2014 Reasoning and Conspiracies....

[Lee Brentnell]

Pre-Knowledge 

link to fallacies chart and debunking guide

Reasoning and Conspiracies.... 

1. From the conspiracies below choose 2 to "debunk".

2.  In your debunking try to identify the fallacy/fallacies involved. Make each response a separate post.

3. Comment on at least 2 other posts in support of  the conspiracy using a logical fallacy. 

4. As a class (next week) we'll vote on the most effective debunking and secondly the most "interesting" fallacy in support of a conspiracy (amazing prizes will be awarded!!!!) 

1) In the play Macbeth, lady Macbeth couldn't kill the king because he looked like her father. She couldn't do it because it WAS her father. As all good fathers would, He tried to set his daughter on the throne, because he wanted the best for his daughter. He killed the king for her, heard someone coming, stashed the body and jumped into the bed to cover his tracks. When she left he put the body back on the bed and left, and got the throne for his daughter. 

2) The past 8 Late Stops have occurred in block 3, so John was positive that the next one would not be in block 3. He decided to go out for lunch with his friends and walked into class 30 minutes late. Unfortunately for john, it was yet another late stop in block 3.  

3) Tom Riddle is a wizard. Half-blood, but a wizard none the less. When his muggle friends ask him to show him a magic trick, his wand snapped in half before he was able to cast a spell to prove that he is indeed a wizard. I guess Tom's muggle friends will just have to take his word on it then. 

4) "Ben made a Tumblr post about ""First World Problems"" that he tragically faces on a daily basis such as his phone battery being at 9%, but his charger is in another room, and not being able to hear the TV when eating crunchy snacks. But after seeing this, a Tumblr user sent him an anonymous message that reads: "Be thankful for the things you have because there are people who aren't half as fortunate as you are. They don't have ""first world problems"", but they have even worse problems--no clean water, little to no food, and poor work conditions in minimum wage jobs."

6)"Human rights organizations believe that all politicians are corrupt. This is how we know that all politicians are corrupting the world."

7) "For homework, a student was asked to measure how long it takes for him to fall asleep on the following Saturday night. So in order to record how long he slept, the student took a ruler to bed with him before he went to sleep on the following Saturday night."

8) "Bob believes that there is no point studying Shakespeare’s writing because Shakespeare’s writing is full of nonsense. Bob tells his friends that the modern scholars who are still arguing over the meaning behind many of Shakespeare’s work are wasting their time because there is no meaning behind the senseless words."

9) The Aids virus was created in a laboratory - Based on the theories of Dr. William Campbell Douglass, many believe that that HIV was genetically engineered in 1974 by the World Health Organization. Cancer was made to be a million dollar idea but WHO did not give out the cure to make money of the governments.

10) In the last century, numerous ships, small boats and aircrafts have purportedly vanished within the infamous Bermuda Triangle, or as some call it "The Devil's Triangle". Albert Einstein postulated that a curvature of space would cause even light to bend through it. Some theorists believe that "Time'", as a force of nature, can also get warped based on your location. The Bermuda Triangle is thus one location on earth where the fabric of time is so thin that travelers can slip through it and emerge on the other side of a completely different time. The Bermuda Triangle is time travel machine!!

11) "More homosexual men are watching basketball because a basketball idol has revealed himself as part of the gay community. Presumably the idol was paid off to “opening up” in order to generate more income into the sports world by getting more participants from the gay community."

12) "The Chinese using their one child per family policy in hopes of reducing their population base was ineffective, resulting in them using a modified flu virus. They are covering it up by putting the blames on birds, calling it the bird flu virus."

13) "The US city of Boston attack was organized and carried out by Russian sleeper cell agents from the cold war. The attack was not a demonstration of strength but rather one to simply convey a message to the people or the government."

14) The UN is secretly the puppet master behind the worlds governments, and eventually they will take over the world. They've already started with Africa...

