An observation on transient military metaphors

As noted in a previous post, I have been involved in a 40th reunion with fellow (and I hasten to add, former) professional killers (Australian and New Zealand entrants - class of '67 - to the then Royal Military College Duntroon). A rollicking good time was had by all, and in the course of the various events, I was reminded of vernacular expressions which we commonly used then, but rarely use now. In due course, I will be pleased to resurrect some which have a particular pithiness and which evoke appropriate imagery. But there is one I will not be tempted to use again as it is (and was) puzzling. The expression in question was used to disparage someone who was seen to be currying favour with a superior. The supplicant in question was said to be "pissing in (the superior's) pocket". A moment's reflection on this expression reveals its singular inappropriateness as a metaphor for currying favour. If someone was seeking a favour from me, the last thing I would recommend is that he or she should "piss in my pocket". Of course, such an expression could never emerge today as it is clearly sexist, whatever it's other possible merits. Think about it.

Woman beater didn’t kill 90 Iraqis

This Red Herring Fallacy comes from the lawyer for [alleged] woman beater Matthew Newton:

The lawyer for Matthew Newton today described assault charges against the entertainer as a "very minor matter".

…The son of Bert and Patti Newton is accused of assaulting his former girlfriend, actress Brooke Satchwell.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm…

"Ninety people died in Iraq today, most of them kids," Newton's solicitor Chris Murphy told reporters outside. "This is a very minor matter."

This kind of Non Sequitur is a Red Herring; no different to the kind used in movies and books. It is a deliberate attempt to divert attention away from the real issue under consideration - that Newton [allegedly] beat his [now ex] girlfriend.

Yep, 90 people dying is worse, for sure. But it has nothing to do with the case. And I wonder if Ms Satchwell thinks being assaulted "… is a very minor matter"?

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Source: Newton case 'minor' compared with Iraq - The Sydney Morning Herald - 17 Jan 2007.

Examples of Red Herrings

The advocate deliberately introduces an irrelevant topic into a discussion or debate in order to divert attention away from the topic under consideration.
See these examples:

• It’s okay to be a racist…
• Woman beater didn’t kill 90 Iraqis

Listen to the podcast - Hunting Humbug 101: Tutorial 05 - Moving the Goalposts and Red Herrings
http://www.archive.org/download/HuntingHumbug101Episode1-WhatIsHumbug/05Tutorial05_MovingTheGoalposts2.mp3

An extreme example of the Red Herring Fallacy is called the "Chewbacca Defense". From wikipedia:

Chewbacca Defense originated in the animated series South Park. The show satirized attorney Johnnie Cochran's closing argument defending O.J. Simpson in his murder trial. "Chewbacca Defense", meaning a defense consisting solely of nonsensical arguments meant to confuse a jury, has since been applied outside of references to South Park and has been integrated into popular culture slang. 

In the episode, Chef discovers that Alanis Morissette's (fictional) hit song "Stinky Britches" is the same as a song he wrote years ago, before he abandoned his musical aspirations. Chef contacts a "major record company" executive, seeking only to have his name credited as the composer of "Stinky Britches." Chef's claim is substantiated by a twenty-year-old recording of Chef performing the song. 

The record company refuses, and furthermore hires Johnnie Cochran, who files a lawsuit against Chef for harassment. In court, Cochran resorts to his "famous" Chewbacca Defense, which he "used during the Simpson trial", according to Gerald Broflovski. 

Cochran: Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Stinky Britches" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! 

Gerald Broflovski: Dammit! 

Chef: What? 

Gerald: He's using the Chewbacca Defense! 

Cochran: Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

LAME and insipid person of no consequence has modest success

AN Australian was barred from a London-Melbourne flight unless he removed a T-shirt depicting George Bush as the world's number one terrorist. Allen Jasson was also prevented from catching a connecting flight within Australia later the same day unless he removed the offending T-shirt. Mr Jasson says Qantas and Virgin Blue were engaging in censorship but the airlines say the T-shirt was a security issue and could affect the sensitivities of other passengers. "The woman at the security check-in (at Heathrow) just said to me, 'You are not wearing that'," Mr Jasson, 55, said yesterday. Mr Jasson, who lives in London and was flying to Australia to visit family on December 2, said he was first told he would need to turn the T-shirt inside-out before he would be allowed to board the Qantas flight. "I told her I had the right to express my opinion," he said. SOURCE

Mr Jasson is a classic example of a disingenuous LAME (Look At Me Everybody) person. He is disingenuous because he is actually thrilled that he was banned (while claiming that he is upset). He has succeeded in his one and only aim of having everyone look at him (for his allotted 15 minutes of fame). If he was genuinely concerned about missing his flight, he would have turned his T-shirt inside out, as was suggested by the long-suffering flight attendant. (It is not clear whether Mr Jasson stuck to his guns, or chose to be a piker - some news sources have him missing a flight or flights, others imply that he caved in and reversed his T-shirt.)

