Recently in Logic Category

When students are introduced to the great philosophical works of the early modern period, it is usually in the hope that they will engage with the thoughts and arguments that the texts present. The teaching experience of many of us suggests that most students simply cannot understand these texts. The increasing rate of change in the English language ensures that fewer and fewer of today's readers can cope with the writings of the 16th-18th centuries. There are difficulties of syntax, length and complexity of sentences, words that are no longer current, still-familiar words used in meanings that they now do not have, arcane references to other philosophers which today's students will seldom understand or be required to follow up; these and other factors create forbidding obstacles to engaging with these early modern texts. I reduce the obstacles so that students can more easily come to grips with the philosophical thoughts the texts express. Once they do that, they still won't have an easy time, because the material itself is hard; but their efforts will go into getting philosophical understanding, not decoding old prose.

My versions are faithful to the content of the originals, but are plainer and more straightforward in manner. I could have made them even plainer, but that would have taken them further than I wanted to go from the stylistic feel of the originals. I love the original texts, and am glad to have spent years wrestling with them in their pristine form. I do wish, though, that through the years I could also have read them sometimes with all my energy going into the philosophy.

Link here for Youtube.com video.

The Erasure of Islam -- The Philosophers' Magazine

Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into an elephant...

As anyone who has ever been in a verbal disagreement can attest, people tend to give elaborate justifications for their decisions, which we have every reason to believe are nothing more than rationalisations after the event. To prove such people wrong, though, or even provide enough evidence to change their mind, is an entirely different matter: who are you to say what my reasons are?

Link to the TED site for the original video and discussion.

1. Do not overstate the power of your argument. One's sense of conviction should be in proportion to the level of clear evidence assessable by most. If someone portrays their opponents as being either stupid or dishonest for disagreeing, intellectual dishonesty is probably in play. Intellectual honesty is most often associated with humility, not arrogance.
2. Show a willingness to publicly acknowledge that reasonable alternative viewpoints exist. The alternative views do not have to be treated as equally valid or powerful, but rarely is it the case that one and only one viewpoint has a complete monopoly on reason and evidence.
3. Be willing to publicly acknowledge and question one's own assumptions and biases. All of us rely on assumptions when applying our world view to make sense of the data about the world. And all of us bring various biases to the table.
4. Be willing to publicly acknowledge where your argument is weak. Almost all arguments have weak spots, but those who are trying to sell an ideology will have great difficulty with this point and would rather obscure or downplay any weak points.
5. Be willing to publicly acknowledge when you are wrong. Those selling an ideology likewise have great difficulty admitting to being wrong, as this undercuts the rhetoric and image that is being sold. You get small points for admitting to being wrong on trivial matters and big points for admitting to being wrong on substantive points. You lose big points for failing to admit being wrong on something trivial.

When I saw this website, I laughed. I couldn't help it; it's a funny idea.

That webcam site is a joke. It's not real, it's a satire on people who think the LHC would cause the end of the world. I laughed when I saw it.

But I'm not laughing now.

In India the other day, a young girl, distraught with fear that the world was ending when the LHC turned on, killed herself. She died, because she didn't understand the truth.

Now that site is less funny, isn't it? All over the world, in all different countries, people are raised to believe in superstitious nonsense, and raised to believe with all their hearts that it's real.

And when we do that, we do far more than remove people from reality. We leave them vulnerable to all manners of nonsense, from believing in fairies to truly and honestly thinking the LHC will destroy the planet. People don't learn how to think critically, and then they drink homeopathic water instead of taking real medicine, they chelate their children, or they deny their children vaccinations. And when that happens, people die. Children die.

How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results
Why subjective anecdotes often trump objective data

By Michael Shermer -Scientific American

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition--thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

...The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool. Our brains are belief engines that employ association learning to seek and find patterns. Superstition and belief in magic are millions of years old, whereas science, with its methods of controlling for intervening variables to circumvent false positives, is only a few hundred years old. So it is that any medical huckster promising that A will cure B has only to advertise a handful of successful anecdotes in the form of testimonials.

CAUTION: Childen at Play - The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games
Thanks to the current media frenzy and barrage of lawsuits surrounding violent video games, I can't tell people what I do for a living without getting a lecture on the current plague of youth violence and the scourge that is Grand Theft Auto. I decided it was time for a rebuttal more effective than shrugging and saying, "Well, I think you're wrong."

So I sat down to write this article, and started doing some research. What I discovered startled me. I'm not sure I have the ability to write a totally serious piece - it is not in my nature to be serious, nor the nature of GR - but the issues are very serious indeed and the evidence is very real.

I am even going to use charts. With words on 'em. We spare no expense.

First off, I have absolute proof that video games are not the cause of this epidemic of youth violence in America. No, really, I do. Ready?

