[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance (Rushdie: Just give me that old-time atheism!)
>Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
>Tue May 31 06:51:43 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Yoshie:
>>Jim Devine commits a divine logical fallacy here called "Appeal to 
>>Ignorance: <http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ignorant.html>.  The burden 
>>of proof is on those who make an improbable claim, such as "God 
>>exists," "gods exist," or "I have a herbal remedy that makes your 
>>penis three inches longer and thicker."  Those who fall for an 
>>improbable claim, merely because there is no evidence yet that the 
>>claim is untrue, are called "suckers."  They are the ones who fuel 
>>the economy of spam.  :->
<snip>
>What's an "improbably claim" anyway?


>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance (Rushdie: Just give me that old-time atheism!)
>Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
>Tue May 31 07:53:08 PDT 2005
<snip>
>that's the right question


>[lbo-talk] Appeal to Ignorance
>Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
>Tue May 31 13:26:51 PDT 2005
<snip>
>Who decides what's improbable anyway?

What's an improbable claim?  That all depends on the prevailing level 
of credulity among the given populace.  After all, some people buy 
almost anything -- from penis-enhancing pills, alien abduction 
stories, Elvis sightings, 9/11 conspiracy theories, to God.  :->

It occurs to me that appeal to ignorance is a device often implicitly 
or explicitly used by the George W. Bush administration and its 
supporters with regard to "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, 
first putting the burden of proof on the pre-war Iraqi government 
(demanding that it prove that they don't have any) and then clinging 
to the possibility of their existence as long as possible (floating 
speculations that they had been moved to Syria before the invasion of 
Iraq, etc.).  It worked because too many Americans were too credulous 
to say, "Hey, that's a very improbable claim -- the burden is on 
_you_ to prove that they still exist in Iraq."
-- 
Yoshie

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