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July 24th, 2008 (Permalink)

Check it Out

Benjamin Radford, who writes a "Bad Science" column for Live Science, has an article on a misleading study of teen date violence. It sounds like a typical example of advocacy research:

There's also the problem of definitions. The study includes being called names or being put down as abuse. By this definition, if anyone you have been involved with has ever put you down or criticized you, you were in an abusive relationship. With such a broad definition, the high abuse rates found are hardly "shocking."

The use of low redefinitions to generate "shocking" statistics is common to studies which are sponsored by advocate groups.

Source: Benjamin Radford, "Alarming Study on Teen Dating Violence Is Flawed", Live Science, 7/24/2008

July 19th, 2008 (Permalink)

"A" v. "The"

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.―Second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Does the reference to "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" imply that such a right is "antecedent" to the amendment? Does the use of the word "the", instead of "a", mean that the right to keep and bear arms is a "natural" right that the amendment is enacted to protect, rather than create?

Suppose that I say: "I see a dog in the backyard. The dog in the backyard is black." In the first sentence, "a" occurs, whereas in the second sentence "the" occurs. The first, "a"-occurrence, is the "antecedent" of the second, "the"-occurrence, that is, the second sentence refers back to the dog introduced by "a" in the first sentence. However, if we compare this to the second amendment, there is no antecedent in the constitution itself.

In grammar, the words "a" (or "an") and "the" are called the "indefinite article" and the "definite article", respectively. In logic, a noun phrase that begins with "a" is called an "indefinite description", and one that begins with "the" is a "definite description". Take as an example the indefinite description "a dog in the back yard": what does this mean? It is logically equivalent to "some dog in the backyard". "I see a dog in the backyard" means the same as "I see some dog in the backyard". Suppose that, instead, I said: "I see the dog in the backyard". Intuitively, this would mean that I see my dog, or our dog, or that dog that keeps coming into the backyard, that is, a particular dog that is clear in the context. An indefinite description refers to an indefinite thing, whereas a definite description refers to a definite thing.

When a definite description is used, context determines what particular thing is referred to. This context can include an earlier indefinite description as "antecedent", but it need not. If someone simply refers to "the dog", it is likely that they are referring to their dog, or to the dog that they are looking at.

Logically, the thing that separates indefinite from definite descriptions is uniqueness. "A dog is in the back yard" is true as long as at least one dog is in the back yard, and any dog will do. But "the dog is in the back yard" is only true if one specific dog is in the back yard, said dog being determined by context.

So, how does this apply to interpreting the second amendment? The reason why a definite description often refers back to an antecedent indefinite description is that the antecedent supplies the context that picks out the particular thing referred to. In the amendment, there is no antecedent for the definite description to refer back to.

However, some definite descriptions don't need an antecedent, or any other context, to pick out a unique object. For instance, the phrase "the first person to use an umbrella" refers to a unique person even though we don't know who it was.

So, what is the upshot of these considerations for interpreting the second amendment? It's possible that the drafters of the amendment believed that the right to keep and bear arms was a natural right that, therefore, existed prior to the drafting of the amendment. However, I think it more likely that the relevant natural right would be the right to self-defense, which might justify or ground the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

A better explanation of the use of a definite description to refer to the right is simply that it is unique; in fact, it's not clear what could be meant by more than one such right since, presumably, one is enough. If one right to keep and bear arms doesn't protect you, why would two or more do so? So, I think that it's a mistake to place any great weight upon the use of the word "the" instead of "a" in the amendment, since there is a good reason for the use of the definite article other than the possible pre-existence of the right.

Sources:

July 12th, 2008 (Permalink)

Poll Watch

A new Newsweek poll is out and, unsurprisingly, it shows Obama with a three percentage-point lead over McCain. Recall that last month's poll from the same magazine had Obama with a fifteen point lead (see the Resources below), and was one of two outlier polls showing him with a double-digit lead. All other polls from about the same time period had Obama with a low single-digit lead, and the current poll is now in line with the other polls.

