Scientific Musings
Ramblings
This is why you're wrong: logical fallacies
- - humbugfighter
Logical Fallacies
are arguments made with bad reasoning.
Reason is basically what we call, when someone thinks, understands, and makes judgments by a process of logic. Reason is how we rule out impossibilities and irrational thoughts from our fallible minds when we are trying to explain something of truth. Any argument can be made using irrational thinking which makes any argument completely useless and provides no real basis of truth unless it follows reason.
Below are some examples of logical fallacies:
Ad hominem: Claiming that something someone says is false because of unfavorable characteristics about that person. (Hitler was a vegetarian; therefore you're a Nazi if you're a vegetarian.)
Appeal to belief: The claim that since someone believes something, it must make it true. (A lot of people believe in Christianity, so it must be true.)
Appeal to authority: The claim that since someone (is an expert or says he is) makes what they are claiming true. (Deepak Chopra says that consciousness is real, since he is an expert on consciousness, this is a fact.)
Appeal to tradition: The claim that since something has always been done this way, it makes it the correct thing to do. (i.e. slavery is okay, just because people have always had slaves.)
Argument from ignorance: The claim that something is true just because it has not been proven false. (This is one example of shifting the burden of proof.)
Burden of Proof: Shifting the burden of proof in which you are asking someone to prove a negative. Anyone making an assertion must always hold the burden of proof.
Circular Reasoning: (i.e. God is real because the Bible says he is, the Bible is real because it is the word of God)
Appeal to Emotion: The claim that things that cause bad feelings must be bad/evil, things that cause good feelings must be good.
Slippery Slope: The claim that a relatively small even will lead to outlandishly huge consequences. (i.e. If gays are allowed to marry, it will destroy the institution of marriage, children, and families.)
False Dichotomy: Making a claim that A and B are true, then asserting if one is false the other has to be true. (i.e. If you're not with us, you're against us. or If you want better teachers, you have to raise taxes. If you don't raise taxes, you can't have better teachers.)
Cherry Picking: Choosing evidence that is favorable to your claim while purposely concealing or leaving out evidence that is favorable to your opponents.
False Generalization: The claim that since one member of a group acts a certain way, then all members must do the same.
Red Herring: Changing the topic while making it appear they are related to avoid discussing the actual premise. (Claim: We shouldn't be bailing out the banks. Response: Well, during economic struggle we should support the president.)
Loaded Question: A question containing an assumption, said in order to trap you into answering it in a specific way in favor of your opponent.
Straw Man: Making an argument to misrepresent a person's claim or argument. (i.e. Claim: Sunny days are good. Response: If all days were Sunny, we'd have no rain and all plant life would die.)
Quote Mining: It appeals to the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy; using an authority to prove your claim, while misrepresenting what that authority actually says.
It is important to understand how logic works and why it must be used when arguing facts. You might think that this information is only practical if you're on a debate team somewhere or just really enjoy arguing with people. The fact is; this applies also to your thought process and beliefs. To justify a belief as rational it must pass the test of logic. If it does not, then it is an irrational belief. The human brain is not perfect and makes logical fallacies if the thinker does not actively apply reason to their thought process.
We really landed on the moon!
- - humbugfighter
The
Moon Landings
Debunking
the Hoax
You've all heard or maybe
you believe that we've never landed on the moon, that it was a staged hoax in a
desperate attempt to get there before the Russians did after the Sputnik
moment. Nearly 25% of Americans believe we've never been to the moon.
What is
so compelling about this theory?
It's
typical pseudo-history, as long as you can make a documentary that looks real,
anything is believable.
This is
what you would call irrational skepticism; let's take it claim by claim.
The
flag was waving.
No. It
wasn't. The flag was attached to a L shaped pole called the Lunar Flag
Assembly. It moved when the astronauts were assembling the flag due to their
movement, similar to a pendulum, the flag was also wrinkled and many of the
ripples are actually misinterpreted wrinkles.
