A couple aren't really fallacies: You Fail Logic Forever

If I'm doing this wrong I apologize, the the YFLF page strikes me as more of a list with items so freaking long (but still far shorter than normal pages) that each item needs its own page, and since I have an issue with more than one I feel that this page is the proper one to link to.

Now, my issues. First, there is Appeal to Force. It doesn't seem to be a fallacy at all. The examples go "agree or I'll hurt you", so it's obvious to most that they aren't really agreeing, just pretending so they don't get hurt, and the offfender is merely performing a Chewbacca Defense. And sometimes, the existence of the force removes the fallacy. "Shop here or I'll egg your house" is a good enough reason to shop somewhere that is more expensive/has worse products/is owned by a Jerkass, at least to certain extents.

If it were a fallacy it would go "that guy has huge muscles and a big stick, therefore he is right". As I stated before, none of the examples are this, only acts.

My second issue is with Moving the Goalposts. It doesn't seem to have any relation to any fallacy at all, and appears to just be a way to be a complete and total douche. Applying it to logic, it seems covered by No True Scotsman.

I move to delete Appeal to Force and to remove Moving the Goalposts from the index.

Appeal to Force shouldn't be about "do it or I'll hurt you" it should be about "I'm right cause I can beat up my opponents".

YFLF was a page, but then it was (crudely and incompletely) chopped into an index. The repairs are still going on.

It is not limited strictly to formal logical fallacies, but covers common non-logical arguments, as well.

As to the two specific fallacies you brought up. Appeal to Force is "I will make you do this." You're quite correct, it isn't a logical argument atall. It is still used as one, and that's why it's on tha page.

No True Scotsman and Moving the Goalposts are not the same thing.

No True Scotsman is denying that a thing is a member of a group because it has (or lacks) some arbitrary quality that is tangential to membership in the group, or because the arguer doesn't want to accept that it is a member. The porridge example is classic: No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. Any one who does put sugar on their porridge is not a "true" Scotsman

Moving the Goalposts is arbitrarily demanding more and more evidence to support the argument. If I ask for three good reasons to do something, and you give me three good reasons, and I then say, no, I want five good reasons, and you provide them, and I demand 10 good reasons, I'm moving the goalposts. I am not excluding anything from membership in a group, I am moving the finish line further away every time you get to it.

edited 22nd Nov '10 7:53:19 AM by Madrugada

Moving the Goalposts is arbitrarily demanding more and more evidence to support the argument. If I ask for three good reasons to do something, and you give me three good reasons, and I then say, no, I want five good reasons, and you provide them, and I demand 10 good reasons, I'm moving the goalposts. I am not excluding anything from membership in a group, I am moving the finish line further away every time you get to it.

That's how I've always understood the term, but note that the actual trope page defines it more broadly, and includes cases of making a deal than changing the other side's obligations after the fact. Given that the term is frequently used as a fallacy, I think it should stay in the fallacy list, but I can see the page could lead to confusion. Possibly the use of the term as a fallacy should be pulled out of the Real Life section of the page and incorporated into the description?

No True Scotsman is a special case of Moving the Goalposts. You make a general statement, someone calls you out on it with a counterexample, then you redefine your statement such that, by definition, the counterexample no longer counts. The classic example is:

Alice: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge" Bob: "But my Uncle Angus puts sugar on his porridge" Alice: "Well, no __true__ Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge"

Alice is Moving the Goalposts by redefining what she means by a Scotsman, to specifically exclude by definition those who put sugar on their porridge. But once she has set up this definition, it is a circular argument: "Scottish people who don't put sugar on their porridge don't put sugar on their porridge".

Keep in mind that Appeal to Force is usually used implicitly rather than explicitly.

There seems to be a bit of a misconception going on here. Logic isn't about convincing people, per se. It's more about establishing the truth of an argument. You can marshall the most bullet-proof logic in the universe and still have people who stubbornly deny the truth of your argument.

The fact that an Appeal to Force only intimidates people into silence is exactly the reason why Appeal To Force is a logical fallacy. Threatening someone until they concede your point out of fear of injury doesn't establish the truth of your argument or disprove your opponent's argument, therefore it's a fallacy.

Question: Who, when, and why was the page's title changed (and rather crudely, at that)?

Eddie changed it, after a crowner in Special Efforts (like so).

Uh, why was the name of the trope changed?

EDIT: shit, ignore me.

edited 10th Apr '11 4:32:40 PM by mrsaturn

I think it's be better to just rename it to Logical Fallicies.

The more accurate name would be "Faulty Logic". Some of them aren't true fallacies, but all of them result in a faulty logical argument.

Do we have a repair shop for trying to get it renamed to anything other than Artistic License Logic (and all the others too, of course)? I was gonna start one on the biology page, since its easy to prove examples, but if there's already one made...

This seems like as good a place as any to discuss renaming it.

I like the suggestion of Faulty Logic. Though whatever happens, the name must be changed from Artistic License Logic, since that makes no sense and is definitely not what this is about.

discar and petrie911: No, because we already discussed it to death here. That discussion went twenty pages (500 posts) and five months (1st November 2010 to 2nd April, 2011) and went through two Crowners.

It spun off from this discussion, that started almost a month earlier.

We aren't opening it up again now.

edited 19th Apr '11 11:34:56 PM by Madrugada

Actually, I started one here.

But some of the You Fail X Forever tropes were Bad Snowclones that didn't really fit in the first place, like this and You Fail Forever Forever (which also has a TRS thread). Those didn't belong in the You Fail family anyway - are you saying that we still have to stick with them?

I think that's a good point, some of them were just snowclones for being snowclones, which we should look into independently. This is one of them I believe.

Artistic License works perfectly well in this case. Liberties are being taken with what is logical and what isn't. Whether flawed, misapplied, or applied without rigor, these are all just liberties taken with logic.

Isn't Artistic License supposed to imply that it was intentional? Rename or redefine please.

I agree that the Artistic License rename didn't have nearly enough thought put into it (yes, despite the 500 page thread), but I also think that the people who participated in that thread are so tired of arguing they're not gonna be amenable to renaming it anytime within the next few months.

Yes, Artistic License is supposed to mean it was intentional, this is supposed to mean unintentional logical fallacies, and Artistic License doesn't really work for any of the renamed tropes because they're all supposed to be unintentional.