Rational Crank

I’ve been feeling guilty lately for mentioning logical fallacies without explaining what they are. (This guilt, no doubt being the reason for my drinking) So, to relieve this crushing guilt and hopefully head off the inevitable slide into alcoholism, here is a short but pithy primer on logical fallacies. A logical fallacy is an error of reasoning. It is different from a factual error in that the person making the logical fallacy may not be wrong about their facts but instead may be wrong because of the structure of their argument itself. Recently, as part of the effort to be both far and balanced AND oppose President Obama in anyway they can, Fox News posted a 1961speech by Ronald Reagan concerning socialized medicine. (OH NO! THIS POST IS GOING TO BE ABOUT HEALTHCARE!) I’m sorry. This speech is just too perfect for the topic at hand. It offers three great examples of common logical fallacies . I promise not to get too wonky. I’ll mostly just rag on Fox News. They’re inherently e...

I blather on about Critical Thinking all the time but what does that mean specifically? Recently, someone sent me an article in reference to my post entitled Going Gault . Thanks for the article. I love all comments. Please write me. (Really, I’m so lonely.) I agree with most of what the commenter said, but this article that he sent is another matter. It’s a piece of crap. But the article is useful in one way. It is great to analyze for CRITICAL THINKING IN ACTION!!! (For future referencing to this post please note that three exclamation points after the title are always required) Basically the article says that between 2000 and 2008 people left New York in droves because of high taxes, and now the state’s tax base is hurting. The lesson - if you tax the rich, you’ll be sorry. First, this piece is from the tabloid paper, The New York Post. According to a 2004 survey by Pace University, The Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York. The article quotes a study by ...