Also unsurprisingly, Newsweek's report spins the poll as showing a big drop in support for Obama, and speculates about various factors that might account for the drop. In all likelihood, Obama's lead is roughly the same as it was during the last poll and there has been no real drop.

At least the article includes the following passage:

Obama's overall decline from the last NEWSWEEK Poll, published June 20, is hard to explain. Many critics questioned whether the Democrat's advantage over McCain was actually as great as the poll suggested, even though a survey taken during a similar time frame by the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg showed a similarly large margin. Princeton Survey Research Associates, which conducted the poll for NEWSWEEK, says some of the discrepancy between the two most recent polls may be explained by sampling error.

The only other poll mentioned is the other outlier; unmentioned are the half-dozen other polls at about the same time that had contrary results. We may never know what the problem was with these two polls, but PSRA may be right. As I explained in "How to Read a Poll?" (see the Resources below), one in twenty polls can be expected to be in error by greater than its margin of error. During this campaign season, there may be as many as twenty polls in a month or two, so we should expect at least one outlier in that time frame.

This also illustrates a problem with these media-sponsored polls: when a news organization such as Newsweek pays for a poll, they never want to admit that it might be in error. Moreover, they are reluctant to mention the many other polls sponsored by their competitors, especially if those others cast doubt upon their own. Yet, the best way to get a good idea of what's happening is to compare all the recent polls, rather than to concentrate on just one.

Source: Jonathan Darman, "Glow Fading?", Newsweek, 7/11/2008

Resources:


'ABSOLUTELY RIVETING. AN EXTRAORDINARY FILM.'-Patricia Bosworth, VANITY FAIR
July 11th, 2008 (Permalink)

Blurb Watch: Gonzo

The first blurb in the newspaper ad for the new movie Gonzo (see above) isn't the usual contextomy; in fact, I haven't seen the actual review, which doesn't appear to be available on the web. Instead, there's a different problem with this blurb: the quoted review is from Vanity Fair magazine, which is edited by Graydon Carter. Graydon Carter also happens to be the producer of Gonzo. So, instead of quoting out of context, the blurb appeals to misleading authority of the third kind, that is, a reviewer who has a conflict of interest.

Sources:

July 8th, 2008 (Permalink)

New Book

Todd Riniolo, a psychologist, has a book out called When Good Thinking Goes Bad, which has a highly positive blurb from Michael Shermer―hopefully, he isn't quoted out of context. Of course, I'd love to receive a review copy.

July 7th, 2008 (Permalink)

Fallacy Files Book Club: Nudge,
Chapter 2: Resisting Temptation

Optical illusion speed bumps
  • Before getting to the second chapter, here's an update on the previous one, specifically, the use of an optical illusion to slow traffic. I recently saw a CNN television report on the use of an optical illusion designed to make drivers think that there are speed bumps in the road, thus slowing them down. This is a different type of illusion than the one discussed in the book, which involved painting white stripes on the street that grow closer together in order to give drivers the illusion that their cars are speeding up, encouraging them to compensate by braking.

    The fake speed bumps are currently being tested, but CNN's article mentions that there is some reason to think that their effect in slowing traffic may wear off after awhile. As people become used to the illusions, they may ignore them. The illusion persists, that is, the fake bumps still look as if they are protruding from the surface of the road, but drivers learn not to react to it as if it were real.

    Thaler and Sunstein (T&S) don't mention whether the optical illusion they cite in the book suffers from the same diminishing effectiveness. However, the illusion mentioned in the book is used to slow traffic on a sharp turn. For this reason, drivers who become familiar with the illusion are not likely to start ignoring it, since there is a danger to them of doing so worse than getting a ticket.

    So, this raises a new question about the strength of the analogy between cognitive biases and optical illusions: even if biases are persistent in the way that optical illusions are, perhaps the effect of nudges will wear off as people become used to them. For example, those who are chronically late for appointments may try to trick themselves into arriving on time by setting their watch ahead. However, anyone who tries this trick is likely to find that the effect wears off rapidly as one adjusts to the fact that the watch is set ahead.