I am flying to New Zealand tomorrow for a 40th reunion with former comrades (40 years ago we were brutal and licentious soldiery, today we are kind and restrained). I am packing my "I AM WITH STUPID" T-shirt in my cabin baggage in case I find myself sitting next to a LAME person like Mr Jasson.

Ignorant gardeners specialise in propagating factoids

This is an image of one of the organic garden gnomes who currently have a gig as eccentric presenters on Gardening Australia. The eccentricities of the presenters are standard boiler-plate stuff - studied, contrived and irritating. But that's not the reason for this post.

This post is about the relentless tendency on this tendentious and useless show to present factoids as facts. I saw a good example today on a repeat of an earlier broadcast - I quote from the linked fact sheet (actually a WTF? fact sheet - otherwise known as a factoid sheet... or fallacy sheet).

Jerry (pictured) explains the uses of powdered sulphur. "Sulphur is one of the oldest garden remedies and it is as good today as when people first started using it. It's got multiple uses in the garden and it's organic."

No Jerry, Sulphur is an element, whether powdered or not. It is not an organic compound. Organic is not a synonym for "like, really nice warm-fuzzy type stuff which really like, um you know, peaceful spiritual gardeners who are at one with the Gaia Earth-spirit like to use".

Hemlock on the other hand (for example), is organic. Chow down on hemlock Jerry, and you'll be compost yourself before you have time to dust yourself down with a liberal sprinkling of protective Earth-spirit naturally occurring Sulphur. (Of course, the "naturally occurring" Sulphur Jerry has in his little sprinkly-can has had to be mined and then extracted from Sulphur compounds by industrial chemists.)

Jerry concludes his piece (link here) with the ultimate inanity: "So sulphur is a great natural product that is useful for a variety of purposes in the garden".

If Sulphur can be said to be a "natural product", then so can any other element or compound - including cyanide, arsenic, mercury and radium.

On why England is crap

Finally, a semi-legitimate reason to write about cricket, in particular England's misery during this Ashes tour.

This story about the useless touring English cricket team reminded me of this post I did on the fallacy False Attribution WRT Professor Juan Cole. It comes in the form of a possibly "fake but true" Email to cricket commentator and writer Simon Barnes:

Dear Mr Barnes
As an ardent cricket fan of the non "Barmy Army" variety , I hope youwill forgive me for writing you on the subject of my experiences ofbeing in the same 5 star hotel as both the English team and indeed manyof your journalistic "colleagues" for the last week or so in Perth.I thought it might be best if I diarised the experience of myself and mycompanion, another who prefers luxury to discomfort! I can't beabsolutely sure of all times due to various (occasionally alcoholic)reasons but I hope my point will be clear fairly early on….

The email continues outlining what the Emailer claims to have seen at breakfast in the hotel leading up to and during the 3rd Test. Here's one example:

Wednesday 13th December- c9.15am-T Day minus 1 day - we've just had thesame hallucinatory experience as yesterday except that KP and Monty seemto have found each other at breakfast. Oh yes and Andrew Strauss can beheard laughing about how little sleep he got last night 'cos his nipperwas up half the night! What a 21st century man he is. I mean if I waspossibly going to be facing the best cricket bowling attack in the worldwithin 24 hours, I would probably want at least 12 hours completelyuninterrupted sleep - that Strauss bloke must be super-human!

And then finally, the English team's reaction the after losing the Ashes:

Monday 18th December - c11pm - we've just been out drowning our sorrows after Christmas has come a bit early for England and we've been stuffedharder from behind (and in front and indeed sideways) than any turkeycould reasonably expect to be. We feel in need of a bit of cheering up.We get back to the hotel to see much merriment going on in the Bar. We figure it's those naughty Sky journos again, living it up. But no, it'smost of the English squad (plus WAGS obviously) laughing and joking.Well I suppose it was only a game of cricket after all. And I'm sure allthose people who've spent all that cash coming out to see the gamesreally wouldn't mind the guys looking as though they've just lost avillage match would they? The really funny thing though is that in themiddle of this throng of laughter, one player stands out as looking asthough he's feeling a bit upset. Trust him to spoil the frivolities,that KP. Oh and where's Monty? Gone to bed early someone said. Anotherparty pooper.

I found this email on the blog of freelance Cricket journalist Rod Gilmour, Nutley to Nagpur: cricket blog. He has used an unverifiable account of the English team's [lack of] preparation due to the distraction of WAGs (wives and girlfriends) to justify the commonly held view (in the press) that the English team's mind wasn't on the job. He says:

We all know about the WAGs and the 90-odd personnel on tour, but the email reads true all the same, even if it is all lies.

"…reads true… even if it is all lies…" So even if it's not true, it's still the reason England have performed so poorly this tour? (And continue to play poorly, just beating New Zealand doesn't count for much.) If a source is unverifiable, it is simply not evidence, no matter how true it sounds. To use it is to make a False Attribution.*

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*However, all that being said, it does actually ring true… though, everyone knows the reason why England lost the Ashes and the English are crap at sport is because, as a general rule, English people lack rudimentary coordination (a legacy of being indoors all day).

