Worst abuse of Insane troll logic you've ever seen?

Well, it's not burning hot today, there are no wildfires in this part of Connecticut, so global warming must not be happening.

Correlation and Causality fallacy => evidence means NOTHING!

Not exactly. Correlations are evidence for conditions being linked. They just don't say how; a high correlation between A and B could mean that A causes B, that B causes A, or that both A and B are caused by some C. And with bad enough data, "random chance" is one possible C.

90% of the work of good social science is coming up with ways to distinguish between these cases.

edited 6th Aug '10 12:20:52 PM by Nornagest

Yes, exactly. To be wary of the correlation vs. causality fallacy doesn't mean that if you observe a correlation it can never be causality.

It just means that it's not automatically so, you have to gather more evidence to either back up your claim some more or to learn that there's no causality at all.

edited 6th Aug '10 12:24:11 PM by Herbarius

I need to search for artificial sweetener.

If you get what I mean, good for you.

^ Is that a response to my ^^ post?

In my opinion, and in my experience, Creationism seems to be a big abuser of this sort of logic.

I’ve seen atheists use it too. People like to have evidence for their ideas and many just aren’t that picky on where it comes from.

Atheism and Religion both use this, sometimes.

edited 6th Aug '10 1:46:14 PM by AlirozTheConfused

Herbarius: Partly, and it's also an instance of impiled ITL using one of the more famous ITL tropes.

I just use that for the laughs when I was talking with someone who had a philosophy degree.

Well, it's not burning hot today, there are no wildfires in this part of Connecticut, so global warming must not be happening.

False premises! It is burning hot today!  ^*

edited 6th Aug '10 7:19:16 PM by jewelleddragon

It is indeed. Fortunately I found myself some Italian Ice.

^That sounds really good right now.

But I digress, so I'll give an example that was made in jest but is too good not to mention:

"Human life is valuable. Increasing the quantity of something decreases its value. Mormons are responsible for eugenics!"

This is more like Insane Troll Mathematics, but one right wing commentator in Finland, in connection to the recent attack on the Helsinki Gay Pride parade made the calcualtion that since there were 5,000 people in the parade, in a nation of 5 million, gays are just 0,001% of the population, thus the laws should be changed to accomodate a minority that small.

Yes. Seriously.

edited 7th Aug '10 1:44:05 AM by JethroQWalrustitty

Does the whole Paul Ryan 'Roadmap for America' thing count?

So this guy comes up with a plan to reduce the budget deficit. It includes both huge tax cuts and huge cuts to entitlement programs. He goes to the CBO and asks them for an estimate - only he tells them to assume revenue will stay constant, while scoring the savings from cuts to entitlement programs, essentially pulling all those savings out of his arse. And, of course, the US media buys it...

Sounds like he's spent too much time listening to Reagan speeches. And I say that as someone who's generally in favor of limited spending.

I found this one on Biologos (in the comments—the articles are much better). This is the entire post:

God himself considers the wisdom of the world, our “science,” as foolishness. So much for our science, in God’s expert opinion.

I can appeal to no higher authority.

^That's the ultimate ad hominem.

…I can think of absolutely no passage where God attacks science or the pursuit of knowledge.

edited 7th Aug '10 1:55:56 PM by Justice4243

That's why it's the ultimate. You put words into the mouth of the highest authority there is. Can't get much more Fallacial than that.

Probably not a great sign when the person who I think is more likely to burn for their comments in the conversation is the Christian…

one right wing commentator in Finland, in connection to the recent attack on the Helsinki Gay Pride parade made the calcualtion that since there were 5, 000 people in the parade, in a nation of 5 million, gays are just 0, 001% of the population, thus the laws should be changed to accomodate a minority that small.

What about the queer people who would be FacePalming at a pride parade? Apparently we're not gay enough.

@jewel: Ah, finally a chance to use the St. Augustine-through-Korgy quote I've had saved for a while:

It should be noted that St Augustine hit on this problem quite some time ago, when he noted that the scriptures were the creation of the church and the world the creation of God. As such, when our understanding of the world and our understanding of the scriptures come into conflict, the world must trump scripture, as it has a more direct connection to God.

Sadly, that will never convince the breed of fundie in question, as they believe the scriptures were basically dictated directly by God, and the world is the plaything of Satan.

@Black Humor: awesome rebuttal, to which I add two more:

• When the bible refers to the evils of "The World" it is believed by biblical scholars that the author meant human society, not all of nature.
• The part about "human wisdom is foolish in comparison to God", includes religious belief and biblical interpretation, not just science. Which is really just a poetic way of saying, "Actually, God DOES have an Omniscient Morality License."

Sadly, people always seem to conveniently forget these nuances.

@Kara: That would be quite blasphemous then, as you're essentially saying that something a human had to write down is more canonical than something God himself wrote by the word of the very same book you are using to ignore science.

And, of course, even if God doesn't care about blasphemy there's still the matter of getting in the way of scientific progress.