15) Clothing companies design socks to unravel whilst in the dryer, one in each pair, so that consumers are forced to buy more. Everyone has had at least one sock disappear in the dryer before, myself included. I had to buy a new pair yesterday.

16) across arrow plane still functioning since in the picture they took of the runway with all the planes getting destroyed one is missing from the original numbers.

17) The government of Canada was actually the first to launch something into space, but they couldn't get their shuttle to orbit the earth, and rather, it is orbiting the sun. Canada never told anyone because it believed in letting everyone have a turn at space.

18)  Aliens Run Grande Prairie...

• Already within Grande Prairie there is an upwards of 3’000 aliens! And close to 200 of them don’t even speak English! Yet, we have integrated them into society without noticing. You could be sitting next to an alien right now and not even know it. The citizens of Grande Prairie are so use to aliens that we do not even recognize them anymore - they are simply another part of the day. Therefore, everyone in Grande Prairie at one point or another has conversed with an alien. We have listened and had our views altered by them, all without knowing it. Slowly the ways of Grande Prairie will become distorted with outlandish rituals from these aliens.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7mB4i24Fs&feature=youtu.be

  
  

  19) The American Government Shows Historical Events Through Things They Control.

  • The American Governments uses everything they make to secretly show events of American history. For Example the majority of American bills show the 9/11 attacks

  • Firstly the five dollar bill shows the Twin Towers before the attack

  • The 10 dollar bill shows immediately after the planes both hit

  • The 50 dollar bill show the towers falling

  • And finally the 100 dollar bill shows the last smoke cloud

    

    

  20)  Google Translator Is All Knowing

  • Google Translator is all knowing. It can answer questions that people bring forward to it by translating phrases into another language - commonly Vietnamese - and then translating it back for the response.

  • For example if we type in “Will 2pac ever die?” translate from english to vietnamese then back again we get the answer of “2pac will never die”

    

    • The same thing happens when we type in “will Justin Bieber ever hit puberty”

      

      21) 

      • If so many books about the end of the world are being published, as wells as "prophecies" than it must be going to happen and these people are obviously experts and I should follow them.

      
      

[Victoria Sajtovich]

8) "Bob believes that there is no point studying Shakespeare’s writing because Shakespeare’s writing is full of nonsense. Bob tells his friends that the modern scholars who are still arguing over the meaning behind many of Shakespeare’s work are wasting their time because there is no meaning behind the senseless words."

This is the Personal Incredulity Fallacy because Bob argues there is no point in studying Shakespeare because he does not understand it - it is "full of nonsense". Bob also uses the

Appeal to Authority Fallacy by using the lack of consensus of modern scholars on the meaning of Shakespeare's work to reinforce his argument that Shakespeare's writing is meaningless.

[Victoria Sajtovich]

15) "Clothing companies design socks to unravel whilst in the dryer, one in each pair, so that consumers are forced to buy more. Everyone has had at least one sock disappear in the dryer before, myself included. I had to buy a new pair yesterday."

This is the Anecdotal Fallacy because the speaker is using isolated personal experience (that they had a sock disappear in the dryer and had to buy a new pair) to reinforce their claim. They are also using the False Cause Fallacy because the speaker is assuming that the "disappearance" of their socks in the dryer is due to the desire of the companies to make more money (they are causing the unraveling of the sock to happen). The correlation between clothing companies and socks does not necessarily mean they caused the event to happen. Finally, the individual is using the Bandwagon fallacy by applying the instance of socks disappearing to everyone to validate their claim. ("Everyone has had at least one sock disappear in the dryer before...")

[Jyler]

10)

Texas Sharpshooter.

The argument uses the curvature of space and a belief that "Time...can also get warped based on your location." to show that the Bermuda Triangle is a time machine. The argument also has a presumption within it - that the people are disappearing. Furthermore, both 'premises' are cherry-picked to include "bend" and "warped" so that it can prove that travellers are vanishing into an area where the fabric of time is too thin because it has been 'bent' and 'warped'. 

