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#logicalfallacies

2 posts2 participants0 posts today
Public
Thor A. Hopland

Listen, #bros - about #tech - about #TechBros.

The #Fediverse is filled to the brim with #besserwissers (or "better knowers"), #CallToAuthority, #AdHominem and other #LogicalFallacies.

I made it a point to just block these people, because at the end of the day they're not there to help, but to "shellac their roadster", to "wax their own board" so to speak.

If your idea is to deter others from learning or to be obnoxious: good job. If not? Check your attitude, check your behavior, be better.

Public
Tantek Çelik

I just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop¹ hosted by the Credible Web Community Group² (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions:

1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!"

2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y"

After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid:

3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading.

I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions.

We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others.

We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions.

#W3C #credweb #credibleWeb #authenticWeb #flaw #fallacy #fallacies #logicalFallacy #logicalFallacies


Glossary

Ad Hominem
  attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Politician's syllogism
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

Solutions Looking For Problems (related: #solutionism, #solutioneering)
  Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages:
  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument
  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
  Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia:
  * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem
  Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem":
  * https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem
  Forbes has an illustrative anecdote:  
  * https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/


References

¹ https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/
² https://credweb.org/ and https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/


Previously in 2019 I participated in #MisinfoCon:
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency
* https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation

tantek.comI just participated in the first W3C Authentic Web Mini Workshop^1 hosted by the Credible Web Community Group^2 (of which I’m a longtime member) and up front I noted that our very discussion itself needed to be careful about its own credibility, extra critical of any technologies discussed or assertions made, and initially identified two flaws to avoid on a meta level, having seen them occur many times in technical or standards discussions: 1. Politician’s Syllogism — "Something must be done about this problem. Here is something, let's do it!" 2. Solutions Looking For Problems — "I am interested in how tech X can solve problem Y" After some back and forth and arguments in the Zoom chat, I observed participants questioning speakers of arguments rather than the arguments themselves, so I had to identify a third fallacy to avoid: 3. Ad Hominem — while obvious examples are name-calling (which is usually against codes of conduct), less obvious examples (witnessed in the meeting) include questioning a speaker’s education (or lack thereof) like what they have or have not read, or would benefit from reading. I am blogging these here both as a reminder (should you choose to participate in such discussions), and as a resource to cite in future discussions. We need to all develop expertise in recognizing these logical and methodological flaws & fallacies, and call them out when we see them, especially when used against others. We need to promptly prune these flawed methods of discussion, so we can focus on actual productive, relevant, and yes, credible discussions. #W3C #credweb #credibleWeb #authenticWeb #flaw #fallacy #fallacies #logicalFallacy #logicalFallacies Glossary Ad Hominem attacking an attribute of the person making an argument rather than the argument itself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem Politician's syllogism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism Solutions Looking For Problems (related: #solutionism, #solutioneering) Promoting a technology that either has not identified a real problem for it to solve, or actively pitching a specific technology to any problem that seems related. Wikipedia has no page on this but has two related pages: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix Wikipedia does have an essay on this specific to Wikipedia: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Solutions_looking_for_a_problem Stack Exchange has a thread on "solution in search of a problem": * https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/250320/a-word-that-means-a-solution-in-search-of-a-problem Forbes has an illustrative anecdote: * https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieburns/2019/05/28/solution-looking-for-a-problem/ References ^1 https://www.w3.org/events/workshops/2025/authentic-web-workshop/ ^2 https://credweb.org/ and https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/ Previously in 2019 I participated in #MisinfoCon: * https://tantek.com/2019/296/t1/london-misinfocon-discuss-spectrum-recency * https://tantek.com/2019/296/t2/misinfocon-roundtable-spectrums-misinformation - Tantek
#misinfocon
Public
Hacker News

Translating Natural Language to First-Order Logic for Logical Fallacy Detection — arxiv.org/abs/2405.02318
#HackerNews #NaturalLanguageLogic #LogicalFallacies #AIResearch #MachineLearning #NLP

arXiv logo
arXiv.orgNL2FOL: Translating Natural Language to First-Order Logic for Logical Fallacy DetectionTranslating natural language into formal language such as First-Order Logic (FOL) is a foundational challenge in NLP with wide-ranging applications in automated reasoning, misinformation tracking, and knowledge validation. In this paper, we introduce Natural Language to First-Order Logic (NL2FOL), a framework to autoformalize natural language to FOL step by step using Large Language Models (LLMs). Our approach addresses key challenges in this translation process, including the integration of implicit background knowledge. By leveraging structured representations generated by NL2FOL, we use Satisfiability Modulo Theory (SMT) solvers to reason about the logical validity of natural language statements. We present logical fallacy detection as a case study to evaluate the efficacy of NL2FOL. Being neurosymbolic, our approach also provides interpretable insights into the reasoning process and demonstrates robustness without requiring model fine-tuning or labeled training data. Our framework achieves strong performance on multiple datasets. On the LOGIC dataset, NL2FOL achieves an F1-score of 78%, while generalizing effectively to the LOGICCLIMATE dataset with an F1-score of 80%.
Public
gnate

I feel lucky to have been exposed to the classic logical fallacies, but I wish more people had the benefit of recognizing them these days.

It would be nice if awareness didn't depend on random Social Studies and English teachers who personally felt it was important to prepare us.

#LogicalFallacies
Replied in thread
Public
Night 🌊✨

@Radical_EgoCom

Also, my personal fallacy fave: Whataboutism (tu-quoque)

"Whataboutism can also be used to relativize criticism of one's own viewpoints or behaviors. ("And what about the starving in Africa and Asia?").

Whataboutism adds a twist to tu quoque by directing its energies into establishing an equivalence between two or more disparate actions, thereby defaming the accuser with the insinuation that their priorities are backwards."

sources: Merriam- Webster, Wikipedia

#fallacies#logicalfallacies
Public
Terrorskull

The tutorial demands (gently suggests) an #introduction and who am I to not give it one, even though I finished everything and came back to post later.

I am Terrorskull, clearly, and I am new to #calckey. I have been on #Mastodon for about a year but decided I should check out what else the #Fediverse has to offer. For now, at least, this will be my backup account to @terrorskull@twit.social, but I still plan to post here from time to time. The web interface seems significantly better, dare I say... modern!

So, who am I? I am a #DotNet #Developer by profession. I am also a #Gamer and #Skeptic who spends a lot of time consuming various media related to #Science, #CriticalThinking and #LogicalFallacies, and #Tech. When not involved in one of those areas, I am probably doing something #Fitness related or taking care of my special needs #cats.

This concludes my introduction. Thank you for reading. Feel free to follow me here and/or on my @terrorskull@twit.social account for random musings and sharing/boosts of various science and gaming related information.

Before I forget, the required cat photo is included, as a cat photo is always required for an introduction.

A portrait of Autumn, a tortoiseshell cat, with paws outstretched to the camera.
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