#Economists not doing a #McNamara #fallacy, challenge level: impossible
en.wikipedia.orgMcNamara fallacy - Wikipedia
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Marx was a bad economist. He was an epigone of classical economists, especially Ricardo. He did not know such things in economics as time preference, the law of marginal utility, the law of return, etc. His "economics" was and remains wrong. The true science of economics begins with Carl Menger's great book "Principles". And no one can build a true political philosophy without a true economic theory.
https://mises.org/library/book/ethics-liberty
#marx #economics #science #fallacy #propaganda #liberty #politics
Mises InstituteThe Ethics of Liberty | Mises InstituteMurray Rothbard's greatest contribution to the politics of freedom is back in print. Following up on Mises's demonstration that a society without private
#SGU #TheSkepticsGuideToTheUniverse
The Skeptics Guide #1042 - Jun 28 2025
What's the Word: #Eco; News Items: #Vaccinating the World, How #Children vs #AI Acquire #Language, #Vera_Rubin_Observatory, Visible #Nova, Effects of Chat #GPT on the #Brain; Who's That #Noisy; Name That Logical #Fallacy; #Science or Fiction
Webseite der Episode: https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu
Mediendatei: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/skepticsguide/skepticast2025-06-28.mp3
The Skeptics Guide to the Universe | Weekly science podcast produced by the SGU Productions llc. Also provides blogs, forums, videos and resources. · The Skeptics Guide to the Universe
Antwortete im Thread
@greenpeace Why "make polluters pay"? Why not "make eaters pay", "make travelers pay", etc.? If ordinary people decide consume less goods, than the "polluters" will produce less oil.
#fallacy
Antwortete im Thread
Hi @j12t @tchambers @benpate,
isn't #discovery without #webfinger (hostnames and dns in essence) a #fallacy and thus #centralisation in disguise?
I mean DNS is the centralised infra we prbly can't do without anyway - why not stand on that shoulder and not add another global registry?
Moving may be done via redirects (like IRL).
"Humans are not perfect creatures and tend to distort the facts either intentionally or unintentionally. There are always the brightest minds who offer justice, but they are exception. So always be reserved of what others tell. It might be more fiction than fiction."
☆ Maria Karvouni Truth
The Impossible Proof Of Knowing Nothing
I just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop¹ hosted by the Credible Web Community Group² (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions:
1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!"
2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y"
After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid:
3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading.
I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions.
We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others.
We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions.
#W3C #credweb #credibleWeb #authenticWeb #flaw #fallacy #fallacies #logicalFallacy #logicalFallacies
Glossary
Ad Hominem
attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Politician's syllogism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
Solutions Looking For Problems (related: #solutionism, #solutioneering)
Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem
Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem":
* https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
Forbes has an illustrative anecdote:
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/
References
¹ https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/
² https://credweb.org/ and https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/
Previously in 2019 I participated in #MisinfoCon:
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation
tantek.comI just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop^1 hosted by the Credible Web Community Group^2 (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions:
1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!"
2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y"
After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid:
3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading.
I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions.
We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others.
We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions.
#W3C #credweb #credibleWeb #authenticWeb #flaw #fallacy #fallacies #logicalFallacy #logicalFallacies
Glossary
Ad Hominem
attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Politician's syllogism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
Solutions Looking For Problems (related: #solutionism, #solutioneering)
Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem
Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem":
* https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
Forbes has an illustrative anecdote:
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/
References
^1 https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/
^2 https://credweb.org/ and https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/
Previously in 2019 I participated in #MisinfoCon:
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation - Tantek
#statstab #295 The Fallacy of the Null-Hypothesis Significance Test
Thoughts: "the [..] aim of a scientific experiment is not to precipitate decisions, but to make an appropriate adjustment in the degree to which one accepts, or believes, the hypothesis"
#NHST #Bayes #ConfidenceIntervals #pvalues #significance #testing #hypotheses #likelihood #critique #fallacy
The old and the new #mechanism - part 2
- Explanation attempts for the understanding of the #reductionistic and #positivistic world view -
In this 2nd part of the article, in my opinion, the #complexity of #biological #systems is taken into account and in this respect the #mereological #fallacy in the old #mechanistic #world #view, that the whole is always more than the sum of its parts, is referred to as a #construction #error in #reductionism.
More at: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/01/07/der-alte-und-der-neue-mechanismus-2/
"Common sense" is what you invoke when you cannot support your beliefs with either "real arguments" or "real data."
Common sense is the noise that comes out of you when all you've got is the vague sense that you must be right--somehow?--but even *you* don't know why you think that.
Common sense is a slogan for shutting down arguments without having to know or prove anything.
It’s a great time to brush up on our logfals.
« False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. »
― Socrates
· https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/769241233671487488/false-words-are-not-only-evil-in-themselves-but
#STARTREK #LogicalThinking #72 - STAR TREK Logical Thinking #72 - Genetic #Fallacy (Fallacy of Origins)
A marvellous video from the team @deutschewellerss which talks about the primary energy fallacy, and how replacing combustion with renewables results in a huge reduction in total energy requirements.
Every thermodynamics lecturer should include this in their lectures, especially giving students the challenge of thinking about what noun never gets mentioned in the entire discussion. #energy #transition #fallacy #climatechange https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVJkq4iu7bk
Oh man...I can already see the claims of companies getting so and so more productive and "streamlining" processes thanks to #AI, while it'll turn out that:
Yes, companies will have gotten more productive.
And no, it's not _directly_ because of AI - it's because employees have inadvertently produced a lot of documentation in the hope of "feeding" the AI, while, by documenting things properly, they'll have actually helped humans doing a better job.
Supervised self-driving #vehicles are a #fallacy. Normal #drivers can not do that. We can't watch a computer for hours, weeks, then be ready within a second to take over. Moreover, how can we be useful when we take over if we haven't been #driving much lately?
Sure, commercial airline pilots can be in a similar situation. But they have extensive training, including simulators. Such training is very expensive, unaffordable for private car drivers. And pilots have a lot more time to react.
#FSD
#LogicalFallacy lesson 1
#Ad_hominem:
When someone attacks the person and their traits instead of addressing the argument, it's known as an Ad Hominem fallacy. This is a #fallacy because attacking the person does not discredit or invalidate their argument.
Example: "Your takes on the dangers of monopolies is invalid because you're a socialist"