en-us 2010 A weblog for the Fallacy Files website. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ A woman was driving her son to soccer practice when their car stalled on some railroad tracks. She tried to restart the car, but only managed to flood the engine, and the onrushing train struck the car. The woman died instantly, but her son was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, his condition critical. When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the boy was taken into the emergency room. The nurse on duty came running up to provide first aid but, upon seeing the boy, turned white and exclaimed: "Oh my God, it's my son!" How is this possible? http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive052012.html#05132012 Brendan Nyhan, of the much-missed Spinsanity website, has an article in the Columbia Journalism Review on a double standard in the media. According to Nyhan, when President Obama changes his position on an issue, such as same-sex marriage, he "evolves"; whereas, his presumptive challenger, Mitt Romney, "flip-flops" when he changes his. "Evolution", in this context, has a positive emotional charge to it, since it suggests growth and progress. In contrast, "flip-flop" is a pejorative term that suggests an unprincipled effort to gain political advantage. Check it out.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive052012.html#05092012 The New York Times is reporting that another NBC employee has left, apparently as a result of the Zimmerman 911 call editing scandal. The third casualty is Lilia Luciano, an on-air reporter who worked on The Today Show and was apparently based at the troubled Miami bureau. The Times reporter is not sure whether she resigned or was let go, but other news outlets claim that she was fired. It's unclear when she left NBC, though it could have been about the same time as the still unidentified producer was let go and we're just hearing about it now.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive052013.html#05032012 Hilary Rosen has apologized once again for saying that Ann Romney never worked a day in her life. I guess the earlier apology didn't take. I didn't pay enough attention to this controversy the first time around to comment on it because it seemed too trivial to bother with. However, thinking about it since, one point of interest occurred to me. The verb "work", like most words, is ambiguous, having at least the following two meanings... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04302012 I haven't read this book, so I can't recommend it. I just find the title amusing. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04282012 David Carr of The New York Times has a recent article on the failure of NBC to issue a correction on The Today Show where the contextomy of George Zimmerman aired.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04252012 This is an unavoidably somewhat technical entry dealing with a Supreme Court decision handed down recently that turns partly on a logical issue.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04242012 A New York Times ad for the new movie "Lockout" cites a four star review from Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out New York. Now, you might think that four stars is a perfect score--though probably not if you've read Blurb Watch before--but elsewhere on the same page is an ad for the new Bob Marley documentary with a five-star blurb also from Rothkopf. Of course, ads that cite four-star reviews from Time Out NY never mention that it uses a five-star rating system. However, in this case an attentive reader could notice, by glancing elsewhere on the same page, that four stars is not the best a movie can do. Fortuitously, the Times has supplied the missing context. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04212012 The Agency for Counter-Terrorism (ACT) has a house under surveillance. So far, the three men inside have stayed out of sight, but ACT has managed to electronically eavesdrop upon some of their communications. The only clues to their identity have come from snippets of conversation ACT has intercepted. In these communications, the three have been called by the first names Tom, Dick, and Harry and the last names Smith, Jones, and Robinson. However, ACT has not been able to determine which first names go with which last ones. Since these names are so common, attempting to identify the three suspects without their full names would be almost impossible. From its surveillance, ACT has been able to acquire only four additional clues as to their identities... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04192012 "A text taken out of context is just a con." http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042013.html#04172012 Most of the examples of contextomies that we've seen have come from print publications, but here's one taken from an audio source. NBC's Today Show> and its cable network MSNBC both ran misleadingly edited versions of the 911 call made by George Zimmerman before shooting Trayvon Martin.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04042012 Sherry Diestler's Becoming a Critical Thinker: A User-Friendly Manual is now in its sixth edition. There's also a version available for the Kindle if you've got one of those newfangled gizmos. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04022012 Lawyers Give Poor Free Legal Advice.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive042012.html#04012012 Last week's column by The Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy" Carl Bialik discusses the important distinction between absolute and relative risk. Here's how Bialik explains the latter.... http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive032012.html#0312012 Victor Stenger, physicist and author of The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning, has a new book out: God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive032012.html#03282012