Manure in neat little piles is still manure!

One major difficulty in applying logic principles to either the political or religious worlds, is weeding through the piles of sloppy logic. This particularly occurs with the process of inductive logic, where you argue from particulars to a certain generalization. The particulars could be actual evidence, transcripts and documentation, video, historical records, oral history...you name it. The generalization you form from the particulars is as true, credible and relevant as the truth, credibility and relevancy of the particulars. So, the greater amount of good evidence you have, the higher the probability that your conclusion is true. But as in all induction, you are dealing with probabilities, not with complete certainty.

In deduction, you argue from the general to the specific, where the burden of the truth rests on your general propositions, or universals. It really is a shift of what is sufficiently true, either the particulars in induction, or the universals in deduction. But in the deductive method, the universals are still quite dependant on induction which is vital to identifying universals. So a universal "cows" shows that there are characteristics specific to cows that are univerally true of all "cows". The fact that "eat grass" is characteristic or predicates "cows" comes from induction, we have seen cow after cow eat grass.

So,turning to politics or religion, when you hear the endless diatribe of which ever side is making a case, I immediately look at the particulars and ask the following questions:

1. Is the evidence (particulars) a sufficient foundation for the conclusion?
2. Are the particulars true, accurate, credible, or are they slanted, fixed, etc?
3. Are the particulars relevant or irrelevant to the conclusion?
4. Is there a bias, and if so, how does it affect the conclusion?

The fallacies surround induction are as numerous as the imagination of the Sophists. However, there are a few that are commited more often than others. Here's a brief list.

a. Hasty Generalization: The act of making what is true for one, true for all.
b. Hasty Conclusion: Having insufficient evidence to form a conclusion.
c. False Cause: where the particulars do not illustrate true causality.
d. False criteria: where the particulars are irrelevant
e. Anecdotal Evidence: a form of "hasty conclusion" where one story forms the basis of the conclusion.
f. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: a form of false cause where one event which occurs to prior to another forms the cause of the latter event.

When dealing with debates, especially heated ones, the tendency to want to win or pursuade your opponent is so strong that the temptation is to resort to these fallacies. Conservatives, like Rush Limbaugh, who state democrats don't work, using as a basis for their conclusion the example of a few democrats, commits "hasty generalization." Liberals who label George Bush as a fascist who fail to show his policies as that of fascism, the complete government control of private property, commit either "hasty conclusion" with a lack of evidence, or "false criteria" where the evidence sited is irrelevant.

As in all rhetoric, the truth of the matter is not the goal so much as the pursuasion of opponents. It is here that sophists place their greatest effort; change public opinion. Logicians, better yet, truth seekers, see the potential for great societal damage of rhetoric without substance and pursue the truth of the matter at all costs, even the loss of pseudo-friendships. This is extremely frustrating to sophists, for it undermines their objectives to manipulate. However, this doesn't deter the logician, it even provides an indicator that he is on the right track!

So fellow truth-seekers, happy shoveling!