    Source: "Optical Illusion Helps Create Fake Speed Bumps", CNN, 6/30/2008

  • The second chapter concerns what philosophers call "weakness of the will", that is, succumbing to temptation. T&S give the example of a bowl of nuts (p. 40): knowing that eating the entire bowl will ruin your appetite―as well as being bad for your diet―you may wish not to do so. Yet, if the bowl remains within reach, you may find yourself consuming them all, seemingly against your own will.

    T&S explain temptation as the result of a kind of internal conflict between a "cold", rational part of the brain and a "hot", emotional part. The cold part recognizes that you should not eat too many nuts, but the hot part wants to eat them all. When you're confronted by the bowl of nuts, the emotional part heats up and may gain the upper hand over the cold part, and there go the nuts.

    I have my doubts about this explanation, at least when applied to the nut example: some of T&S's other examples seem better explained by it, for instance, intending to practice "safe sex" but failing to do so in a moment of passion (p. 42). Based on my experience, there are a couple of facts about the nut example not explained by T&S's theory:

    1. It seems possible to succumb to the temptation of the nuts even in a "cold" state of mind, that is, when one is not hungry.
    2. It seems to be harder to resist the temptation from certain types of foods than others: nuts are a good example, but so are potato chips; in contrast, a large slice of cheesecake may be more tempting than nuts but it is easier to resist the temptation.

    How can we explain these facts? I suggest that there is a "slippery slope" phenomenon at work: foods which come in small pieces, such as nuts and chips, tempt you out on to a slippery slope. "I don't want to eat the whole bowl, but one nut won't hurt," you think. So you eat one nut. However, the same piece of reasoning applies again: one more nut won't hurt, and so on. Once we start down this road the only non-arbitrary stopping point is when the bowl is empty. A single large piece of cake may be just as tempting as the nuts, but instead of a slope there is one step followed by a plummet to the bottom.

    In the remainder of the chapter, T&S discuss various strategies that people use to help them resist temptation, including alarm clocks, Christmas savings clubs, and mental accounting. It's not clear to me what role government can or should be expected to play in helping people control themselves, but apparently that will be dealt with in a later chapter.

Previous Installments:

Next Installment:
Chapter 3: Following the Herd

June 30th, 2008 (Permalink)

Wikipedia Watch

The fact that Wikipedia is often the only source on the web for some types of information―or, at least, the only free source―is no doubt one reason why it is so widely used. Unfortunately, it is also the source for some types of misinformation. Case in point:

A doublespeak argument is a valid argument that is not the true source of the arguer's position. A doublespeak argument may be used because the true reasoning behind a position is not popular or convincing. Such an argument is fallacious because even if the argument were defeated, the arguer's position would remain.

If a "doublespeak argument" is by definition valid, then it will be a sound argument if its premisses are true. So, the only ways to "defeat" such an argument will be to show that it has a false premiss or that it begs the question. If it has a false premiss then it isn't fallacious, because the truth-value of a premiss is not usually a matter of logic. Whether a statement is true or false is usually a question for some other science, or for history. If the argument begs the question, then it is fallacious because it begs the question and not because "the arguer's position would remain", whatever that is supposed to mean.

I've never come across the term "doublespeak argument" before. "Doublespeak" refers to certain misleading uses of language, such as euphemism and inappropriate uses of jargon. So, a "doublespeak argument", if it were anything, ought to be an argument stated in doublespeak.

Here's the first example of a "doublespeak argument" given in the entry:

A tobacco company may oppose a cigarette tax because it threatens to reduce smoking and therefore reduce their profits. The company's public argument, however, may be that smokers are poorer than the general population, so a tobacco tax unfairly burdens the poor. But the tobacco company's real concern is not the well-being of the poor, evidenced by how it already addicts said poor to a costly product that will end up killing many of them. But the "hurts the poor" argument may evoke more sympathy than the "hurts our profits" argument.

Either it's true that the average smoker is poorer than the average person or not. If so, then a tobacco tax is, indeed, likely to be regressive. This is a perfectly cogent argument, and one which may sway those who oppose regressive taxes against taxing tobacco, which is no doubt why the tobacco company would make the argument. The fact that the company has its own motives for opposing the tax is irrelevant to the cogency of the argument, and to suggest otherwise is to commit a genetic fallacy.

