When "Left-wing" and "Right-wing" Are and Are Not Substantive Criticism October 29, 20231,994 words (~9 minutes) Tags: editorial fallacies first-person Labels such as “left-wing” or “right-wing” can be used as substantive criticism of partisan conformity, but they can also be used by partisans in order to dismiss viewpoints arbitrarily.
"They," "Them," "Those People," and the Fallacy of Partisan Demagoguery June 14, 20223,190 words (~15 minutes) Tags: fallacies first-person Characterizations of partisan factions lead to the Straw Man Fallacy and to a kind of No True Scotsman Fallacy, and they empower polarized viewpoints at the expense of independent thinkers.
The Fallacy of Generic Thinking March 4, 20225,531 words (~27 minutes) Tags: fallacies statistics psychology philosophy third-person Generic thinking is unquantified belief about large populations of individuals, a profound and terribly mistaken fallacy that has little use other than prejudice.
How to Scrutinize a Statistic January 18, 202216,214 words (~81 minutes) Tags: fallacies statistics second-person When encountering a statistic, you should inquire about its provenance, its scope of inference, its practical significance, and the estimation error associated with it.
Category-Based Prejudice November 26, 20215,322 words (~26 minutes) Tags: fallacies third-person Properties of a population are not properties of individuals, and categorization is arbitrary. Therefore, category-based prejudice is more costly, less accurate, and more ambiguous than direct measurement.
Anecdotes Are Not Evidence January 31, 20217,817 words (~39 minutes) Tags: fallacies statistics psychology third-person Anecdotal evidence has flaws that make it useless for inferences about populations or about cause and effect. Valid uses of anecdotes exist, but anecdotes should be scrutinized even in such cases.
Selection Bias and the Fallacy of Listing Examples December 7, 20203,320 words (~16 minutes) Tags: fallacies statistics third-person Advocating a belief by finding supporting examples and listing them is fallacious because of selection bias; examples are selected because they illustrate the belief and contradictory cases are ignored.