There is no epidemic of youth violence in America.

Socratic Skepticism -- Skeptic Magazine by Priscilla Sakezles

It is frequently claimed that Socrates said, "All I know is that I know nothing." For instance, Skeptic magazine makes this claim in its self-defining article in the front matter of the magazine, "What is a Skeptic?" It uses this quote to justify a long historical tradition for skepticism, but it then castigates Socrates for making this claim, saying: "this pure position is sterile and unproductive and held by virtually no one. If you are skeptical about everything, you would have to be skeptical of your own skepticism." This is a misquote that I would like to correct the record for the readers of Skeptic magazine.

Ignorant America: Just How Stupid Are We? | Democracy and Elections | AlterNet

Ask the political scientists and you will be told that there is damning, hard evidence pointing incontrovertibly to the conclusion that millions are embarrassingly ill-informed and that they do not care that they are. There is enough evidence that one could almost conclude -- though admittedly this is a stretch -- that we are living in an Age of Ignorance.

Surprised? My guess is most people would be. The general impression seems to be that we are living in an age in which people are particularly knowledgeable. Many students tell me that they are the most well-informed generation in history.

Why are we so deluded?

Your Brain Lies to You - International Herald Tribune

False beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories - and mislead us along the way.

THE BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY
Writings by Russell on the Web
A list of electronic texts of Russell's books and essays.

See also: Another excellent resource for texts east and west:
The Philosophy Pages at www.davemckay.co.uk
...a chronological list of Russell's books and essays.

Daniel C. Dennett: You Want Facts or Feelings? - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

The Question: Do you believe that faith can effect your health or is that a lot of new age nonsense?

Daniel Dennett:

Of course faith can affect your health, as various studies have shown. So can faith in new age nonsense. So can faith in the Yankees or the Red Sox. People cling to life to learn the outcome of the World Series, after all. This has been measured statistically. More seriously, I do not know of any studies that compare the health and longevity of those who attend church regularly to those who devote regular hours of work to some secular charity (Oxfam, you name it) or to volunteering for a political party, for instance. It might turn out that religious allegiance is a better health promoter than any other form of voluntary contribution, but so far as I know, this has not been determined.

The larger problem with this week's ON FAITH question is that it is being asked at all. This question should not be seen as a matter of personal conviction or opinion at all. People's hunches, anecdotal recollections, or personal convictions are of no more weight here than they would be about the causes of global warming. You have asked an empirical question, and there are established methods for answering such questions. Encouraging any other approach is actually undermining proper respect for scientific methods and facts, right alongside the nefarious tactics of the tobacco companies, the global warming skeptics, and the "teach the controversy" Intelligent Design crowd who have so successful persuaded so many people to treat factual material as if it were mere opinion.

But you can put a respectable spin on it: by asking the question you are gathering data on people's convictions, data that can later be compared to the facts, whatever they turn out to be. It will be interesting to see, for instance, how many respondents declare with confidence that they know the answer to your question quite independently of any careful research. And it will be interesting to learn if they are right.

Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania - NYTimes.com

"I feel like I am being hunted," he said.

Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts...

Al-Shaymaa J. Kwegyir, Tanzania's new albino member of Parliament, said, "People think we're lucky. That's why they're killing us. But we're not lucky."

Character Attacks: How to Properly Apply the Ad Hominem
A new theory parses fair from unfair uses of personal criticism in rhetoric
By Yvonne Raley -Scientific American

A doctor tells her patient to lose weight, and the patient thinks: "If my doctor really believed that, she wouldn't be so fat." A movie aficionado pans the latest Tom Cruise flick because Cruise is a Scientologist. A home­owner ignores a neighbor's advice on lawn care because the neighbor is a ... you name it: Democrat, ­Re­publican, Christian or atheist. These examples illustrate classic uses of ad hominem attacks, in which an argument is rejected, or advanced, based on a personal characteristic of an individual rather than on reasons for or against the claim itself.

More Colorado Follies By Stanley Fish ~Think Again~ -The New York Times

I've just returned from New Zealand and find that in my absence the University of Colorado - the same one that earlier this year appointed as its president a Republican fund-raiser with a B.A. in mining and no academic experience - has gifted me again, this time with the announcement of plans to raise money for a Chair in Conservative Thought and Policy.

Why? The answer is apparently given in the first sentence of a story that appeared in the May 13th edition of the Rocky Mountain News: "The University of Colorado is considering a $9 million program to bring high-profile conservatives to teach on the left-leaning Boulder campus."

Embedded in this sentence is the following chain of reasoning: The University of Colorado, Boulder, is left-leaning and therefore it is appropriate to spend university funds (technically state funds) in an effort to redress a political imbalance.

