• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
  • We hope the site problems here are now solved, however, if you still have any issues, please start a ticket in Contact Us

keith99

sola dosis facit venenum
Jan 16, 2008
23,142
6,837
73
✟405,062.00
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Single
I figured this was the best forum to ask in.

I see 2 related errors poping up a whole lot and wondered if someone knew their names.

The first is basically says some things are grey, therefore black and white do not exist. (That is a very different thing from saying pure black or pure white are rare).

The second is arguing against a practice because it does not cover everything. A recent case in point is arguing against profiling because Jihad Jane is an older white female. (Note this is entirely different than arguing for truely random checks in addition to profile based checks because she is outside the profile).
 

jayem

Naturalist
Jun 24, 2003
15,429
7,166
74
St. Louis, MO.
✟426,066.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Atheist
Marital Status
Married
The Jihad Jane case would be an error of induction. An inaccurate conclusion (profiling is worthless) is being drawn from a specific case (she doesn't fit the profile.) More specifically, I think it would be an example of the Hasty Generalization Fallacy. One is attempting to invalidate a general principle through one atypical case.

I'm not sure what the specific term would be for the grey/black/white case. It seems to be an counter-example of the Fallacy of Composition. Which is the error of assuming that because a whole has a certain property, its component parts must also have that same property. Example: water is a liquid at room temperature. Therefore, hydrogen and oxygen are also liquid at room temperature. Your case is a counter-example. Because the component parts (black and white) do have the same property (existence) as the whole (grey).
 
Upvote 0

Imitatio Dei

Regular Member
Mar 11, 2010
212
19
✟30,438.00
Faith
Catholic
Marital Status
Engaged
Politics
US-Democrat

I agree with both of these answers. I'll look up the term for the Fallacy of Composition counter-example. I know I've seen it somewhere....
 
Upvote 0