Here's the second example:

A person may oppose the use of condoms because of a moral belief that sex should only occur between married couples for the purpose of procreation. If, however, the target of this person's arguments are people who may already be inclined to have premarital or recreational sex or may simply not agree with such moral beliefs, the condom opponent may instead argue that condoms cannot be trusted because they are not 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and STDs. Yet the opponent of condom use would continue to oppose condom use even if condoms were 100 percent effective, as the opponent's concern is not rooted in preventing pregnancies or making premarital or recreational sex safe.

There's no rule in logic that says that the argument you advance for a proposition has to be the source of your own belief in that proposition. It is often more rhetorically effective to take your audience into consideration and choose an argument that is likely to persuade them, even if it wouldn't persuade you. For instance, you may advance an argument whose premisses are propositions that your audience believes, though you don't. There's nothing logically wrong with doing so, and there needn't be anything ethically wrong, either. Of course, pretending to believe in the premisses when you do not is a type of dishonesty, but to think that the dishonesty of the arguer undermines the argument is, again, to commit the genetic fallacy.

Moreover, in this example the objection to the argument seems to be that even if the argument were refuted, the arguers would not stop opposing condom use because they have additional reasons for opposing it. However, there is no rule in logic that arguers have to put all of their eggs in one basket. The fact that they have other reasons for their position does not mean that their position is wrong, or that this particular argument is not a good one.

In general, it should always be kept in mind that the validity or invalidity of arguments is an objective feature, and not dependent upon who the arguer is. Thus, whether the arguer is a dishonest hypocrite is irrelevant to the logical status of the argument. Arguments are not respecters of persons.

To Wikipedia's credit, the entry has two notes at the top: one indicating that nothing in the encyclopedia links to the article, and the other pointing out its lack of source references. Both of these notes should warn readers that the entry ought to be regarded with some suspicion. The lack of source references is probably due to a lack of sources for the concept of "doublespeak argument" outside of the head of whoever created the entry. Even though anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, not just anyone can delete an entry: you have to be an "administrator" to do so. Since I'm not an administrator, I won't be deleting it. Besides, I want to leave it as an example of why you shouldn't rely on Wikipedia.

Source: "Doublespeak Argument", Wikipedia, 6/10/2008.

Acknowledgment: Thanks to Mitch Nelson for pointing out this entry.

Update (7/3/2008): I see that the entry for "Doublespeak Argument" is now marked as under consideration for deletion. However, it appears that it was so listed because someone saw my discussion of it and thought that the Wikipedia article was copied from me, rather than that I was quoting it for the purpose of commentary!

Mitch Nelson, who brought the article to my attention, writes:

The Wikipedia article suggests not that a "doublespeak argument" is just one of many arguments someone has, and that "even if the argument were refuted, the arguers would not stop [holding a position] because they have additional reasons for [holding] it," but rather that the arguers are making up arguments that don't even work on themselves. They're being disingenuous or dishonest about the arguments that lead to their position, and are engaging others in futile exercises. The arguer is setting people up to tilt at windmills, while leaving their true reasonings unchallenged. In order to successfully argue with such a person, one would have to ignore all the arguments they put forth and instead somehow divine their true path to their position and challenge that instead. What's being called a "doublespeak argument" at least seems like a debate tactic that should have a name so as to be identifiable, even if it's not a logical fallacy. "Smokescreen" seems closer to describing it, but "smokescreen" isn't defined this precisely.

You're assuming that the reason why you're listening to the other person's argument―let's assume it's a woman―is that you want to get her to change her mind about something. Of course, this is one possible reason why you might pay attention to her argument, but there are other reasons, including the possibility of changing your own mind. And in order for you to change your own opinion, wouldn't it be better if she tailored her argument to your existing beliefs, using premisses that you believe?

Moreover, if you put yourself in her position and assume that she has similar motives to your own, then she wishes to change your mind. That being the case, how better to do so than to advance an argument that has a chance of convincing you, even if it is not an argument that convinced her.