Celebrity amateur climatologist-film-maker fakes data shock

This is a photograph published in a post on a respected news site - The Onion. It shows the inventor of the internet, Al Gore deliberately melting a portion of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. It is one of the many strategies he is said to have used to boost the credibility of his recent film - An Incontinent Truth.

Read the full, shocking disclosure here.

Elective stupidity

A number of recent tedious and fruitless conversations have had the effect of turning my thoughts to a concept which I will label elective stupidity. Elective stupidity is stupidity by choice. Electively stupid persons are joyfully ignorant and scatterbrained; relentlessly inattentive, and wilfully obtuse when they consider a mildly complex issue put before them (or a mildly vexing problem which they might encounter in daily life).

The key attribute of the electively stupid person is that he or she has the potential intellectual capacity to examine an issue or problem in some depth, but he or she chooses to not use that potential.

It is not always easy to determine if a person is practising elective stupidity - after all, the obtuse and scatterbrained person may simply be stupid - how can we know for sure?

For example, and as noted above, I have had a number of recent pointless conversations with a person who would appear to the casual observer to be brainless. But I happen to know that in the past, this person has demonstrated a high degree of cognitive competence. The question arises in my mind: in our recent conversations, was this hitherto intelligent person (a) practising elective stupidity, or was he/she simply (b) deteriorating mentally?

After some reflection on this issue, I devised a perfect hypothetical test which would have established the truth of the matter. Alas, the test will have to remain a thought-experiment as it is probably not ethical.

THE TEST Bind the scatterbrain to a chair and hold a pistol to his or her temple. Make the following statement:

"Right, I am about to make a brief and simple statement of fact or opinion. I want you to listen to the statement carefully without interruption. Then I want you to reply to the statement in such a way that you give some minimal evidence that you have heard and understood the general nature of my statement. You do not have to agree with me or disagree with me - merely provide evidence that you paid some attention to what I had to say. If you interrupt me during my ten-second statement, or if you cannot give a topic-relevant response, I will be forced to pull the trigger."

Given such an incentive, the electively stupid subject would presumably comply with the instructions. The genuinely stupid could not. (The gun would not be loaded of course, as I would never shoot a genuinely stupid person.)

UFO cause by global warming! WTF?

Initially, when I read the following:

Officials are mystified after a mysterious metallic object crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home, although one expert said it could be a meteorite…

The object is the size of a golf ball but weighs as much as a can of soup, according to AP.

"I saw it's a UFO," said one neighbour.

Another believed it was connected to "some kind of global warming thing."

I thought that the most appropriate fallacy would be False Cause; Correlation Error, as the second neighbour attributed the UFO (the first neighbour is right, at this time it is an Unidentified Falling Object) to global warming. However, the False Cause; Correlation Error requires the erroneous belief that there is a causal link between phenomena to be apparent. The only thing apparent in this case is that the claim that a UFO is caused by global warming is simply moronic. It puts the "M" in stupid. Hence my classification of the above claim as a WTF? Fallacy instead.
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Via: Tim Blair

Source: Mysterious object crashes into New Jersey home - news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca - 5 Jan 2007

The 51st skeptics' circle is up

I'll See You at Enceladus.

Template update

I've just upgraded to the new blogger, so I'm messing around with the template a bit. Hopefully nothing untoward will occur. If it does, bear with me.

Update: it seems to have gone okay.

Xenophobic electorate elects PM responsible for 130000 migrants a year

Clive Hamilton in the Sydney Morning Herald:

Rarely in our history has a federal government pursued such a high level of immigration as the Howard Government. Each year about 130,000 new migrants arrive on our shores… the Government plans to increase the numbers.

The fact that John Howard, who has gained re-election by exploiting Hansonite xenophobia, has presided over a record inflow of foreigners is an irony little remarked, not least because the Government tries to keep the figures quiet.

There are two types of humbug I wish to examine here. First is a Self Defeating Argument - with the statement that the government exploits xenophobia in the electorate yet is responsible for mass immigration. These two claims from Hamilton are inconsistent, and given one of them is a fact (130000 immigrants), the other (xenophobic electorate) would seem to be false. However, it could be true if it was also a fact that the government tries to keep these figures quiet (as he claims). Well, I found the figures in about 2 minutes of browsing. Perhaps it's just an uninterested media?

The second bit of humbug actually voids the first in a way. Technically, Hamilton doesn't offer up a Self Defeating Argument, as he hasn’t actually linked the immigration numbers to the claim of xenophobia. As a matter of fact, he hasn't provided any evidence for this claim. He is simply Propagating a Factoid.

Now, I could be wrong about all this. The Howard government might try to keep the immigration figures quiet to keep onside with a xenophobic electorate. But Hamilton hasn't provided one shred of evidence for these claims.
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Source: It's life, but certainly not as we want it - Clive Hamilton - Sydney Morning Herald - December 30, 2006.

Technorati Tagged - Fallacy, Self Defeating Argument, Factoid Propagation.