The
photos contain mistakes and anomalies.
Many
claim that certain cross hairs are in the wrong place or that they see
"prop" markings on rocks. It's probably a hair that got attached to
the photo, in all of the original photos there are none of these imperfections.
The cross hairs were altered due to altering the photo to increase its
appearance.
The
cameras would have been foggy due to radiation.
The
cameras were contained in a metal box that stopped the fogging of the film's
emulsion.
They
couldn't have survived the radiation.
The
astronauts were shielded by the alumminium hulls of the craft, their trajectory
through the belts was selected because of its lower levels of radiation.
They
were using harnesses to appear to be in a low gravity environment.
This
has been debunked by demonstration repeatedly; check out myth-busters. No one
has been able to recreate the same appearance using the same technology of the
day.
Moon
rocks are identical to those found in Antarctica.
The rocks from the Moon brought back by astronauts are distinctly different from those found on Earth. Those found on Earth have been oxidized from their entry into our atmosphere. Geologists have examined this and have all agreed (due to this noticeable difference) that these rocks really have come from the Moon.
The foot prints couldn't have been preserved.
There
is no wind on the moon, their foot prints on in very fine dust that feels
a little like damp sand, that's how they were able to create footprints and
them be preserved even until now.
There
were no stars.
There
were stars, just unseen due to the fact it occurred during lunar mornings, the
sun was shining too brightly for them to be seen.
The
U.S. had motive for faking the Moon landings.
The
U.S. did have motivation to go to the Moon, to compete in the space race
against the USSR, they had launched Sputnik and we feared their technology
would advance more quickly than our own. We wanted to be first, which is why we
actually did go to the Moon. There would be reason to not try to pull off a
hoax because if found out, that would mean great failure. If the motivation for
hoaxing this, and actually going are the same, then you can't automatically
assume it was a hoax. The entire facet of NASA was created from the same
motivation, and to fake the moon landings, that would require thousands of
people behind the hoax to "keep quiet", even Nixon couldn't get away
with a handful of people stealing a few files. It is absurd to think he or
anyone else would get away with this.
We had
many rovers on the Moon before we had any manned missions. We had a lot of preparation
before we went. Similarly we put a rover on Mars and are making plans on
sending a manned spacecraft once we overcome the issues of long term space
travel. We have astronauts living on the ISS for long periods of time. It seems
absurd that we didn't have the capability of sending a man on the Moon.
How do
you know it really happened?
Besides the proof of moon rocks, the countless evidence provided by third parties and other groups outside of the government that tracked Apollo missions for fun, or
this
picture of the moon taken from a telescope to prove that we really landed,
The
most compelling evidence that we for certain... landed on the moon would be...
Lasers!
Astronauts left laser reflectors on the moon in order to measure
the rate that the Moon is receding away from Earth. We know it's moving away
from us at 3.8 centimeters per year. If you're an amateur astronomer, college
student, or you work for NASA, it's easy to prove the existence of these laser
retro-reflectors.
The only thing that conspiracy theorists can't explain away, is their
existence. They will try to claim it was from unmanned missions however it took
3 manned missions to bring up all the equipment and assemble it. If you look at
the reflectors, it requires human assembly.
We landed on the moon and that is awesome.
The Bermuda Triangle: Dude, where's my plane/boat?!
- - humbugfighter
The Bermuda Triangle
You won't find it on a real map...
Cranks out there (enabled by pseudo-history documentaries and new age
books) believe that there is a specific spot in the ocean where planes and
ships go missing unusually frequently, caused by extraterrestrial entities or
other supernatural causes.
The Lost City of Atlantis
It is a mythical island that never existed, but is claimed to have a direct
cause for missing boats and planes in the Bermuda triangle, due to “leftover”
technology from the mythical civilization. The reason these people even believe
the Lost City of Atlantis is true is due to the self-purported psychic Edgar
Cayce claiming that he predicted that evidence for this mythical island would
turn up and his followers attribute this to “Bimini Road”, which geologists
consider to be of natural origin and a common feature on the planet.
