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Political Discourse, the Argumentum ad Misericordiam, and the Tu Quoque Fallacy

It is not a novel insight that the most recent inauguration has been contentious, nor is it a novel insight that political discourse has been so acrimonious that it is less a true discourse and more a... read more

Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate

For further commentary on burdens of proof, see argumentum ad ignorantiam, above. Argumentum ad misericordiam ... in fact, a fallacy at all, but simply a logical extension or amplification of an argum... read more

The most dangerous result of the CIA torture scandal

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Not any different than America's subjugation of Vietnam. Political prisoners? America's prison system is no model for the world. Civil rights? What about the horror ... read more

A New Climate Survey Tells Us What?

Instead, they keep refighting old battles that are no longer relevant to a constructive discourse. The latest example is this survey by John Cook et al that is getting a lot of undeserved attention in ... read more

The Trouble With Theistic Evolution

From the other side, few creationists are really as simple-minded as Sober’s version of their argument suggests ... this discussion specifically in the context of the American political and educationa... read more

Is This Where Libertarians and the Gay Community Part Ways?

Now that government gay marriage recognition is a settled matter, it's worth taking an inventory of political issues frequently raised ... have to follow all the government regulations." This argument ... read more

Why a British Fight Over Israel and Anti-Semitism Matters to the Rest of Us

At first glance, the heated argument two members of the British Labour Party conducted ... seems like a story of interest mainly to political junkies in London. Watch this. Extraordinary. John Mann MP ... read more

Braving risky politics for a lasting legacy

The mining boom? Its best days are over, its proceeds frittered on the sugar hits of political short-termism. Certainly the investment of social and physical infrastructure it might have facilitated h... read more

Sociologist suggests corporate disinformation at root of climate change polarization

Drawing on large-scale computational data and methods, this research demonstrates how polarization efforts are influenced by a patterned network of political and financial ... root of climate change p... read more

Logical Fallacies

‘Argumentum Ad Baculum’/argument to a baculum [a short stick-shaped weapon] Argument that uses some form of coercion or unpleasant backlash (force, threat of force…) to make the listener accept a conc... read more

Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All

I fear that some subtleties of the argument may be lost. But if we’re lucky, other people elsewhere on the internet will also talk about these questions, and we’ll get it all sorted out. Let me know i... read more

The Norms of Society and Presidential Executive Orders UPDATE

First, like the average citizen (of all political stripes) he is ignorant of how anything works. Second, like the bully that stands by the batter's box, he shall not observe any rule that he does happ... read more