In my comments above, I mentioned that this type of argument could involve dishonesty if the arguer pretends to believe the premisses or to have been convinced by the argument. However, if that's what is supposed to be wrong with it, it's not a matter of illogical but of unethical argument. I'll leave it to rhetoricians interested in debate to decide whether it's worth naming for debate purposes.

Finally, from my experience, arguing with other people in order to get them to change their minds is usually a futile endeavor. Even if you succeed, you can't read their minds and few people will admit that they changed them as a result of your arguments. It's better to argue because you want to learn something from other people's arguments, which is facilitated by their paying attention to your views and adapting their arguments to fit them. Rather than being a bad thing, a "doublespeak argument" may be doing you a favor.

Update (7/11/2008): The "Doublespeak Argument" entry seems to have been removed from Wikipedia.

June 29th, 2008 (Permalink)

Check it Out

Alan Wolfe has a lengthy article in The New Republic about the influence on economics of work in the psychology of cognitive biases. In the course of the article he reviews Dan Ariely's new book Predictably Irrational, which I've mentioned here before and am in the middle of reading. Our Book Club book, Nudge, also gets a passing mention.

Here are a few miscellaneous comments on the article:

  • Wolfe suggests that the results of Ariely's experiments may be misleading:
    Before we start pulping all the economics textbooks, let alone rethinking a century's worth of public policy, we ought to pay a bit more attention to the actual details of Ariely's experiments. … [One] experiment involved a fairly narrow segment of the American population: all the subjects were male, young, and students. Why them and not, say, fiftysomething housewives? … He does not tell us why he chose students, but we can guess: students are plentifully available, and securing their participation is cheap. Daniel Kahneman hoped that economic psychology could figure out what it needed to study and then develop the appropriate technologies; but in reality…it works the other way. Technique comes first in the new economics, just as it did in the old, and conclusions follow. Ariely may want us to believe that his findings are startling; his methods, however, could not be more conventional. Survey researchers have been asking the same kinds of questions for ages, and psychologists have been studying students since experimental psychology was first developed as an academic discipline.

    No one should underestimate the difficulty of persuading people to participate in psychological experiments. Availability is an important consideration in such research, which is one reason why psychologists continue to probe the behaviors of students, even though it has long been recognized that relying on them introduces bias into the results. At best, what we learn about some students might tell us things about all students…. At worst, and the worst is all too common, male students at MIT or Berkeley tell us only about male students at MIT or Berkeley, and perhaps not all that much about foreign students, older students, or female students.

    Ariely is obligated to remind his readers, most of whom are neither psychologists nor economists, of the problems of selection bias that follow from his over-reliance on students as subjects. But he fails to do so. In fact, he does the opposite: he generalizes from MIT classrooms to humankind as a whole, and with abandon. This might be called the technique of the Big Slip, gliding imperceptibly from a controlled and artificial experiment to breathtaking generalizations about matters that have puzzled philosophers and theologians through the ages. It makes for entertaining reading. Alas, it tells us little about the kind of creatures we are.

    Rather than "the Big Slip", I prefer to call it "hasty generalization". I'm not sure how big a problem this really is, as I haven't finished reading Ariely's book yet, but it is a good point to keep in mind when reading any kind of research.

  • Wolfe confuses cardinal and ordinal numbers.
  • Wolfe makes the following argument against federalism:
    [Federalism] was enshrined in the American system of government not to extend democracy but to protect slavery, and "state's rights" has been the rallying cry of regional elites ever since. In the real world, both direct democracy and federalism further elite control, and for one obvious reason: in any kind of democracy, representative or direct, people do not themselves rule, but choose the leaders who do. The more power those leaders have, the better able they are to deliver to the people what they want.