Other claims that UFOs are responsible for the disappearances.
Nothing Unusual
Let’s first attack the very first claim; that these disappearances are
anomalous.
The number of reported disappearances is not statistically greater than any
other storm prone part of Earth’s many oceans. If it happens as consistently
everywhere else we can rule out that it is an anomaly or an unusual event in
the first place.
The disappearances
were directly proportional to tropical storms.
After writers began
to benefit from persuading others to believe in the supernatural anomalies,
many reported disappearances were fakes and many reports were outright
fraudulent or poorly researched.
The Bermuda triangle
is not the only “triangle”, there are other mythical areas of the Earth where
anomalous disappearances are claimed to occur, for example the “Bridge-water
Triangle in SE Massachusetts and the “Michigan Triangle”. It's not anomalous if
it happens consistently everywhere.
What really happened?
As technology has
improved on navigation instruments, the rate of reported disappearances have
significantly decreased and these numbers are directly related. That; or the
aliens want nothing to do with our weird instruments!
The fact remains,
saying aliens did it is an irrational assumption for something we already have
a scientific understanding of; methane hydrates, tropical storms, human
mistakes, rogue waves, and compass variations are all factors in what causes
any planes or ships to go missing.
The Communism and Atheism Connection Myth
- - humbugfighter
A deeper look into ideology
This humbug that somehow there is a link between
atheism and communism is more prominent than most people who reject that idea
may think; it has been the root cause for much discrimination against American
atheists. Fundamentalists like to equate Communism with atheism, Communism was
evil, and therefore atheists are evil. That type of logic doesn't work.
The altruistic morality of Christianity and
Communism
The morality of Christianity is altruistic,
meaning you must sacrifice for other people and for God. You must do so humbly
and painfully. It is moral for you to give your last piece of bread to your
neighbor than it is for you to eat it. Communism is this collective mysticism
endorsed politically, it has the same morality that you must sacrifice for the
good of the collective proletarian. There's no "individual" person
you are sacrificing for, it's this broad proletarian that they believe in, and
believe the sacrifice should be made for. If it benefited a single individual,
then it would be selfish. Christianity and Communism share this same faith
based, spiritual collective mysticism.
Why were the communists atheists?
Communism isn't inherently atheistic. You can be
a theist and still believe in Communism; in fact it may be easier for you. Just
as you can be an atheist and believe in the economic system of capitalism.
Christianity and capitalism have very little in common and their morality
doesn't mix well, but right wing Christians in America would believe otherwise,
simply because they don't understand the basis of their moral system.
Christianity demands a preferential option for the poor, it demands social
justice. It is the (Christian) collective's responsibility to help the poor
and create minimum standards of living and do so in an act of sacrificing your
own standards of living. It requires that, the morality of Christianity not
only says help the poor, but it also doesn't permit you to not be poor
yourself. If you doubt the morality of Christianity I would re-read the
passages in the Bible about what Jesus thought about rich people. (It's not
looking so good.) Atheism was a byproduct of Communism because they believed
spiritually in their leader, the only reason the church wasn't allowed is to
prevent taking away servitude to the leader and the collective society.
Does atheism motivate evil ideology?
It depends on your definition of evil, evil being
"Someone that doesn't believe in any gods." Then, yes. Atheists are
evil. If you mean evil in any rational moral sense, as in they are motivated to be communists, no. It is
difficult to be skeptical atheists and be convinced of communism because that
would require un-testable, unwavering, improvable faith in a mystical leader
and an invisible proletarian. Communism only took away the church to replace
God with their leader, which IS their God. Atheists don't have any gods.
What is the morality of Atheism?
