Name that logical fallacy

Knowing that seems to point to the fact that your evidence was false in the first place. So would that not then imply that all conclusions thereafter are actually false? Is this not constantly reiterated by the fact that the argument has to be constantly changed to remain 'correct' in the light of new evidence?
So our understanding being only relative should never really be able to negate anything in totality. Rather it seems more pertinent to examine multiple routes independent of the observer wherever possible.
This to me is not an appeal to ignorance rather an appeal to 'dynamic understanding' shall we say?

Piggie back!

Okaay. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation misassigned a causative role)

Basically a stubborn disbelief in coincidence.

Regionally a classic example is earthquake weather. "The clouds looked JUST LIKE this in '89. I'm scared."

I think I'll de-pig again. The cannabineutron flux is higher than anticipated, and the little subnucleonic punks are stealing my brain's lunch money. Just look at that Cheren'cough radiation ... cn

blazinkill504 said:

ways to validate an action by some so called sign

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cannabineer said:

Piggie back!

Okaay. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (correlation misassigned a causative role)

Basically a stubborn disbelief in coincidence.

Regionally a classic example is earthquake weather. "The clouds looked JUST LIKE this in '89. I'm scared."

I think I'll de-pig again. The cannabineutron flux is higher than anticipated, and the little subnucleonic punks are stealing my brain's lunch money. Just look at that Cheren'cough radiation ... cn

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Very close but no.

Uh (blushes)
...post hoc ergo propter hoc? cn

cannabineer said:

Uh (blushes)
...post hoc ergo propter hoc? cn

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Yes! Your new prize is that you don't have to spend dinner with Carrot Top.

Words cannot describe my relief.
<sorta ot> Dang. I was fractally, recursively, interdimensionally hammered last night. cn

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "after this therefore because of this", is a very common logical fallacy that is responsible for most of the superstitious beliefs we have today. Many of the simple ones involve luck. When a black cat crosses your path and you feel dread, when a sports figure must touch the color red before competition, when a witch gives you the evil eye and then you fall sick, these are all examples of post hoc at work.

Post hoc reasoning mistakes come about because of the human brain's love for patterns, and are essentially a result of leaping to conclusions without carefully examining the situation. An example of a serious mistake that threatens health today is the belief that vaccines cause autism. The only evidence we have for this is post hoc reasoning. "My son received a vaccine and then was diagnosed with autism, therefore the vaccine caused the condition." Obviously it takes careful and thorough study to find out if this is true, but for many people including Jenny McCarthy, this one indication is enough to draw a conclusion.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc, or "with this, therefore because of this", is closely related of course. An example of this is the classic observance that church attendance and public drunkenness have always correlated. They do not equal each other, but if one statistic rises, so does the other. This can lead to the belief that going to church causes some people to drink in public, or that public intoxication inspires guilt which leads to church attendance. Again the failure to carefully and thoroughly examine the situation is the problem. If we look further we see that both numbers are governed by an even larger factor, which is simply city population. If the population goes up, then naturally church attendance and drinking in pubs also goes up.

Heisenberg said:

Very close but no.

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What are you talking about? Of course they are examples of cum hoc. Post hoc requires that there is an order of events, not mere correlation. Your examples were not technically post hoc. A post hoc would be, "The sky last night was very red, that's why today's weather is so nice."

or

"Everyone prayed for Johnny to get better and now he is, It's a miracle demonstrating the power of prayer."

mindphuk said:

What are you talking about? Of course they are examples of cum hoc. Post hoc requires that there is an order of events, not mere correlation. Your examples were not technically post hoc. A post hoc would be, "The sky last night was very red, that's why today's weather is so nice."

or

"Everyone prayed for Johnny to get better and now he is, It's a miracle demonstrating the power of prayer."

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Yes I see now I left it a bit ambiguous without stressing the cause and effect aspect. I have changed it a bit to reflect the true fallacy. This is why I spared cannabineer from being exposed to Carrot Top.

1) We can not legalize marijuana, if we open the doors to prisons our streets will be flooded with rapists and murderers.

2) If we ban assault rifles people will get the idea that gun ownership is a privilege and not a right, soon we will not be allowed to own any firearms which will lead to the restriction of other rights like free speech.

3) If we do not allow prayer in schools, people will stop going to church and America will fall into demoralized chaos.

These share a common specific fallacy, as well as a more generalized fallacy. Name either.

The informal fallacy is "slippery slope", a congener of the continuum fallacy.

