A lie becomes the truth...
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Concept of the Day - Mindblindness
Mind-blindness can be described as an inability to develop an awareness of what is in the mind of another human. It is not necessarily caused by an inability to imagine an answer, but is often due to not being able to gather enough information to work out which of the many possible answers is correct. Mind-blindness is the opposite of empathy. Simon Baron-Cohen was the first person to use the term 'mind-blindness' to help understand some of the problems encountered by people with autism or Asperger syndrome or other developmental disorders. Generally speaking, the "Mind-blindness" Theory asserts that children with these conditions are delayed in developing a theory of mind, which normally allows developing children to put themselves "into someone else's shoes, to imagine their thoughts and feelings."[1] Thus, autistic children often cannot conceptualize, understand, or predict emotional states in other people.[2]
More at Wikipedia
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Quote of the Day
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt for investigation."
-Herbert Spencer
-Herbert Spencer
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Fallacy of the Day - Poisoning the Well
Poisoning the Well
This sort of "reasoning" involves trying to discredit what a person might later claim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person. This "argument" has the following form:
- Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented.
- Therefore any claims person A makes will be false.
This sort of "reasoning" is obviously fallacious. The person making such an attack is hoping that the unfavorable information will bias listeners against the person in question and hence that they will reject any claims he might make. However, merely presenting unfavorable information about a person (even if it is true) hardly counts as evidence against the claims he/she might make. This is especially clear when Poisoning the Well is looked at as a form of ad Homimem in which the attack is made prior to the person even making the claim or claims. The following example clearly shows that this sort of "reasoning" is quite poor.
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