    This appears to commit the genetic fallacy in arguing against federalism based on why it was initially instituted, and guilt by association with the reference to the "rallying cry" of "state's rights". Moreover, the notion that the way to enhance democracy is to consolidate power in the federal government reminds me of H.L. Mencken's remark that "democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

Source: Alan Wolfe, "Hedonic Man", The New Republic, 7/9/2008

June 27th, 2008 (Permalink)
'Masterful.'-Hollywood Reporter

Blurb Watch:
As it is in Heaven

An ad for the Swedish film "As it is in Heaven" has the blurb: "'Masterful.'-Hollywood Reporter". The only occurrence of that string of letters in the review from that publication is in the sentence: "The rest of the cast offers sterling work as a range of characters masterfully established by Pollak and his co-scriptors." (Emphasis added.) Thus, an adverb modifying "establish" becomes an adjective presumably applying to the movie itself.

The trick of turning an adverb into an adjective in an ad blurb is one I've seen before―see the previous Blurb Watches linked below. It's a quirk of English grammar that adverbs are regularly formed from adjectives by adding the suffix "ly", which makes it possible to "quote" by dropping the suffix, thus turning an adverb into an adjective. In contrast, Latin adverbs and adjectives are often formed from a stem by adding different endings, so Roman ad writers would have one less trick.

Why did the ad writer do it? The review quoted is a very favorable one, and it should have been easy to find a good blurb―for instance: "Deeply affecting…Filled with passion, humor and much sadness." Maybe the ad writer needed to keep in practice for the bad movies.

Sources:

Previous Blurb Watches:

June 26th, 2008 (Permalink)

Dueling Polls

Obama holds 12-point lead over McCain, poll finds

Gallup Daily: Obama, McCain Tied at 45%

When polls get conflicting results, what can you do? How about believe the one whose results you like best, and dismiss the others? But that's confirmation bias! Try looking at other polls taken about the same time, instead.

The L.A. Times/Bloomberg (T/B) poll that shows Obama with a 12 percentage point lead over McCain was taken at the same time as two recent polls: A Gallup poll that had Obama with a 3-point lead and a Rasmussen poll showing Obama with a 6-point lead.

Two subsequent polls give similar results: the latest Gallup poll, which was the subject of the second headline above, that shows Obama and McCain tied; the other was another Rasmussen poll that has Obama with a 4 percentage point lead.

So, is it just Gallup and Rasmussen versus T/B? If you go back to just before the T/B poll was conducted, there are two polls by different pollsters: A Fox poll showing Obama with a 4-point lead and an Economist/YouGov poll giving Obama a 3-point lead.

What can we conclude from all this? If all the other polls showed Obama with a far smaller lead than the T/B poll, then the conclusion would be clear: the T/B poll would be an outlier and almost certainly wrong. For it to be correct, all the other polls taken just before, just after, and at the same time, would have to be wrong. However, there was also a Newsweek poll taken just before the T/B one which had Obama with an even greater lead of 15 points! I'm not sure what to make of this fact. One outlier is not so surprising, but two that go in the same direction is unlikely.

However, it looks as though both headlined polls are probably wrong, and that the truth is somewhere in between. Obama appears to be leading McCain, contra the current Gallup poll, but by a considerably smaller margin than indicated by either the T/B or Newsweek polls. Obama's lead over McCain in almost all of the recent polls is either statistically insignificant or just barely significant. However, except for the one Gallup poll, all of the recent polls show Obama leading, which is very unlikely to happen just by chance.

What's the moral of this story? Here are a couple:

  • The importance of the margin of error (MoE) in polls is highlighted when you look at how contemporary polls can vary. Any poll can be expected to be off by as much as its MoE, and most of the polls cited above are consistent with one another when that fact is taken into consideration. Thus, no individual poll is likely to be precisely correct.
  • The difference between the headlined T/B and Gallup polls is much greater than their MoEs, which means that they are inconsistent. As explained in the Resource linked below, one out of twenty polls can be expected to be off by more than the MoE. Given the frequent occurrence of political polls nowadays, especially during a presidential campaign, it shouldn't be surprising that every so often you see an outlier―of course, two similar outliers at almost the same time is surprising, as mentioned above. To spot such an outlier, compare it with concurrent polls. This again emphasizes the importance of looking at multiple polls.