The morality of Atheism can be different among every individual; however
the morality of why they are an atheist to begin with is simply this: Truth is
a virtue; truth is morally superior to a lie. The morality is that of objective
reason. It is the idea of basing what you accept to be true, on repeatable,
testable evidence. It is the belief that one should not make giant leaps of
assumptions about how the universe works or came to be. It is the acceptance of
the fact that humans cannot afford to be arrogant enough to do that, that human
beings have perceptional and patternicity faults in our brains that cause our
ability to reject things that we know to be fact and believe things that aren't
true. In that, the scientific method is the most effective way to rule out that
kind of human interference, to get the most accurate and factual explanation.
The answer is not about what the observer wants to be true, but rather, what is
actually the case. Atheists have morals and a sense of empathy and fairness
towards other people. It's motivated because they are human, not because a book
told them too. Arguably, the morality in Christianity outside of altruistic
behavior is mostly based on commandment, not reason or morality. If you were to
train your pet dog to sit and he listens to your command that does not make him
moral or immoral. It simply means he is doing what you've told him to do.
Similarly if your religious text tells you to do something and you do it
because of that, that act has nothing to do with morality and everything to do
with doing something, simply because you're told to. Morality is about the best
possible action in any given situation that would produce the fairest outcome
and least harm to someone else or yourself.
What is immoral about altruism?
(a reason based opinion)
Altruism,
the morality of self-sacrifice is immoral because it is suicidal. It is also
immoral because it is hypocritical, if you are forced to sacrifice yourself to
others it is immoral simply because you are a slave to an invisible and
mystical collective and if all of the individuals in that collective are also
sacrificing themselves then who is taking? If there is a taker, based on that
ideology, they too would be immoral, because they are taking that which you
sacrificed and not also sacrificing themselves. In Communism there is only one
winner and that is the proletarian leader, the loser is the entire
"collective" that the entire "collective" believes to be
serving. It is also not the same thing as charity and isn't for the same
reasons. Charity does not require self-sacrifice in order to make the dead
"moral". Only in altruism does the sacrificial element to charity have to exist for the "morality" of it to exist.
The Red
Scare (the second one)
The idea
that atheism and communism have a relationship with one another or directly
cause one another is a myth that was born during the second red scare. We were
so frightened of the communist ideology and communists were our sworn enemy.
The U.S. was afraid that the communists would influence the social lifestyle in
America as well as infiltrate the United States government or other political
factions and start a movement in America to overthrow the government. Was this
a good reason to be afraid? Yes. There were many soviet spies that infiltrated the
U.S. government and created many double agents that compromised secrets and
caused damage to our security. Communism has also influenced ideology in the
U.S. as well. There still exists today a small fraction of people who consider
themselves to be "The U.S. Communist Party" and would like to see the
American government overthrown and replaced with a leader to worship for the
good of others.
An Irrational Reaction
However, our response to that fear, creating the Christian
ideology of the family unit and social restrictions did not solve the Red
Scare, simply because Communists were not motivated by "a lack of
belief" or atheism but rather a belief in a different type of
"god". America saw fit to solve the problem by fighting it with
"Christian Values", creating this sort of broad definition of
Christianity that wasn't there before, before "Christianity" people
identified with their denomination, during this time those denominations merged
to fight a common enemy based on religion, and religious influenced and
infiltrated our government to an unsettling and unconstitutional degree. Our
dollar did not say "In God We Trust" before but because of the Red
Scare, "Christian Values" in the broad sense of social duty and
collective community also came about due to this as well. Altruism has always existed in the ideology of Christianity, however what I am talking about is the lack of separation of church and state in many areas that still exist today as a response to this fear that is unconstitutional. The issue is, we no
longer have to be afraid of Communism running rampant and taking over America,
yet our ideology that we gave birth to in a desperate attempt to fight the iron
curtain, the mysterious and what we thought to be "godless" enemy
still exists prominently in America today. That social ideology persists
without reason and is completely fear based in origin.