Bad Arguments - Ali Almossawi

Argument from consequences

    Quality that's attached to an effect is not transferable to the cause

    Without the existence of an omnipotent God, world would go berserk. Hence, God exists. 

    World may or may not become unliveable, if no one believes in God. But, it still needs to be proven that God exists.

Straw Man

    Misrepresent, misquote, misconstrue - then attack

    
    Kejriwal claims that Narendra Modi lied about his degree.

   Kejriwal says that to be a good PM, one needs a degree (misconstrue).  (Then attack) PM needs vision and leadership, which Modi has, not education and degrees

    The argument should be about whether a PM lied during a constitutional process or not.

Appeal to Irrelevant Authority

    Appeal to an authority who is not an expert on the issue at hand

    GM foods are bad. Our ancestors always recommended natural ways for healthier lives. GM foods have artificially modified DNA

    Ancestors are no authority on effects of food with Genetically Engineered DNA

Equivocation

    Use different meanings of a word to draw desired conclusion

    Science is supposed to explain us 'why' certain things happen. Can it ever explain us 'why' do we exist? It can't. Hence, we need religion.

    The former 'why' is 'cause'. And, the later 'why' is 'purpose'

False Dilemma

    Create a dilemma, when none actually exists

    POTUS: You are with us or you are with the terrorists

    When in fact, one could have been neutral or could sympathise with both

Not a Cause for a Cause

    After this, therefore because of this

    Petrol prices have gone down in the last few quarters. New Government is doing a great job

   New Government may be doing a great job. But, that doesn't automatically mean that all good things happened are due to that. Neither are all the bad things

Appeal to Fear

    Plays on the fears of an audience by imagining a scary future that would be of their making if some proposition were accepted

    Donald Trump

Hasty Generalization

    Too small or too special sample set, to be representative of a population

    I spoke to a friend from Delhi. After Kejriwal came to power, corruption reduced. I spoke to another friend from Gujrat, Modi did a tremendous job with the infrastructure there.

    Those friends might be right/wrong. But, definitely too small a sample to add any value to an argument.

Appeal to Ignorance

    Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

    All that we see around is a master plan made by God. Come on, how can you say No? Can you prove it wrong? No! So, it's right.

    The burden-of-proof always lies with the person making a claim

No True Scotsman

    A general claim made about a category of things

    Members of party X are communal

    But, Mr A is from that party! He is not communal

    Well, Mr A is not a True X member.

    What exactly is a True member, other than being the member of that party!

Genetic Fallacy

    An argument's origins or the origins of the person making it have no effect whatsoever on the argument's validity

    A member from opposition criticises Government's way of handling a certain issue

    Ah! Just look at him, who is preaching! His party had handled so many things wrong

    His party might have handled so many things badly. But, the current discussion is about an issue that the current Government is handling

Guilt by Association

    Discredit an argument for proposing an idea that is shared by some socially demonized individual or group

    Kejriwal demands central Government to approve a certain thing

    Do you know who else demand it? None other than Maoists

    Whether there is a merit in demand or not is not discussed

Affirming the consequent

    If A then C, C; hence A.

    Congress-men(A) don't talk about Augusta Westland case(C). Kejriwal doesn't talk about it(C). So, he is a congress-man(A)

    C doesn't imply A

Appeal to Hypocrisy

    Counter a charge with a charge

    You are corrupt.

    You too!

Slippery Slope

    Discredit a proposition by arguing that its acceptance will undoubtedly lead to a sequence of events

    We should never allow Homo-sexuality. It kills morality in the society. It creates monsters and will lead to apocalypse

    There is no proof that such sequence of events will happen. But, they apparently are assumed

Appeal to the Bandwagon

    Appeal to people, though it doesn't make any sense whatsoever

    Invite a thousand well to do people, and feed them an expensive and terribly unhealthy food at a wedding, though you can't actually afford it. Because, that's considered as a great thing to do

    It may be a win-win for all, if that's not done. But, never explored. Because, it's not appealing to others

Ad Hominem

    Attacks a person's character rather than what he or she is saying with the intention of diverting the discussion

    CBI raids Kejriwal's office. He calls Modi a coward and psychopath. 

