A Freeper's Introduction to Rhetoric (Part 1, Introduction and the Argument From Ignorance)

Introduction to Logic | Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen

[PatrickHenry]

It was too dang inconvenient to monitor more than one forum before, for me and for most others ...

Oh. That's not a bother for me. I use Mozilla, which has the "tabbed browsing" feature. From the "help" file:

Tabbed Browsing lets you open more than one web page in a single window. Each web page has its own tab across the top of a single Navigator window. Each tab appears on the Tab Bar. For example, you can visit mozilla.org, icq.com, and cnn.com within one window instead of three windows.

Every thread I'm watching gets its own tab, regardless of what forum it's in. (When you right-click on a thread, you have the choice of opening it as a new window, or as a net tab; I choose the 2nd option.) At the end of the day, I can save those tab settings, kinda like a single bookmark, and then re-open all those tabs -- with one click -- the next morning. Saves a lot of effort.

[general_re]

Mere artistic differences. I use Moz as well, but my preferred usage is to have the forum "new posts" in a browser window, and then open each article in a new tab as I come across it. That way, I can keep the forum itself separate from the articles, and I can also kill all the tabs in rapid succession while still leaving the forum window open. But in order to do that for multiple fora, I'd have to open a window for each forum, and open tabbed articles for that forum in that window - otherwise, I'll have forum tabs mixed in with article tabs, and I can't kill the article tabs bang-bang-bang, without possibly accidentally killing the forum tab also. This way, I have all new posts appearing in one tab, regardless of forum, and I can open all articles in new tabs, regardless of forum, so I can keep the single window and the organization style I prefer.

And if you have a three-button mouse, or a scrollwheel mouse where the wheel can function as a third button, you can set Moz to open links in a new tab just be clicking on the link with the middle button - saves time from right-clicking for the context menu. Even if you have a two-button mouse, you can get the same effect by holding down the CTRL key when left-clicking, if you check the appropriate box in Preferences -> Tabbed Browsing. Either way, it's much better than what the poor benighted souls stuck on IE get, IMO ;)

[CobaltBlue]

I maybe had too much eggnog at the office Christmas party (hic!) but I don't think that the "reasonable doubt" standard is an argument from ignorance.

Putting it into a nutshell, depending on the type of case, there are different ways that the burden of proof is allocated. In a civil case, the plaintiff has the burden of proof, and for most civil cases, the standard is "preponderance of the evidence." If the plaintiff proves that his version of the facts is more likely than the defendant's version, he prevails.

When you think of it, think of Justice holding her scales. They don't have to tip very much for the plaintiff to win, but if they are in equipoise, the plaintiff hasn't met the burden of proof and doesn't win.

In fact, the judge may not even force the defendant to put on evidence if the plaintiff's evidence isn't sufficient, but may dismiss the case on a motion to strike the evidence as being insufficient to make the case as a matter of law.

But if the plaintiff gets past the motion to strike, then the burden shifts to the defendant to prove his or her case.

In a criminal case, it works the same way, but the amount of weight that needs to be placed on the scales is far heavier. The plaintiff in a criminal case is the government, because a crime is an offense against the government. And the amount of weight that needs to be placed on the scales of justice in order to get past a motion to strike is far, far heavier than the 1% that is needed in a civil case. How much? There is not a percentage, but the evidence needs to be really, really strong. Strong enough that all by itself, without more, it's enough to meet the "reasonable doubt" standard in the mind of the judge.

It's called "reasonable doubt" because the standard doesn't require you to consider anything that's outside the scope of reason, such as aliens coming down and committing the crime.
Otherwise, the case doesn't go forward, but goes out on a motion to strike.

But if the case gets past the motion to strike, then defendant doesn't have to put on any evidence, but can let the jury decide based on the same evidence that the trial judge ruled was sufficient to get past the motion to strike.

This doesn't require the jury to be ignorant, but to have higher standards in a criminal case. If there are equally plausible explanations which are consistent with the facts and the evidence that mean that the defendant's innocence is a real possibility, then that should be sufficient to create reasonable doubt.

But a defendant in a criminal trial isn't found "innocent," he's found "not guilty." If it really were the same as "argument from ignorance," the failure to prove guilt would mean a finding of innocence. I think maybe in Scotland there is a finding of innocence but not in the USA or England.

[PatrickHenry]

All right, kiddies, let's play "name that fallacy"! I'll make a statement, and let's see who can figure out what's wrong with it. We'll start easy. The statement is:

This thread is unquestionably bunk, as anyone would expect from a deranged evolutionist.

[jennyp]

OOH, OOH, poisoning the well! OOH, OOH <furiously raising hand...>

[general_re]

But a defendant in a criminal trial isn't found "innocent," he's found "not guilty." If it really were the same as "argument from ignorance," the failure to prove guilt would mean a finding of innocence. I think maybe in Scotland there is a finding of innocence but not in the USA or England.

Ah, old Irving probably could have worded that section a little more clearly. It's really the presumption of innocence that's an argument from ignorance. We presume that the accused is innocent until proven guilty. But that presumption is itself an argument from ignorance - we don't, in fact, know that he is innocent, but we presume him to be innocent until proven otherwise. And insofar as that presumption may carry through to an acquittal, that acquittal may itself be an argument from ignorance - if the defendant does not present an affirmative defense to establish his own innocence, but is acquitted by virtue of the fact that the prosecution has failed to bear the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we still don't know that the defendant is, in fact, innocent - we simply default to an acquittal in the absence of evidence to the contrary, whether that acquittal is actually true to the facts or not. And in that case, the "not guilty" verdict is roughly equivalent to the verdict that the Scots have, but we don't - a verdict of "not proven".

