So often online we find ourselves in a debate perhaps in an email correspondence or in an online forum or Blog. As the debate rages on, the other parties will try to pull a fast one and use some statement which is quite absurd, but relatively hard to prove. Eventually if you call them on their comments they merely accuse you of being something evil. And whether you are or are not you could not prove it either way.
You cannot prove you didn't kick your dog, even if you do not or have never had a dog, you cannot prove that either. So the debates just spiral and spin out of control all the while the other party pretends to take the moral and logical high-ground? But are they really using logic or did they merely take a course in rhetoric in the past?
My favorite logic fallacy is when someone starts giving me statistics to prove a point which have nothing to do with the question and are relatively meaningless. The one I think is funny is the statistics that the average person has one boob - statistically correct, but about the most worthless information in the universe.
Still, the reason people use such rhetoric and fallacies in logic in debate or in online forums is because of the average intelligence of the readers, in other words as bad as some of these fallacies in logic are, they often work and that is the scary thought. Folks need to be smarter than this and understand what is going on when they see it.
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington
Source: www.articlesbase.com