This supposes that a small step in a given direction will lead quickly&consequently to an extreme outcome. It has been aphorized as "give'm an inch an' they'll take a mile."

My favorite example is, of course, political. "You voted for [candidate with alleged socialist leanings]??? Well I hope you're HAPPY when they hand you a rusty shovel and send you to a collective farm!!"

If I'm being a piggy, please say so. Until then ... I guess I love the feeling of being on something like a game show. I'll take Entheobotanical Lore for $600, Alex ...
cn

Heisenberg said:

1) We can not legalize marijuana, if we open the doors to prisons our streets will be flooded with rapists and murderers.

2) If we ban assault rifles people will get the idea that gun ownership is a privilege and not a right, soon we will not be allowed to own any firearms which will lead to the restriction of other rights like free speech.

3) If we do not allow prayer in schools, people will stop going to church and America will fall into demoralized chaos.

These share a common specific fallacy, as well as a more generalized fallacy. Name either.

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Non-sequitur

cannabineer said:

The informal fallacy is "slippery slope", a congener of the continuum fallacy.

This supposes that a small step in a given direction will lead quickly&consequently to an extreme outcome. It has been aphorized as "give'm an inch an' they'll take a mile."

My favorite example is, of course, political. "You voted for [candidate with alleged socialist leanings]??? Well I hope you're HAPPY when they hand you a rusty shovel and send you to a collective farm!!"

If I'm being a piggy, please say so. Until then ... I guess I love the feeling of being on something like a game show. I'll take Entheobotanical Lore for $600, Alex ...
cn

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No worries, this thread is to pass the time, and involves a subject that most people find rather dry.

You are of course correct. The slippery slope argument makes it's error in assuming that accepting a position is the same as accepting the extreme of that position. In many cases the fallacy also falls under the umbrella of non sequitur, as the conclusion does not represent the original position, even in it's extreme.

mindphuk said:

Non-sequitur

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I would hazard the observation that non sequitur is a universal feature of all logical fallacies. cn

cannabineer said:

I would hazard the observation that non sequitur is a universal feature of all logical fallacies. cn

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True that. All formal logic fallacies are non-sequitur. However, not all fallacies are formal logic errors.

1) Anyone who supports the NRA must be okay with hundreds of innocent children being shot each year.

2) If you reject alien visitors only because you have never seen them, then you must also reject the existence of the Great Wall of China or footprints on the moon.

3) It is not okay to have religious freedom because it is not okay for witches to dig up corpses and use them in rituals.

These all make use of a strawman, but use a specific technique to get there. This technique is only a fallacy when misused.

Argumentum ad populum

EDIT: Didn't see all the other posts - this was for the Paris Hilton, Mc Donalds example...

Heisenberg said:

1) Anyone who supports the NRA must be okay with hundreds of innocent children being shot each year.

2) If you reject alien visitors only because you have never seen them, then you must also reject the existence of the Great Wall of China or footprints on the moon.

3) It is not okay to have religious freedom because it is not okay for witches to dig up corpses and use them in rituals.

These all make use of a strawman, but use a specific technique to get there. This technique is only a fallacy when misused.

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All of them appear to have some form of false dilemma. 1 and 3 are an appeal to consequences.

I just canceled my membership to the National Cutlery Association. I would hate for those hundreds of innocent children to get stabbed instead; that's worse; ewwww. ~grin~

fwiw your latest examples look to me like "cherry picking" gone bad.

Numbers 1 and 3 strike me as a sort of appeal to emotion, perhaps "appeal to moral horror".
Number 2 is throwing me at the moment. My first instinct is "argument from fallacy" but it isn't passing my wait-5-minutes test. Will need to think on it while seeking nutrition ... cn

They appear similar to false dilemma and do appeal to consequences. The distinction is in what those consequences represent, and the hint that the technique is sometimes valid. The key is that the statements are silly.

Here is an example of a proper use of the technique.

Niels Bohr: "The opposite of every great idea is another great idea."

Carl Sagan: If that aphorism is a great idea, then the converse statement 'The opposite of a great idea is not a great idea.' must also be true. It stands self-confessed as not a great idea.

I just canceled my membership to the National Cutlery Association. I would hate for those hundreds of innocent children to get stabbed instead

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Great example because it's silly...

If you support the NCA, and knives sometimes stab children, you support children being stabbed. <-- This achieves a strawman and justifies it by this technique...