Reply #17: Exactly [View All]

[Jack Rabbit]

I believe Aristotelean logic should be taught in public schools along with algebra and geometry. That fact that most Americans learn formal reasoning through mathematics goes a long ways in explaning how a nation that can put a man on the moon would take any thing the neocons say seriously.

A nation in which a typical citizen is somebody who knows a bad argument when he hears one is the sort of place a democracy can thrive.

I like your example of the bandwagon fallacy (aka argumentum ad populum). I'll have to add it to my arsenal. Mine is to simply to assert that if a survey showed a majority of people believed the earth is flat, it wouldn't alter any facts to the contrary.