Gretchen So I’ve talked in the last few posts about making good arguments by addressing the substance of your opponent’s position rather than attacking irrelevancies. I described the practice of strawmanning, which is constructing an inferior version of the argument you’re trying to demolish because it’s easier, and how that shouldn’t be mistaken for actually defeating … Read more
In the last couple of posts I’ve been exploring different ways in which it’s possible to make bad arguments against someone’s position by ignoring the substance of their argument in favor of some distraction from it or distortion of it, even a completely fictional version of it. The tactic of constructing an inaccurate version of … Read more
Okay, so we’ve pretty well covered how not to talk to and about people you disagree with, right? It can be summed up pretty easily by asking yourself the following question: Does this thing I’m writing/saying/drawing/etc. actually address the substance of what the person I’m talking about is saying/writing/drawing/etc.? Or does it attack irrelevancies? Because … Read more
Yesterday Ophelia Benson and Richard Dawkins both published, on their respective blogs, a brief joint statement on how atheists should disagree. It’s really unfortunate that such a thing should be necessary, but encouraging that it happened. The statement condemns bullying and harassment generally, and then goes on to cite specific examples of such: In other … Read more
I live in Wichita, Kansas. Kansas is a place of extreme temperatures– it can get bitterly cold in the winter, and deathly hot in the summer. Today, for example, the high is supposed to be about 106. On Thursday, a baby died here in the heat. Another hot car death. She was 10 months old, and … Read more
“Consequence” is one of those words that has taken on a connotation of the negative, even though the denotation does not require it. Strictly speaking, a consequence is an effect, an outcome, a result. That’s all. Consequences are the reasons we do things– if our actions had no outcomes, there would be no point in … Read more
This year’s Father’s Day card: Gorilla dad. I say “This year’s,” like I do it every year. Actually this is the first year– the first time— I’ve designed a greeting card. But I really like how it turned out, even though it lost some detail by the time I uploaded it to the Walgreens site … Read more
This Slate article has a collection of photos of “bum-free” additions to buildings and structures in public areas intended for the same purpose as the controversial “homeless deterrent” spikes in a London apartment block (the ones pictured below). Apparently they’re a pretty common thing. In Manchester I recall seeing shards of glass embedded in the … Read more
This meme spotted on Facebook. It’s far from the first one I’ve seen…hence this post. Hat tip to Ed Brayton for pointing it out in annoyance. I have beliefs. Some of them are almost certainly false, but I still have them. I do the best I can to hold onto the true ones* and let … Read more
Five years ago today, Dr. George Tiller was murdered. In my family’s church in Wichita, the church we’d been members of since…’92? Something like that. Before they moved into the newly built church at 13th and Rock, back when it was a smaller building on Kellogg next to Hooter’s. My parents knew George and Jeannie … Read more