Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning?着眼于论据
今天的章节学会问：论证中的理由是否有谬误？
The objective of critical reading and listening is to judge the acceptability or worth of conclusions.
批判性阅读和倾听的目标是判断某个论点的接受度或观点的价值。
Our task now is separate the fool’s gold from the genuine gold.
结论是否被接受或者结论是否有价值取决于支撑结论的论据(理由)，论据有真有假，我们的任务是去伪存真。哪些是确凿的论据，哪些是谬误。认真严肃对待夯实有利的论据，剥离有误导性的论据——fallacies, 谬误。
什么是谬误？
谬误是推论中的花招，作者利用这写具有欺骗性的花招来说服你接受他的结论。
这章的任务学会识别谬误，可以避免我们掉入别人的圈套。
谬误多种多样，有三种常见的谬误：
1.基于错误假设的论据
2.与结论不相关的论据
3.基于结论正确的论据
当你发现一个谬误论据时，你就找到了一个驳斥论证的合理依据。但是，谨记对于建设性的批判思维，你要关注那些没有谬误的论据。在口头交流中发现谬误时，如果你希望继续交流，最好的方法是让对方提供更有力的论据。
Words & Phrases (每日五词）
1. unduly
[ADV 副词] 过分地；过度地；不适当地；不必要地；If you say that something does not happen or is not done unduly, you mean that it does not happen or is not done to an excessive or unnecessary extent.
2. tax and spend liberal
共和党送给民主党的外号，意思是说，自由派当选执政后，他们的政策就是增加对那些辛勤工作的公民的税收，然后把这些钱去救济游手好闲的人，使政府更能够控制人们的生活。
3. strive
make great efforts to achieve or obtain something
努力, 奋斗, 力求：令人费解（或毫无意义）的话（或文字）; 胡言乱语：
4.red herring
something, especially a clue, which is or is intended to be misleading or distracting
转移注意力之物（尤指线索）
5. sleight of hand
Sleight of hand is the deceiving of someone in a skilful way.
Summary of chapter 7
In this chapter, the author tells us that now we are ready to make our central focus on evaluation. After finding the issue and the conclusion, the reasons, key ambiguous terms and phrase and assumptions in the previous chapters, our task in this chapter is to make judgements more directly and explicitly about the worth or the quality of the reasoning.
Asking the critical question: Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
What is fallacy?
A fallacy is a reasoning “trick” that an author might use while trying to persuade you to accept a conclusion.
Three common tricks:
1. providing reasoning that requires erroneous or incorrect assumptions, thus making it irrelevant to the conclusion;
2. distracting us by making information seem relevant to the conclusion when it is not;
3. providing support for the conclusion that depends on the conclusion's already being true.
Listed Reasoning Fallacies
- Ad Hominem: An attack on the person, rather than directly addressing the person's reasons.
- Slippery Slope: Making the assumption that a proposed step will set off an uncontrollable chain of undesirable events, when procedures exist to prevent such a chain of events.
Searching for Perfect Solution: Falsely assuming that because part of a problem remains after a solution is tried, the solution should not be adopted.
-Appeal to Popularity (Ad Populum): An attempt to justify a claim by appealing to sentiments that large groups of people have in common; falsely assumes that anything favored by a large group is desirable.
- Appeal to Questionable Authority: Supporting a conclusion by citing an authority who lacks special expertise on the issue at hand.
- Appeals to Emotions: The use of emotionally charged language to distract readers and listeners from relevant reasons and evidence. Common emotions appealed to are fear, hope, patriotism, pity, and sympathy.
- Straw Person: Distorting our opponent's point of view so that it is easy to attack; thus we attack a point of view that does not truly exist.
-Either-Or (or False Dilemma): Assuming only two alternatives when there are more than two.
-Explaining by Naming: Falsely assuming that because you have provided a name for some event or behavior, you have also adequately explained the event.
- The Planning Fallacy: The tendency for people or organizations to underestimate how long they will need to complete a task, despite numerous prior experiences of having underestimated how long something would take to finish.
- Glittering Generality: The use of vague, emotionally appealing virtue words that dispose us to approve something without closely examining the reasons.
-Red Herring: An irrelevant topic is presented to divert attention from the original issue and help to win an argument by shifting attention away from the argument and to another issue. The fallacy sequence in this instance is as follows: (a) Topic A is being discussed; (b) Topic B is introduced as though it is relevant to topic A, but it is not; and (c) Topic A is abandoned.
- Begging the Question: An argument in which the conclusion is assumed in the reasoning.
Finding fallacies could help us judge the reasoning, but in the spirit of constructive critical thinking, we should consider any reasons that are not fallacies.
感悟
我们常说表达观点要有理有据，即要有理由、有根据。 有理有据说起来容易，做起来并不容易。因为我们在表达观点的时候，并没有意识到自己提出的所谓的理由是站不住脚的；甚至有时候还会被被谬误的论据所蛊惑。
公众意见，网络大V，大神说的就可以当做你的论据吗？我们要时刻保持警惕，一旦推论中出现谬误，比如错误的假设，转移观点，偷换概念等等问题，我们就要对其所持的观点质疑。