Argumentum ad nauseam

Arguing to the point of nausea, argument by repetition

This fallacious argument is founded in the same principle as commercial advertising – the hope that people will be convinced by an argument if they hear it over, and over, and over . . . and over again until they are truly sick of it.

Fallacious argumentum ad nauseam puts people to sleep because such arguments boringly lack substance. Those who repeat well-founded cogent arguments are not committing this fallacy, whereas those who repeat weak, illogical, innacurate opinions can only hope to persuade through boring repetition.

Websites promoting special prejudices are presumbably founded for this reason – not to mention collecting donations from the credulous, the already-emotionally-convinced, or Aginners. Usenet groups abound with individuals who, whether purely for troll purposes or out of genuine dedication to nonsense, stubbornly bang on and on about ill-conceived opinions.

Giorgio Dubaya Borgia and his administration used ad nauseam emotional appeals (fear of WMDs and terrorism, Saddam Hussein has murdered Iraqi civilians) to attempt to justify an invasion of extremely dubious merit. Facts ultimatlely dispel fallacious ad nauseam claims because most people are not so foolish as to remain conned forever, and Borgia's approval ratings have plummeted.

We all make mistakes–or maybe it's just me–but only some of us are big enough to admit to our errors and to modify our belief system to better represent reality. Those who commit the ad nauseam fallacy seem to be unable to step back from their beliefs, to reassess their convictions, to learn, or to grow. The "Decider' has repeatedly demonstrated that he is too stupid to learn from his many mistakes.

“All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.” ~ Winston Churchill

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ~ Albert Einstein.

“A man's errors are his portals of discovery.” ~ James Joyce

“Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Quo Vadis?
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Straw Man Fallacy

Straw man

Creationists and proponents of intelligent [sick] design theory very frequently create straw man arguments, and then huff and puff and blow the straw man down. (The straw man fallacy is a form of red herring argument that involves attacking a deliberately weakened version of the opponent's actual argument.)

The frequency of this argument within creationist propaganda is a reaction to the much stronger argument presented by evidential and experimental science. Confronted with the facts of scientific knowledge, creationists and those arguing for ‘intelligent [sick] design’ typically retreat into straw man arguments, arguments from incredulity, or outright denial.

For this reason, I believe that there is often little point in explaining the facts of science to those who have a strong emotional need to believe in some form of creationism. Creationists typically know so little science that they could not assess the facts of science even if their minds were not closed to the threatening facts. Instead they repeat stale old misrepresentations of science gleaned from the numerous creationist websites that clog up the ether. The point is that any supposed scientific principle attacked by a creationist ought to be checked out before taking the red-herring-bait.

The point mutation is one target of the fallacious straw man argument – creationists argue that mutations at a single locus (position) within a chromosome could not be responsible for macroevolution. The argument is fallacious because evolutionary biologists do not claim that point mutations are responsible for all of biological evolution, whether microevolution or macroevolution, rather they have demonstrated that other sources of genetic variation are far more important. It is irrelevant to attack science through an argument that is already established within science – there simply ceases to be an argument, except one in line with the erroneous conclusions drawn by creationists.

In their fallacious straw man arguments, creationists and advocates for ‘intelligent [sick] design theory’ huff and puff against a weakened version of science, and hence a weakened version of the natural world. Creationists ignore the facts in order to support their arguments against the fact of biological evolution, and no argument can be considered cogent when it deliberately, or ignorantly, misrepresents facts. The argument may have emotional appeal to those who are committed to a belief in the Special Creation of Genesis, but the argument does not achieve its ends within the realm of logic.

The Straw Man Fallacy "Straw Man is one of the commonest of fallacies. It is endemic in public debates on politics, ethics, and religion. . . . The Straw Man is a type of Red Herring because the arguer is attempting to refute his opponent's position, and in the context is required to do so, but instead attacks a position—the "straw man"—not held by his opponent." :

Quo Vadis?
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Logic

Logic can be symbolic or informal.

Symbolic logic examines the precise symbolic representation of logical concepts, the abstract relationships between these concepts, and the systematization of these relationships. Informal logic involves the application of logical principles to assessment the types of informal arguments and claims that we encounter in daily life.

Propositional logic is a branch of symbolic logic dealing with propositions as units and with their combinations and the connectives that relate them – if, then compound statements. Propositional Logic Terms and Symbols Proposition evaluator.

Categorical logic and categorical syllogisms are more concrete than is propositional logic – some, all, and/not. Venn diagram evaluator.

An understanding of Fallacies of Logic – recognized structural errors in argumentation – provides a shortcut to assessing the cogency of an argument. We most often encounter propositional arguments in daily life, while the logic of science, and of mathematics in particular, is more often categorical.

Quo Vadis?
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