Source: "2008 National General Election: McCain vs Obama", Pollster

Resource: How to Read a Poll, Fallacy Watch

Update (7/1/2008): Since the above was written, five new polls have been released―see the Source above, which has been updated to include the new polls. A new Gallup poll shows Obama with a five-point lead, and a new Rasmussen one has him ahead by six points instead of the previous four. Also, a new Economist/YouGov poll has Obama with a two-point lead. In addition, there are a couple of polls from pollsters that we haven't seen before: both a Democracy Corps poll and a Time magazine poll show Obama with a four-point lead.

All of these different polls make it highly likely that Obama has a genuine lead, though it's a single-digit lead, as opposed to the double-digit leads of the T/B and Newsweek polls, and probably a low single-digit lead. Almost none of the polls is statistically significant on its own, but the similar results reinforce one another. What was wrong with the two double-digit polls, I don't know, but it's clear now that they are outliers. Either there was some kind of systematic error involved, or coincidentally biased samples. It will be interesting to see the results of future L.A. Times/Bloomberg and Newsweek polls.

June 24th, 2008 (Permalink)

"Textbook Ambiguities"

Linguist Arnold Zwicky has an interesting post with the above title on types of ambiguity. When I first read the title, I thought that it was about ambiguities found in textbooks. However, none of the "in-the-wild" examples are from textbooks; rather, what Zwicky means by a "textbook" ambiguity is one that is "just the sort" that is found in textbooks, that is, a "textbook" ambiguity is a paradigmatic one, which is fit to be a textbook example. I don't know whether Zwicky intended his title to be ambiguous, but I thought it amusing that a post on ambiguity should have an ambiguous title.

Zwicky's post is slightly linguistically technical, so here are some terminological notes and comments on the article:

  • "Lexical ambiguity": the kind that occurs in the fallacy of equivocation.
  • "Syntactic ambiguity": also known as "amphiboly", which underlies the fallacy of the same name.
  • A number of the examples are scope ambiguities―the source of scope fallacies―and Zwicky uses brackets in much the same way as I use parentheses to indicate scope.
  • "Distributed reading": Wide scope.
  • "Narrow reading": Narrow scope.
  • The Anscombe Society example is a "textbook" example of a scope ambiguity. By the way, the Anscombe Society is named for the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, an important interpreter of the famous linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Source: Arnold Zwicky, "Textbook Ambiguities", Language Log, 4/4/2008

June 19th, 2008 (Permalink)

"100 Years" of Propaganda

Here we go again. The liberal group MoveOn has a new video that shows an infant boy with his mother, who says:

Hi, John McCain, this is Alex, he's my first. So far, his talents include trying any new food and chasing after our dog. That, and making my heart pound every time I look at him. So, John McCain, when you said you would stay in Iraq for 100 years, were you counting on Alex? Because if you were, you can't have him.

There's a minor factual error in this ad in that McCain never said that he "would" stay in Iraq for a century; rather, he said that the U.S. "could" end up staying there that long.

This ad is similar to the earlier DNC one―discussed in the Resource "Updates" below―in so far as it doesn't come right out and claim, falsely, that McCain is suggesting a century-long shooting war in Iraq. However, the protective reaction of the mother towards her child suggests that's what he meant.

As I said about the previous DNC ad, this contextomy has been fact-checked so many times now that MoveOn must know that the ad is misleading. Moreover, they include the "100 years" quote in context on a separate "substantiation" page, together with a second quote explaining the original remark:

We've got to get Americans off the front line, have the Iraqis as part of the strategy, take over more and more of the responsibilities. And then I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for 100 years or 1,000 years or 10,000 years. What they care about is a sacrifice of our most precious treasure, and that's American blood. So what I'm saying is look, if Americans are there in a support role, but they're not taking casualties, that's fine. We're in Kuwait now. As you well recall, we had a war, we stayed in Kuwait. …

I assume that MoveOn expects that most people won't actually check the so-called substantiation of the ad, which does the opposite of substantiating it. This is the sort of thing that gives propaganda a bad name!

Sources:

Resources:

June 16th, 2008 (Permalink)

Headline

Wang hurt in Yanks' blowout win

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