various forums are: Straw man, Ad hominem, Appeals to Authority and Majority and False Dilemma (also known as a false Dichotomy)

4. Please check your facts before posting. One source is not always realiable. I know many will lionk to Wikipedia, but remember that is made by people like you and I and it does contain many mistakes, errors and personal opinions. Best avoid articles that deal with contentious issues especially dealing with conspiracies or religion.

If anyone has anything else to add, please feel free. afterall I might have missed out some fallacies other good practices.:)
 
Can we add?

5. Avoid generalisations. For example, rather than saying, "All Christians are ignorant", it's fairer to say, "Among the Christians I have met, most seem to have very little knowledge of Science".
 
Yes, it seems fair. The point of this thread was to add anything that I missed with the initial post. It's my age:)
 
1 thing I notice that might help..............

don't worry about the person who disagrees with you in the thread. Chances are you are not going to get them to change their mind and come around to your way of thinking. Present your arguments in the post towards the readers and convince THEM you are correct. Hopefully our members will realize
who provides the best information and back-up and decide who to believe. If your post reply is directed at the audience and not a single member, less chance of flare ups maybe. My 2 cents.

Uncle Frank

:)
 
I found an interesting site a while ago that might be a good reference for anyone wanting to improve their debating skills:

Fallacies - Nizkor

A fallacy is an error in reasoning. This site describes many different fallacies, and gives examples that make it easy to understand how the fallacy works.

To pick out a few examples that are commonly seen, even in this forum: ;-)

Ad Hominem: this fallacy attacks the person rather than their argument. If I say "Mycernius knows nothing about religion because he's an atheist," I am committing the Ad Hominem fallacy. My argument is based solely on some characteristic of Mycernius', not on the content of any of his arguments.

Appeal to Authority: This is a tricky one, because appeals to authority are often justified. If I say, "As Darwin says, species evolve through Natural Selection," that's fine because Darwin is a recognised expert in the field of evolution. But if I say, "As Pachipro, who used to work for NASA, says, we never landed on the Moon," that's not OK, because just the fact that he worked for NASA doesn't make Pachipro an expert on the Moon landings. The tricky part is in deciding if the authority invoked is a relevant expert or not. The site has some tips on determining this.

Appeal to Fear: An example speaks for itself: "You must believe in God, otherwise you will go to hell."

Bandwagon: This fallacy substitutes fear of rejection from one's peers for evidence. For example, I might concede to someone's argument even if it's flawed, because I don't want to lose them as a friend.

Begging the Question: You commit this fallacy if you assume what you are trying to prove. For example, using the Bible as proof of the existence of God because God wrote the Bible. It is also known as Circular Reasoning.

Burden of Proof: This is a favourite in the arguments between Theists and Atheists. Which side should have to offer proof? It is generally accepted that the burden of proof rests with those that are trying to show that something exists, so to say, "You cannot prove that God does not exist, so He does," commits the fallacy of Burden of Proof.

Factual Error: The simplest fallacy of all, getting your facts wrong. For example, "Beijing is the capital of Japan."

Generalisation: For example, "Derfel swears a lot, so students in the UK must be foul-mouthed." You can't make a statement about a large group based on the characteristics of a small sample.

Relativist Fallacy: Another one that is seen very often, this fallacy says that what might be true for one person isn't necessarily true for someone else. This isn't always a fallacy. It's fine if I say, "it's true that I have brown eyes, but that's not true for everyone," since eye colour varies between individuals. But if I say "the Earth is spherical for me, but that's not true for everyone," clearly I have committed a fallacy, since the shape of the Earth is an objective fact.

Slippery Slope: This fallacy involves claims that certain events will inevitably follow others, without any proof of the inevitability of those events. For example, "Abortion must be banned! They'll be murdering babies next!"

Straw Man: When someone misrepresents another person's position they have set up a Straw Man. For example, "Be careful what you say to Uncle Frank because he likes banning people," is unfair because I am misrepresenting Frank's position as a moderator.

The site has more examples.
 
Damn good summary there. I swear I always thought these should be taught in school with specific argumentation classes.
 
If you are quoting another member in order to respond to them, please use the quote tags. You can do this either by clicking the quote button in the bottom right of their post, or by typing the tags, e.g., [ quote=Tsuyoiko ]Their post here[ /quote ]. Just remove the spaces.

This way, everyone can see whose post you are referrring to and it avoids any confusion.
 
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