[Jyler]

17)

Special Pleading. 

Even though there is evidence that Canada was not the first in space, the speaker 'argues' (read: pleads) that Canada just wanted to "[let] everyone have a turn at space."

Instead of admitting that Canada was not the first one, deciding that "Canada never told anyone". 

[Nicole Martinek]

17) When nations first began sending shuttles into space it became a massive competition. Of course, Canadians didn't want to offend anybody so they let the other nations sort it out themselves and in 1962 they made sure they'd be the third nation to launch an artificial satellite into space so it wouldn't seem like they weren't participating in order to give the other nations a head start.Canadians are so caring and generous it would only make sense that their shuttle would circle the center of our universe watching over the universe like a guardian.

[Jyler]

You are shorter than I am. Therefore, you're argument is invalid. Plus, if we do continue studying Shakespeare, then the dolphins will take over the world. Therefore, Shakespeare should not be studied because dolphins taking over the world would not be good.

[Jyler]

"You are shorter than I am...." 

That was directed at Victoria. 

[Nicole Martinek]

14) In the early 20th century many Americans didn't want to join the League of Nations when it was first established because they thought it would only give the  imperialist members more power and authority over the rest of the world and in World War 2 the League disappeared because they didn't want their true intentions to be exposed and they figured people would be too distracted by the war to care and then in 1945 it began operating under the title of the United Nations so it could continue its plot to takeover the world under a new name to rid itself of its old reputation.
This drawing is part of an old plan that the League of Nations made to try to illustrate their plot to takeover America by force but it failed, later America joined the United Nations so they too could gain more power and help fulfill their plan for world domination.

[Nicole Martinek]

(P.S misread the instructions, whoops!)

[Sukhman Chahal]

9) The Aids virus was created in a laboratory - Based on the theories of Dr. William Campbell Douglass, many believe that that HIV was genetically engineered in 1974 by the World Health Organization. Cancer was made to be a million dollar idea but WHO did not give out the cure to make money of the governments.

this is the appeal to authority fallacy that has come into play. this source is saying that just because this person has a degree in medical science we should completely rely on him for information rather than questioning it, because he has a degree and you don't. plus he has no proof for the claims he makes, just makes us take his word on his "theories" as he is more informed about it than we are.

[Sukhman Chahal]

6)"Human rights organizations believe that all politicians are corrupt. This is how we know that all politicians are corrupting the world."

this person is obviously using the black and white fallacy to back their claim that "all politicians are corrupt". this black and white fallacy can clearly be seen when the human rights organization talks in absolutes rather than "most" or "some". now my question is that im pretty sure there are members in the human rights organization that are in politics as well. people that are in support of the organization and are lobbying for it, they also could potentially have their own representatives in politics; so does that mean they are corrupt too? since they are politicians as well?

[Bryce]

8) The past 8 Late Stops have occurred in block 3, so John was positive that the next one would not be in block 3. He decided to go out for lunch with his friends and walked into class 30 minutes late. Unfortunately for john, it was yet another late stop in block 3.

This is a gamblers fallacy, John believes that since there has been a "run" of late stops in block three that there won't be one today. Too bad for John, though, because late stops happen independently from one another, so the fact that the past 8 have been in block three has no bearing on when the next one will occur.

[Bryce]

19) The American Government Shows Historical Events Through Things They Control.

This is a false cause fallacy because it is making the argument that if you somehow fold the American bill and then hold it at a funny angle and squint a little bit you can kind of almost sorta see the twin towers. Also this can be seen as a Texas Sharpshooter fallacy as it is looking at a small sample population (four American bills) to make the argument that the American government shows things through stuff they control. Also, there is only one historical event being "represented", but no others. So if the American government is really doing this, shouldn't there be more examples of historical events?

[Bryce]

Ya, well it may be easy for you to say that you have never had socks disappear in the dryer, but you don't really wear socks very often do you? No you don't, so what authority do you have on the subject? NONE!! THAT"S HOW MUCH!! My mother is constantly complaining about losing socks in the dryer, so much so that she only buys one colour and size of socks for our entire family, so that if one goes missing it's okay, because there are so many more. You aren't saying that my mom is wrong are you?