But regardless of whether the verdict is a logical fallacy or not, we agree as a society to sacrifice a certain amount of logical cogency in the name of justice - as the authors paraphrase, we agree that it is better that 100 guilty men should go free than that one innocent man should be hanged. And in pursuit of that end, we agree to treat our ignorance as though it were, in fact, an affirmative conclusion, even though it isn't.

[general_re]

You're jumping ahead. That's not until part 3 ;)

[PatrickHenry]

poisoning the well!

Close, my little chickadee, but no cigar!

Anyone else want to try this daunting challenge?

[PatrickHenry]

Ah ... the "jumping ahead" fallacy!

[general_re]

The "assuming facts not in evidence" fallacy ;)

[PatrickHenry]

Nostrodamus says you're a poop-head. Prove you're not!

[general_re]

Appeal to authority, A/K/A the argument ad Nostradamium...

[PatrickHenry]

Appeal to fallacy argument. A/k/a argumentum ad errorum.

[jennyp]

I think fallacies are overrated. I've been thinking of writing a book called "In Praise of Fallacies", or "My Favorite Fallacies", or "Fallacies We Can't Live Without" or somesuch. It would explain why some of the standard logical fallacies are actually indispensable in the real world.

I thought of this when I discovered to my horror that "the slippery slope" is considered a fallacy! This may be true in a strict deductive sense, but in order to make sense of the real world, you have to use a combination of deduction & induction, and place your bets accordingly. Things like the slippery slope (basically making a small concession to the opposition's argument, when the point being conceded turns out to imply a fundamental opposition point after all), or appeal to authority, or its flip side: ad hominem, can all be good tools to use in the face of real-world uncertainty.

The textbook article seems to recognize this somewhat, at least implicitly. I wonder how many formal fallacies are actually quite useful in this way?

(p.s. I'm sure I'll never get around to writing "In Praise of Fallacies", so anyone who wants to run with the idea, go for it. Mention me in the Acknowledgements. :-)

[PatrickHenry]

I discovered to my horror that "the slippery slope" is considered a fallacy

The slippery slope is almost universally appreciated; and it has various names in various cultures. In climates where they don't have snow-capped mountains, it's well-known as the "camel's nose in the tent." Among obese/diet-obsessed people it's known as "I've already eaten one potato chip, so now I'll finish off the whole bag." In basketball/rape situations it's known as "At first it was consensual." And among creationists, it's known as "If you admit any fact, no matter how well-established and obvious, then ..."

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Similarly, when a security investigation yields no evidence of improper conduct by the persons investigated, it would be wrong to conclude that the investigation has left us ignorant. A thorough investigation will properly result in their being "cleared." Not to draw a conclusion, in some cases, is as much a breach of correct reasoning as it would be to draw a mistaken conclusion.

This is a liberal favorite; no amount of proof will suffice to win an argument with them. There will always be some "third way" pie-in-the-sky that will in future rescue their argument.

I use the example of the time I demonstrated a trick to my dad, and he snorted, "Once in a million!" I repeated the trick and he retorted, "Twice in two million!"

On any given issue any given person controls his own individual burden of proof; if you have faith that the earth is flat, then flat it will--at least in your own mind--remain. If on the other hand you have faith that the other person is illogical, then illogical they will--at least in your own mind--remain, mountains of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. I would in fact suggest that our individual character is largely defined by what burden of proof we establish for propositions of various sorts.

[donh]

At the risk of seeming unduly combatitive, under the presumptions of our Bill of Rights, I'd argue that the finding of "not guilty" should be the correct outcome of a criminal prosecution that failed to convict. If we were being logically severe, the phrase should read "not proved guilty", which would then properly imply nothing about the innocence of the party in question.

However, The principle of double jeopardy suggests to me that the law, in fact, reads a "not guilty" verdict as it stands, not as the Scots would have it, or as in "not proved guilty". I think US custom on this matter is morally correct. If the state, with it's virtually unlimited resources, chooses to bring an individual, with limited resources, to trial, and fails to make it's case, the morally correct conclusion, in my opinion, is "not guilty".

[jennyp]

I would in fact suggest that our individual character is largely defined by what burden of proof we establish for propositions of various sorts.

That's an interesting thought - I'll have to mull that one over.

[general_re]

I think US custom on this matter is morally correct. If the state, with it's virtually unlimited resources, chooses to bring an individual, with limited resources, to trial, and fails to make it's case, the morally correct conclusion, in my opinion, is "not guilty".

So long as we don't confuse morally correct with logically correct, I agree. I think the distinction at issue here is the difference between legally innocent and actually innocent - the logician has the luxury (or burden) of considering absolute truth in such cases, rather than the morality of treating a finding of "not guilty" as being a finding of actual innocence. In the strictest logical sense, a finding of "not guilty" does not usually establish actual innocence - a certain former football player comes to mind here - but for the purposes of the law, we treat "not guilty" as establishing innocence. Whether that legal judgement is sufficient in the court of public opinion is another matter entirely - people are occasionally known to prefer logic to legality, depending on the circumstances.

[secretagent]

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