A cornucopia of convoluted corrupting fallacies (CC)

As we have been discussing fallacies in class, and we need look outside of our classwork for examples, I new I needed to look no further than the Holy grail of fallacious reasoning and rhetoric, a veritable treasure trove of examples and a testimony to just how bad people's reasoning can be - Conservapedia. Written from "a self described American conservative and Christian point of view" (Wikipedia), it is also described by it's rival site, RationalWiki, as a " purposefully deceitful, heavily biased, conservative blog project  encyclopedia project". The site's use of fallacies are quite literally too numerous to list (as you will discover if you visit the site yourself), but I will list 3 of the best one here for your enjoyment. 

A good place to start is the page on Liberals. "A liberal is someone who favors increased government spending, power, and control, as in ObamaCare, as well as the censorship of Christianity.". My Webster's  dictionary says otherwise. "Liberal: Not literal or strict; tolerant; favoring reform or progress.". Wikipedia defines liberalism as "A political or social philosophy advocating the freedom of the individual, parliamentary systems of government, nonviolent modification of political, social, or economic institutions to assure unrestricted development in all spheres of human endeavor, and governmental guarantees of individual rights and civil liberties.". This is a very clear, yet poorly executed, example of a straw man fallacy.

Moving on down the auricle into a list of what "liberals" support and or practice, I see more fallacies than I even really care to mention. They seem to greatly using the appeal to tradition fallacy, as things listed include "Anti-Americanism", "Destroying the Christian foundations on which America was built on", "Ending western morality", and "Denial of traditional gender roles". None of these arguments have any real substance behind them, merely hollow appeals to tradition.

Moving even deeper into the article, we find this gem of a section "Liberalism and bestiality", entirely based on the total skewing, debasement and slandering of a professor of ethics, Peter Singer. They claim he supports such things as bestiality, infanticide, necrophilia, etc. etc. you get the idea. These claims are, of course, entirely false, but moreover than that the argument of the entire section is a a kind of reverse genetic fallacy, as well as a false cause and effect fallacy. Peter Singer supports bestiality, Peter Singer is a liberal, therefore liberals support bestiality. The article also repeatedly talks about the connection between atheists and liberals, and below the section it has a link to an entirely separate article about "Atheism and bestiality". Implying the argument that "Liberals are Atheists, Liberals support bestiality, therefore Atheism leads to bestiality" - wait what? Either way, there you have it, a genetic and false cause and effect fallacy all wrapped up into one nice little package.

I could write for pages and pages about the hundreds if not thousands of fallacies they employ throughout their thousands of pages of swiss-cheese consistency writing. But frankly, I have better things to do with my time, and I'm worried that that would just dignify it.

So I leave you with a link, and a quote from Dante. 

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"

http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page                    

Metaphors (RD)

The more eloquent cousin of the simile, the metaphor is a rhetorical device that has been used and reused for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The core concept of a metaphor is the comparison of two ideas, objects, experiences, etc. without the use of "like" or "and".

Examples of this device are everywhere in reading from the most casual of books, to the heaviest of literature. Perhaps one of the most famous metaphors, and one of the most phrases, "All the word's a stage, and all the men and women merely players", from Shakespeare's As You Like It compares the world we live in and the lives we live to a play happening, "And one man in his time plays many parts". It is obviously a brilliant metaphor, which is why is has stood the test of time.

Another, and almost as famous Shakespearean metaphor is the famous line from Sonnet 18 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day". Here, he compares the fairness/beauty of the subject (probably a woman) to the splendor of a sunny summer day. This one is particularly effective because the love of summer and sunny days is cross-cultural idea, and is almost a social norm. As such, it makes it a very effective metaphor that has remained for hundreds of years.

As somewhat less well-known, but still famous example would be from Emily Dickinson's poem Hope where she writes "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.". Here she compares the idea of hope to a bird that perches in ones soul and sings the song of hope. This is a very interesting metaphor, as she says "thing with feathers that perches" instead of bird. I imagine the purpose of this would be to avoid any sort of preconceived notions of birds. It instead allows the reader to create their own mental image of a "hope bird" perching in the soul. Overall, this is what makes is such an effective metaphor.

These three examples illustrate some of the most famous metaphors in literature, and also show why the metaphor is one of the classic tried and true rhetorical devices.  

Not quite fair and balanced.