[Bryce]

That one was in response to Victoria, by the way.

[Bryce]

In response to Sukhman "Human rights organizations..."

How many politicians have you ever met? Oh, whats that, NONE? THEN YOU OBVIOUSLY DON"T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!! I myself have met with one or two politicians in my day, and I would be ready to say that they are corrupt. Furthermore, since you don't agree with the the human rights organizations on this point, you are clearly against human rights. Personally, I can't believe that we allow someone who is so clearly against human rights and pro-corrupt politicians even comment on this topic in the first place. Shameful, really. 

[Molly Sun]

Well you don't have a degree, do you?! Are you trying to undermine a well qualified and educated man just because his views are different from yours?? Your argument is also nonsensical, how am I supposed to believe someone who doesn't even capitalize their sentences? 

[telseymclandress]

7) "For homework, a student was asked to measure how long it takes for him to fall asleep on the following Saturday night. So in order to record how long he slept, the student took a ruler to bed with him before he went to sleep on the following Saturday night."

This is a fallacy using the ambiguity clause. When the teacher asked for how "long" he slept she clearly meant the length of time, however he interpreted it as the measurement of distance because the word "long" is ambiguous. 

[telseymclandress]

20) Google Translator Is All Knowing

This is a false clause fallacy. Just because Google translate mixes up the word order once you translate your sentence a couple of times does not mean it is communicating with you. This correlation is simply a coincidence since (as we all know because of the ambiguity of language) Google translate cannot always translate properly. Asking that question was not the cause of Google translate giving you an answer, therefore this is not causation. 

[Molly Sun]

20) Google Translator Is All Knowing

The example used in the conspiracy already disproves the concept. "Will 2pac ever die? 2pac will never die". However, as we know, Tupac Shakur experienced respiratory failure and a cardiac arrest in 1996, which lead to his death.

The idea behind Google Translate is that the translator work on words and grammar, not on meanings. Google Translate does not have an answer to the questions that one enters, it simply translates the literal meaning of the words into another language. As words and grammar are exchanged from one language to the next, they start to lose their original meaning. This happens often due to the lack of direct translations between certain languages and simply lack of computer understanding. There are words in Finnish which are not available in English, and actually require a bit of explanation to understand. So in situations like this, the translator opts for a word of similar or general meaning in the translated language. Due to the fact that there are multiple definitions to words in languages, computers programs are not always able to differentiate the meanings behind a certain word or sentence. Sometimes when it is confused about the meaning of a sentence, it will start to translate separate words literally to another language. Words like names that do not directly translate will not translate, such as 2pac or Justin Bieber. The Google Translate program is a machine translation service, made to translate between different languages.

It is important to note that Vietnamese is an Asian language, very different from the European language English. The grammar rules of each differ drastically, so when a phrase like that is translated from an European family to an Austro Asiatic language and back, the results are most likely going to be the same format as this. It would return the same result as this, a confirming statement as opposed to the question entered.

There is no correlation between the faults of a computer program and an omnipotent machine. Just because a computer program translated an idea that, does not mean it is fact. The fallacies made in the argument are the texas sharpshooter and false cause. Texas sharpshooter because we are only provided two examples of this theory, however, once you try it with other questions, the theory does not hold. False cause is that one idea caused the other. The belief in this conspiracy is that because the translator resulted in a confirmation of the question, the information is correct and the translator is all knowing. It could also be argued that there is a bandwagon fallacy, considering the questions specifically asked were about pop culture icons, 2pac as the loved artist and Justin Bieber, a young adult usually slandered against in media. It is a common insult that Justin Bieber has not reached puberty, this was a specific reference made to bring a more "comedic" light to the idea. 

