The Nirmukta Freethought Community

Below is a comment that was left on our second article on the Tehelka radiation study report here: http://nirmukta.com/2010/06/15/fact-chec...formation/

Are there any logical fallacies here? If yes, what are they. Here's a new site that lists some logical fallacies: http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ I haven't checked it all, so if you don't like the content please suggest another reference site.

Quote:mr kamal, i dont know about cell phone cancer and your research but, cell tower radiation has to be accepted. Because noneof the companies are adhereing to the who standards of 600 mw per sq m. Today in andhra pradesh in tv9 news channel they have shown the radiation levels in different areas. Most odf the areas are in danger levels above 4000 mw/sqm. How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives? I am personally experiencing the difference in my health condition since the 4 cell towers have been erected around my house a 2-3 years back. Iam feeling sleeplessness due to the radiation. Sameis the case with even my brother.

Please leave your responses below. Thanks!

The poster claims that the increased radiation is the cause of his sleeplessness, whereas this has not been established. It's a deductive fallacy.

I haven't been closely following the Tehelka radiation study reports, so I have sneakily assumed that the information in the post above is enough to figure out the fallacy . So is there anything more to it?

Nice one, donatello.

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

This is a common type of tautology called the circular argument. In order for the statement to be true we must assume that the cell phone companies are deliberately allowing the destruction of "citizens health and lives", which is exactly what the whole disagreement is about! Emotional pleas are only meaningful if the person making the argument gets the facts right.

Anyone who watches TV9 will experience sleeplessness, as it has some of the poorest quality reporting and sensationalism.

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

I think that's ad hominem

Quote:I am personally experiencing the difference in my health condition since the 4 cell towers have been erected around my house a 2-3 years back. Iam feeling sleeplessness due to the radiation. Sameis the case with even my brother.

Using anecdotal evidence to assert a truth.

(04-07-2010 10:32 AM)Ajita Kamal Wrote:  Nice one, donatello.

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

This is a common type of tautology called the circular argument. In order for the statement to be true we must assume that the cell phone companies are deliberately allowing the destruction of "citizens health and lives", which is exactly what the whole disagreement is about! Emotional pleas are only meaningful if the person making the argument gets the facts right.

Ajita, I also see it as a strawman agrument. The article was questioning the veracity of the Tehelka report. But the commenter assumed that you were defending cell phone companies that play with people's heath.

(15-07-2010 01:19 AM)Lije Wrote:  

(04-07-2010 10:32 AM)Ajita Kamal Wrote:  Nice one, donatello.

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

This is a common type of tautology called the circular argument. In order for the statement to be true we must assume that the cell phone companies are deliberately allowing the destruction of "citizens health and lives", which is exactly what the whole disagreement is about! Emotional pleas are only meaningful if the person making the argument gets the facts right.

Ajita, I also see it as a strawman agrument. The article was questioning the veracity of the Tehelka report. But the commenter assumed that you were defending cell phone companies that play with people's heath.

Yeah, it is. I once saw a graphical representation of the relationships between logical fallacies, and it blew my mind. There are many ways of approaching each error in reason, and many of the specific fallacies that we talk about are part of other more general categories of fallacies. As you pointed out, sometimes a single sentence may exhibit many different fallacious forms of reasoning.

(05-07-2010 08:14 PM)bala Wrote:  

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

I think that's ad hominem

Isnt that begging the question?

PS: I'm sorry for waking up a dead thread but I'm reading up on all the fallacies and need some practice

(06-09-2010 05:41 PM)mohankarthik Wrote:  

(05-07-2010 08:14 PM)bala Wrote:  

Quote:"How can you defend cell phone companies when they are playing with citizens health and lives?"

I think that's ad hominem

Isnt that begging the question?

PS: I'm sorry for waking up a dead thread but I'm reading up on all the fallacies and need some practice

Definitely, begging the question. I mentioned in another comment above that the particular line that you quote is a type of tautology known as the circular argument. That's another way of saying 'begging the question'

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/09/11/t...r-fallacy/

“A community that is afflicted with an unusual number of cancers quite naturally looks for a cause in the environment – in the ground, the water, the air. And the correlations are sometimes found: the cluster may arise after, say, contamination of the water supply by a possible carcinogen. The problem is that when scientists have tried to confirm such causes, they haven’t been able to. Raymond Richard Neutra, California’s chief environmental health investigator and an expert on cancer clusters, points out that among hundreds of exhaustive, published investigations of residential clusters in the United States, not one has convincingly identified an underlying environmental cause. Abroad, in only a handful of cases has a neighborhood cancer cluster been shown to arise from an environmental cause. And only one of these cases ended with the discovery of an unrecognized carcinogen.”

The Cancer Cluster Myth, The New Yorker, Feb. 1999