    CBI raid could be with a malicious intention. But, talking about Modi's character won't help the case in hand

Circular Reasoning

    Because X, therefore X

 

    Subramanian Swami's recent tirade against Raghuram Rajan - The consumer price index has not declined because of high retail prices

    A consumer price index (CPI) measures changes in the price level of a market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. So, high CPI and high retail prices are same

Book Review: Free Country - A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain

Free Country - A Penniless Adventure the Length of Britain
- George Mahood

George and Ben plan to go on an adventure cycle ride, between two extreme points of United Kingdom, from the most westerly point in England (Lands End) to North-East tip of Scotland (John O' Groats). That's around 1000 miles. The most interesting part of the adventure is, not the ride. They have to do it without spending a penny. That's right. And, that's not all. They can't even start the trip with their own cycles or even clothes. They have to depend entirely on the mercy of people along the route, for practically everything.

They start their trip with just a pair of shorts each, as cover page of the book depicts, at the Lands End. They explain their challenge to the people they meet en route, and request them to part with anything that helps them start their ride. Within a couple of days, they manage to get some abandoned bikes, socks, shoes and some TShirts.

From then on, their routine is pretty much same for the next 18 days. They cover around 50 miles a day. For breakfast/lunch/dinner, they knock doors of random places en route, explain their challenge and request some food, and offer to do some chores in return. Most of the days, they manage to get food without doing any work in return. And, there are days, where they end up helping cleaners in kitchen or even picking up cigarette buts in the front yard of a hotel. By dusk, they reach some town/village and look for pubs/hotels/hostels and play the same record. Some readily offer them a full service room and some offer just some space in parking lot, where they can pitch their tent, again given by someone after listening to their challenge, and some just express their inability to help.

By the end of 19th day, they could confidently say that people of Britain were great, as they didn't go hungry even for one night, and even had a couple of beers almost every night. They had a few interesting places to spend their nights that include, a luxury boat, a barn with cattle, a disorderly house with a drunken self proclaimed hitman, floor of a pub etc., 

For such a long ride without a penny, I expected it to be a bit more eventful. But, despite the pathetic condition of cycles and not even having a pump or a puncture kit, and not so great planning about which town/village en route to spend the next night, they manage to have an almost smooth ride. Some of the conversations that they had over free beers make good reads.

A Few Months Towards Comrades Ultra Marathon

Comrades Ultra Marathon, an 89 KM road run on a hilly terrain, between 2 cities in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg and Durban), is the world's oldest and largest Ultra Marathon that attracts around 20,000 runners from across the world. It happened first in 1921. The name Comrades is due to the The League of Comrades of The Great War (First World War). Vic Clapham, a soldier, who campaigned for the League dreamt about an endurance race between his home town Pietermaritzburg and Durban, and realised it 3 years later in 1921.

Several months back, a couple of my friends from Runners For Ever, had been bitten by this Comrades bug and decided to take it on in 2016. Allegedly, one of them has been suffering from the bug-bite for several years. There are a few things that make this run particularly challenging. The first one is, of course, the distance. It's 89 KM, which is a little more than 2 Marathons. It should be covered in 12 hours and there are 5 intermediate cut-offs as well. Then comes the icing on the cake, the terrain. Majority of the course is hilly, with some serious elevation gain/loss. Though I am not good at runs that expect a certain pace, and also not much into Ultra Marathons (distance runs that go beyond 42.195 KM), they somehow convinced me that I too should make an attempt.

Comrades Marathon usually happens on the last weekend of May. We started our planned training from Mumbai Marathon in January. 4 months training is quite short for such a run. But, as we are not too young in the world of distance running, we decided to make an attempt. We picked the most challenging routes (Pipeline Road and Nandi Hills) available in Bangalore for some of our weekend runs, that would equip us to handle the hilly terrain of Comrades. We threw a couple of day long cycle rides in the schedule that would make us be on our legs for the whole day. Also, thanks to the growing popularity of distance runs in India, I could fit one organised Marathon every month in the schedule. That made the last four months of journey towards Comrades quite occupied.

Apart from these weekend runs, we added at least one run during weekdays that's 2 hour long. And, of course, strengthening and conditioning through out the week. It's, by no means, a rigorous training. But, a bare minimum one to make a good attempt. We have 3 more weeks to go and we just started tapering down. All of us have 5+ years of running and a lot of Marathons and a few Ultra Marathons to our credit. Hope, all that experience and the bodies that have been used to enduring time & distances would be of help!