[lane burns]

1) In the play Lady Macbeth couldn't kill the king because he looked like her father she couldn't do it because it was her father. As all good fathers would he tried to set his daughter on the throne, because he wanted the best for his daughter. He killed the king for her, heard someone coming stashed the body and jumped into the bed to cover his tracks. When she left he put the body back on the bed and left, and got the throne for his daughter.

This is a false claim fallacy. It is assuming that because Lady Macbeth said the king looked like her father he must be her father because it connects together. It also uses the texas sharpshooter because it only provides as with certain information but fails to explain how Macbeth go his hands bloody or how lady Macbeth was in the room before Macbeth murdered the king, she was there after to return the daggers but there was no proof she was there before. Plus when was a father in the play?

[Nicole Martinek]

2) This is a false cause fallacy because John assumed that the number of late stops which occur in each block have something to do with when they are going to occur (if it happened 8 times in block three then it can't again because it's happened so many times before), it's also a begging the question fallacy because it began and ended by stating that a late block occurred in block 3 (John assumed that it wouldn't but in the end it did so it's like he was asking for it), as well as an anecdotal fallacy because it's telling Johns story. The point of having late stops occur so frequently in the same block is actually to catch those like John who think that they spread it out assuming they wouldn't repeat it so many times and that they can safely skip class.

[lane burns]

10) This uses a number of fallacies. First it uses the texas sharpshooter because it hasn't provide any other information that had openly been discovered about the Bermuda Triangle. It also uses composition and division, in believing that if ships are disappearing anything that crosses the Bermuda will be transport somewhere else. It also uses false cause and middle ground as it forms a compromise between Einstein's theory and the fact that ships are disappearing.

[lane burns]

In response to Bryce

How do you know what the American government does for it's citizens? Have you tested the theory? It's real I saw it with my own eyes. I was just like you a misbeliever in the government but I had to disprove the theory only what I found was I couldn't because it was the truth. The government just doesn't want us to forget the past, it important to remember. Are you questioning the government's leadership? You just can't handle the truth, but that's okay not a lot of people can, it's just too much for the brain to comprehend. The government had lied on some cases but you can't be mad when they only want you to see how much control they have on the matter. We have to accept that he government is powerful. Don't hate the truth bro!

[lane burns]

In response to Jyler

It's Canada's nature to keep the peace. As Canadians we know there was a heated competition between the U.S.A and Russia to be the first in space. Our government couldn't bare to break there hope and pride when they achieved a goal. This is because we are a friendly country, and it's good to be nice to everyone. Also if we risked telling them the truth we risked war, as it was a very important matter for them. This disturbance and possible argument could have caused us another war which is bad. We were just trying to keep the peace and protect the nations of the world by staying silent.

[Molly Sun]

2) The past 8 Late Stops have occurred in block 3, so John was positive that the next one would not be in block 3. He decided to go out for lunch with his friends and walked into class 30 minutes late. Unfortunately for john, it was yet another late stop in block 3. 

The obvious fallacy committed is the gambler's fallacy, where John assumes that the next stop could not be in block 3 due to past occurrences of no probability connection. A major problem with this theory is that he assumes it is constantly varying, rather than watching the patterns develop. If the past 8 late stops have occurred in the same block, it could be assumed that all late stops are set in block 3. 8 out of 8 late stops happened in block 3, which statistically means that it will happen again in block 3. From the statistics, we know that this block wasn't chosen at random. There are 4 blocks in a day, and for there to be 8 late stops out of 8 in the same period means that it was not chosen at random. This had been a methodically scheduled event, where teachers realize the most of their late students are in block 3. 

John's logic could also have been the reasons behind the specific positioning of the late stop. John goes out for lunch and arrives 30 minutes late with his friends. Assuming that the school would like to catch as many late attendees as possible, it would be wise to set the check stop in block 3. In this situation alone, at least three students were given detentions from this block. If the school wanted to continue catching the logical-fallacy-committing students, they would keep setting it in the third block. 