How predictably irrational are you? By Dan Ariely -The Indpendent

If you think your choices are based on logic and reason, think again. We have less control over our behaviour than we believe.

Most of us would believe that we consistently make rational choices, that we are in control, and that we usually get decisions right. But we often make choices that can only be described as irrational. What's more, it appears we make the same types of mistakes again and again, in a systematic and predictable way.

...Test yourself: discover the truth about your decisions

Freethought Multimedia

Archived audio and video from Richard Dawkins, MIchael Shermer, James Randi, Daniel Dennett, Steven Pinker and others.

Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor
BBC Radio 4 / RichardDawkins.net

In Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's own interview with John Humphrys, he said one remarkable thing. He said that the regimes of Hitler and Stalin were ruled by REASON and that reason leads to terror and oppression. Here is an exact transcript of his words (I've removed the ums and ers, as I hope anybody would do for me in a transcript).

Click here to listen to the audio of this excerpt) Danger because, if you go just by reason, I think, without faith, without belief in God, you can imagine, for instance in the last century, some of the faith(less), or supposedly faithless societies - people, whether it's like Hitler or Stalin, bringing up - having a country in which, if you like, a God free zone, a dictatorship ruled by reason, and where does it lead? To terror and oppression.

How Stereotyping Yourself Contributes to Your Success (or Failure): Scientific American

Steele and Aronson's classic demonstration of stereotype threat emerged from a series of studies in the mid-1990s in which high-achieving African-American students at Stanford completed questions from the verbal Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) under conditions where they thought either that the test was measuring intelligence or that it was not a test of ability at all. Intriguingly, these participants' performance was much worse when they were told that the test was a measure of intelligence. This slide, the researchers argued, occurred because "in situations where the stereotype is applicable, one is at risk of confirming it as a self-characterization, both to one's self and to others who know the stereotype."

This pattern of findings has been replicated with many different groups on many different dimensions of stereotype content. For example, Sian L. Beilock of the University of Chicago and her colleagues reported in a 2007 issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology that if female students are made aware of the stereotype that men have greater mathematical ability than women do, they tend to perform worse on complex mathematical tasks than they do if they are not alerted to this stereotype. Likewise, elderly people have been found to perform worse on memory tests if they take them after being made aware of stereotypes that associate aging with deteriorating cognitive ability.

Moving On Up!

The Art of Creating Controversy Where None Existed By Leah Ceccarelli -Science Progress

Manufactroversy (măn'yə-făk'-trə-vûr'sē) N., pl. -sies.

1. A manufactured controversy that is motivated by profit or extreme ideology to intentionally create public confusion about an issue that is not in dispute.
2. Effort is often accompanied by imagined conspiracy theory and major marketing dollars involving fraud, deception and polemic rhetoric.

With all the sophisticated sophistry besieging mass audiences today, there is a need for the study of rhetoric now more than ever before. This is especially the case when it comes to the contemporary assault on science known as manufactured controversy: when significant disagreement doesn't exist inside the scientific community, but is successfully invented for a public audience to achieve specific political ends.

And Behind Door No. 1, a Fatal Flaw By JOHN TIERNEY -The New York Times

The Monty Hall Problem has struck again, and this time it's not merely embarrassing mathematicians. If the calculations of a Yale economist are correct, there's a sneaky logical fallacy in some of the most famous experiments in psychology.

Go Ahead, Rationalize. Monkeys Do It, Too. By John Tierney

This self-delusion, the result of what's called cognitive dissonance, has been demonstrated over and over by researchers who have come up with increasingly elaborate explanations for it. Psychologists have suggested we hone our skills of rationalization in order to impress others, reaffirm our "moral integrity" and protect our "self-concept" and feeling of "global self-worth."

I Am, Therefore I Rationalize By John Tierney

Since writing about the newly discovered ability of monkeys to rationalize, I've gotten reactions to the experiment from some other experts in cognitive dissonance. Some of them find the new research with monkeys intriguing but say it doesn't explain the complicated forms of rationalization employed by human primates.

Philosophy Bites

Podcasts of top philosophers interviewed on bite-sized topics...

Cognitive Science and FactCheck.org, or Why We (Still) Do What We Do by Joe Miller

Have you heard about how Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet? What about how Iraq was responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center? Or maybe the one about how George W. Bush has the lowest IQ of any U.S. president ever? Chances are pretty good that you might even believe one (or more) of these claims. And yet all three are false. At FactCheck.org our stock in trade is debunking these sorts of false or misleading political claims, so when the Washington Post told us that we might just be making things worse, it really made us stop and think.

Your Brain is Not Your Friend - lifehack.org

A mind is a terrible thing. Whether because of the brain's internal structure or the way social and cultural pressures cause our minds to develop and function, in the end the result is the same: minds that are not only easily deceived and frequently deceptive in their own right, but when caught out, refuse to accept and address their errors.

Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus New York Times Online

We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn't sure of the answer, he's liable to go along with the first person's guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she's more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an "informational cascade" as one person after another assumes that the rest can't all be wrong.

99% Fact-Free

How to spot political ads powered only by hot air.

In this article we examine two examples of what we call "fact-free" advertising, which we see in abundance. These ads seek to associate the candidate with a string of positive words and images but are void of specifics. Voters should beware.

The World's Greatest Spirit Medium

No matter how often the confidence scammers are exposed, those who believe will happily continue to pay cold hard cash to be deceived. The believers are not victims of the miracle workers: they are willing, eager, happy participants in their own betrayal (usually in the form of cash money, real estate, jewels, and expensive works of art). That they can believe that which cannot be believed is a mark of how well so-called "psychics," palmists, spoon benders., etc., know the business of deception. The fact that not even one miracle worker has ever demonstrated, in properly controled conditions, even one "psychic" or "paranormal" ability or phenomena is lost upon true believers--- they just do not care. They would rather believe a lie.

The Skeptic's Dictionary

The Skeptic's Dictionary provides definitions, arguments, and essays on subjects supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. I use the term "occult" to refer to any and all of these subjects. The reader is forewarned that The Skeptic's Dictionary does not try to present a balanced account of occult subjects. If anything, this book is a Davidian counterbalance to the Goliath of occult literature. I hope that an occasional missile hits its mark. Unlike David, however, I have little faith, and do not believe Goliath can be slain. Skeptics can give him a few bumps and bruises, but our words will never be lethal. Goliath cannot be taken down by evidence and arguments. However, many of the spectators may be swayed by our performance and recognize Goliath for what he often is: a false messiah. It is especially for the younger spectators that this book is written. I hope to expose Goliath's weaknesses so that the reader will question his strength and doubt his promises.

Argument Mapping Tutorials

If you look closely at all the reasons and objections in Tutorial 1, you'll see that each one contains a claim. A claim which is inside or part of a reason or an objection is known as a premise.
This reason contains a claim. The claim is a premise.

Becoming an Effective Skpetic -- Lifehack.org

"I don’t know.”

Perhaps the three hardest words to say in the English language. But perhaps they are also words we should be using more often. You don’t have to look far back into history where people believed things that we would now see as ridiculous: a flat Earth, a sun that orbits us or that blood letting was an effective medical practice.

For more details and discussion on Rosling's Talk link here: TED Talks.

Does it pay to be skeptical, even (or especially) about things you really hope are true?

Technology Review: Battery Breakthrough?

"I get a little skeptical when somebody thinks they've got a silver bullet for every application, because that's just not consistent with reality," says Andrew Burke, an expert on energy systems for transportation at University of California at Davis.

That said, Burke hopes to be proved wrong. "If [the] technology turns out to be better than I think, that doesn't make me sad: it makes me happy."

Study debunks full-moon injury beliefs - Yahoo! News

Ever whacked your thumb with a hammer, or wrenched your back after lifting a heavy box, and blamed the full moon? It's a popular notion, but there's no cosmic connection, Austrian government researchers said Tuesday.

38 Ways To Win An Argument
by Arthur Schopenhauer

1. Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

RichardDawkins.net - The Official Richard Dawkins Website

Crater Could Solve 1908 Tunguska Meteor Mystery - Yahoo! News

"Expeditions in the 1960s concluded the lake was not an impact crater, but their technologies were limited," Longo said. With the advent of better sonar and computer technologies, he explained, the lake took shape.

Going a step further, Longo's team dove to the bottom and took 6-foot core samples, revealing fresh mud-like sediment on top of "chaotic deposits" beneath. Still, Longo explained the samples are inconclusive of a meteorite impact.

DON'T KNOW MUCH BIOLOGY --By Jerry Coyne

Suppose we asked a group of Presidential candidates if they believed in the existence of atoms, and a third of them said "no"? That would be a truly appalling show of scientific illiteracy, would it not? And all the more shocking coming from those who aspire to run a technologically sophisticated nation.

Yet something like this happened a week ago during the Republican presidential debate. When the moderator asked nine candidates to raise their hands if they "didn't believe in evolution," three hands went into the air--those of Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Mike Huckabee, and Representative Tom Tancredo. Although I am a biologist who has found himself battling creationism frequently throughout his professional life, I was still mortified. Because there is just as much evidence for the fact of evolution as there is for the existence of atoms, anyone raising his hand must have been grossly misinformed.

26 Reasons What You Think is Right is Wrong

A cognitive bias is something that our minds commonly do to distort our own view of reality. Here are the 26 most studied and widely accepted cognitive biases.