The Book of Common Fallacies by Philip Ward Julia Edwards

The Book of Common Fallacies by Philip Ward Julia Edwards

Author:Philip Ward, Julia Edwards
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781620873366
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (Perseus)
Published: 2012-10-15T04:00:00+00:00


TO BE LICKED INTO SHAPE

It was a common error throughout much of human history that kittens, puppies, fox-cubs, bear-cubs and indeed all young are born formless, and the mother’s first task is to “lick them into shape.”

It is only comparatively recently that the general public has come to be persuaded that the infant has its limbs, body, and head in miniature, and that the licking process is a combination of washing and sheer maternal affective contact.

ONE CANNOT LIE AND TELL THE TRUTH SIMULTANEOUSLY

The lie or falsehood is a particular sensitive area of fallacy-theory, by which I refer to the importance of paradox in such statements as the demonstration that a man may lie and tell the truth at the same time by asserting that he is lying (in the 3rd-century Lives of eminent philosophers by Diogenes Laertius, translated by R. D. Hicks for the Loeb Classical Library, London, 1925). If the reader still thinks that an argument cannot be valid if the conclusion contradicts a premiss, ponder this example from Charles Hamblin’s Fallacies (London, 1970):

Epimenides was telling the truth when he said “I am lying.”

Therefore, Epimenides was lying when he said “I am lying.”

If this is still not sufficiently sophisticated to convince you, consider this apparently correct paradox:

No class is a member of itself.

Therefore (since it follows that the class of classes that are not members of themselves is not a member of itself, and from this that the class of classes that are not members of themselves is a member of itself), at least one class is a member of itself.

LIFE WAS CARRIED TO EARTH BY METEORITES

Anyone who greatly enjoyed David Attenborough’s BBC Television series Life on Earth and the book based on it will be puzzled by Lifecloud (London, 1978) a book by Fred Hoyle and N. C. Wickramasinghe. The eminent authors argue that life did not begin here on Earth at all, but a primitive biological system evolved in interstellar space and was carried to Earth, and probably to other planets, by meteorites.

A symposium entitled “Life-forms in meteorites” appeared in Nature for March 24, 1962, but generally scientists—while keeping an open mind—have not been impressed by claims for this particular theory of the origin of life. In the late 19th century, the German Otto Hahn examined a number of meteorites and claimed that they contained tiny fossilized organisms. Though his findings were challenged, in late 1961 several carbonaceous chondrites were examined by Professor Nagy and Dr. Claus of New York, who reported a very large number of microscopic fossils in two meteorites. Confirmation of the Nagy and Claus findings has been disputed; there is also the problem that all organic-containing rocks are notorious for containing mineral structures that resemble fossils but are not in fact fossils.

Professor Harold Urey has suggested that the carbonaceous chondrites are fragments of the black region of Moon’s surface that have been knocked off by collision with other meteorites, such as siderites. Professor Urey further suggests that these black regions are the remains



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