a term for the straw man fallacy -- on the internet

the study offers a lesson in the difference between correlation and causation. A few paragraphs down, we find that "the researchers said people shouldn't link napping to poor health or recommend that seniors skip napping."

Another fallacy for our times? "one of my biggest pet peeves in political discussion: The "Imagine the reaction if he was a Republican/Democrat" argument. ... It's just a silly point to make, one based entirely in the fact that the person making it has no actual evidence for their claim. And inevitably it asssumes the worst -- if President Bush had made that joke, there'd be rioting in the streets!

Yes, it's from Cracked. But it's actually pretty good.

Alex doesn't just imitate human speech, as other parrots do -- Alex can think. His actions are not just an instinctive response, she says, but rather a result of reasoning and choice. Assertions like Dr. Pepperberg's are at the center of a highly emotional debate about whether thought is solely the domain of humans, or whether it can exist in other animals.

A kid throws a rock at a window and breaks it, and everyone standing around regrets the unfortunate state of affairs. But then up walks a man who purports to be wise and all-knowing. He points out that this is not a bad thing after all. The man fixing the window will get money for doing so. This will then be spent on a new suit, and the tailor too will get money. The tailor will spend money on other items and the circle of rising prosperity will expand without end. {I'm no fan of the source, and I'll call this a proposed fallacy. Could be an interesting discussion, esp with the Katrina example given.}

how a statistical illusion can make early screening for disease appear much more effective than it really is. {A very common mathematical fallacy, usually unintentional.}

The fallacy in all of this is painfully easy to spot. If we measure survival, which these studies do, with a 5 or 10 year survival rate then obviously people whose cancers are detected early will survival longer than people whose cancers are detected late.

Several years ago I made the assertion on my old blog that evangelicals should "think Christianly" about their work and fields of study. I also claimed that we are merely fooling ourselves if we believe that we can approach our vocations with a sense of religious neutrality. Naturally, some people were skeptical. Even those who agreed with my general point did not see, for example, how there could be a particularly Christian view to hard subjects like mathematics. While I certainly understand their hesitation, I do in fact believe there is a Christian view of mathematics. Indeed, I believe that there is a distinctly Christian view of everything.

Leiter comments, "Apparently, a good paper on the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction might be helpful for the Supreme Court."