There is no correlation between the past late stops and the current late stop. As the past ones were handed out, they have no effect on this one. Thus it is a gambler's fallacy. 

[Nicole Martinek]

13) This is composition/division fallacy because the author assumes that because Russian spies were present in America during the cold war that they still reside there. It's also ambiguous because honestly, either than the idea of terrorism or instilling fear, what message were they trying to convey to the people? "Running is bad for your health? Don't believe me? Here let me show you"  And if they were trying to send a message to the gov't would it not make more sense for them to have bombed a gov't building or the home of a politician in order to send a message? The author is being ambiguous by stating the message could have been for the people or the government suggesting he/she isn't sure. It could also be argued that it's a Texas sharpshooter fallacy because it's taking information from one area and applying it to another to fit its idea. 

[telseymclandress]

In Response to Nicole:

Don't you remember the statistics Ms Barry taught us in math class? The odds are that every block has an equal chance of being a late stop, and since block three has had it happen so many times it is less probable that it should happen again. You can't argue with Ms Barry, and you certainly can't argue with math.

[Molly Sun]

So what is the point of studying Shakespeare then? You think that studying a 400 year old piece of play is more important than bettering the lives of the people of today then? Why aren't we as focussed on research on cancer as we are on Shakespeare? People actually die from cancer, but no one has ever died because they haven't studied Shakespeare. So many suffer from cancer and we're still caught up by what some dead guy was thinking. You wouldn't know about what we're learning in Biology because you're not in our bio class, so should we really be considering your opinions on this at all? 

You also capitalized the fallacies even though they don't need to be. If we should be learning about Shakespeare, then I suppose we also need to learn grammar. 

[Jacob Kitchen (Google Drive)]

20) Composition/Division

This argument uses the idea that it translates it word for word into Vietnamese and straight back. The argument assumes that all the translations are true as well. Knowing that language cannot be directly translated, the result of switching between languages will result in a changing of the exact structure of the sentence.

[Jacob Kitchen (Google Drive)]

15) False cause Fallacy

A sock is tightly knit and if a sock, one of each pair, always unraveled your washing machine would clog up with sock threads. The random disappearence of socks is more likely due to the laziness of the individual or the disorganization of one.  Assuming everyone has lost a sock in the dryer is an anecdote. Just because one person has supposedly lost a sock on the way from the washing machine to the clean laundry, doesn't make it so everyone has lost a sock that way. 

[James Morrison]

1) Aliens Run G.P.  where is the proof!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? 

Burden of truth I think some one in our class is alien, its probably you reading this right now that's the alien.  Don't deny it!!!!  I don't have any proof but even if your saying your not an alien I can't believe you.  You can't prove your not an Alien.  Just as we cant prove there's no aliens in G.P.

[James Morrison]

You're not tour sorry

[Jacob Kitchen (Google Drive)]

Reply to Sukhman 6)

I mean come on is this even a question. Politicians are definitely corrupt, they are the ones who launched the atomic bombs, they have decided how to spend our money. THEY EVEN MAKE US PAY TAXES. If forcing us to pay for their own wage isn't corrupt then I don't know what is.

[Jacob Kitchen (Google Drive)]

Reponse to Nicole 13)

The Russian's have like the most bombs stored in the world. I mean they can blow up the entire planet if they wanted. They must of got bored looking at their weapons of mass destruction and decided that it would be fun to cause a bit of chaos on the American liberty city of Boston.

[James Morrison]

James' Reply to Victoria's sock comment, 

I pride myself on never having ever lost a single sock in any endeavor...... Well maybe once or twice but never to a dryer!

Comment to Bryce too: I wear socks every day that can be read off a calender. 

(The fallacies make sense too) 

[James Morrison]

7) "For homework, a student was asked to measure how long it takes for him to fall asleep on the following Saturday night. So in order to record how long he slept, the student took a ruler to bed with him before he went to sleep on the following Saturday night."

Ambiguity. It's a play on words, 

(I wish I could think of stuff like this)