The situation with the civil war in Syria is a mess. That is stating the obvious however, as any casual observer could see that. What is equally a mess is the reporting of certain media outlets on these events, namely, Fox News. I, however, cannot say that I am really all that surprised to find this little gem nestled in the sea of irrational, pharisaical, religiously biased reporting, subverted and twisted language, and of course, the ever-present fervent hatred of Barrack Obama. The article is titled "GOP Leaders should let Allah Syria's Islamic civil war". Let us notice a few things here. Firstly, even with the absence of inflection that comes with the spoken word, one can see the mocking tone that "Allah" is said with, the writer scoffing at the idea of a god different than his. Secondly, the writer very specifically that it is an Islamic civil war, exemplifying the classic American bias against anything middle-eastern. Moving into the article, the writer cannot help but once again point out just how much of a demon Obama is. "While America continues to become an economic and moral wasteland under this regime..." (Horowitz). The author has chosen to use the word "regime" instead of administration or presidency to obviate once again his hatred of Obama. The article goes on to provide various fallacious and biased reasons why intervening in Syria would spell doom for the United States, this idea personified in the statement "Our only interest in Syria is ensuring that as many Islamists on both sides are killed and keep each other busy so they can't affect our national interests or threaten Israel .". Indeed, the writer suggests that simply letting the "Islamists" kill each other is a very good option. It simply does not matter to him if thousands of civilians are caught in the crossfire. Not only is this statement morally rotten, but the writers, puffed up, pompous, ignorant blindly chauvinistic figuratively turns his nose up at the idea of lesser beings getting in the way of his grand plans, in this case, the repeal of the so-called "Obamacare". "Republicans should vote with a unified voice against this ridiculous escapade, and summarily reconvene the fight against Obamacare.". It's truly sobering to see that in the authors mind, the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children are nothing in the face of his dislike of a healthcare bill. This kind of deceitful, biased reporting proves that one must be truly careful when choosing what to believe.   

 Link to article - http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/03/gop-leaders-should-let-allah-sort-out-syria-islamic-civil-war/

Ethos, Logos, and Pathos in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"

The book I read,  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, has one main focus that is seen throughout the entire work. That is, telling the story of Henrietta Lacks. In short, the speaker is the author, Rebecca Skloot, the audience is the general population, anyone interested in science/ethics, and people who don't know the story of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who lived from 1920-1951. Her life was cut short by an incredibly virulent from of cervical cancer, which quickly killed her, but also just happened to launch a medical revolution. A sample of her tumor was taken against the wishes of her family, and it just happened to end up in the hands of George Gey, a tissue researcher that was attempting to grow immortal human cells, ones that replicated forever - and so he did. The HeLa cell line was born, transforming into a multi-million dollar industry, not which one single dime went to the Lack's family. More than that, the cells also caused the medical revolution, leading to the momentous creation of the polio vaccine. Does the cells usefulness justify the fact they were taken without permission, should the Lack's family receive a cut of the profits made off her cells, and who was Henrietta Lacks? These questions provide the general basis of the purpose of this book.    

Skloot establishes her ethos heavily in the first few pages. She establishes herself as an average high school student, and then an average biology student in college, but one who had a particular interest in the HeLa cell line, and more importantly, where they came from. She continues to make herself sound very average, simply a person with a great curiosity in a particular story. She also paints a very specific image of herself, "I grew up in a safe, quiet, middle-class neighborhood...." (Skloot 7), further expounding on her average-ness. Despite this, towards the second half and end, she herself enters the story, and begins narrating her actions as a character, developing herself along with the story and other characters.        

Logos is employed in this work mainly in a sort of section were the author digresses from the current narrative and goes on to explain scientific or statistical back story, such as explaining the basic function of cells, or giving statistical information such as "One scientist estimates that if you could pile all HeLa ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons" (Skloot 2). The book remains story and character driven, though, and the employment of these sections wane as the book progresses, and the story goes more into the modern day, and the authors experience essentially finding out this story.    

The elicitation of pathos is something that happens often in this book, and with good reason. Henrietta grew up in the 1920-1930's, where a combination of poverty and racism made life very difficult for the Lack's family. Most reasonable people would agree that racism is unacceptable, and in fact a bane upon society, and as such the massive inequality between black and white people in those days is sure to stir some sympathy. Later on in her life, in the 1940's and 50's, she gets a super-aggressive cancer of the cervix, which metastasizes throughout her entire body, choking her from the inside, and eventually causing her painful death due to uremic poisoning, after her kidneys failed. Skloot's very vivid medic terminology, as well as her acute, and frankly at some points disgusting imagery truly captures her conditions horror, not to mention the emotional pain felt by her family and friends as they watch her die. Henrietta's personal story is not the only way the book elicits pathos, however. Later in the book, as Skloot actually gets close to the surviving members of the Lack's family, and their struggles with Henrietta's cells, it becomes more and more apparent that they are all caught in the middle of something that they wanted no part of in the first place. "It's not only the story of HeLa cells and Henrietta Lacks, but of Henrietta"s family-particularly Deborah- and their lifelong struggle to make peace with the existence of those cells, and the science that made them possible." (Skloot 7).          

Would I read another?

I absolutely would read another book by this author. This book was a pleasure to read, and though it may have been dry in some of the heavily historical/scientific areas, I still wanted to read it through to the end. After I had finished it, stood back, looked at the notes, thought about the amount of time it took the write, I realized it was an absolutely prodigious work of journalism. "The source materials I relied on to write this book filled multiple file cabinets, and the hundreds of hours of interviews I conducted ...fill several shelves worth of notebooks." (Skloot 338). I would go as far as to say that it's one of a kind, and needs to be read. In a way, though, I feel almost like we will not be getting another book from her like this. By profession, she's not a novelist, she writes for publications like Popular Science and is a journalist for PBS's Nova. I feel that it's perfectly possible for her to continue journalism, and not write another book. If she ever writes another book however, I will be first in line to get it.     

Effect on thoughts and theories

This book did not directly effect my thoughts theories, views of the world, etc. That being said, it certainly taught me an important lesson. That is, humanity and empathy must be at the center of science and medicine, always. It is imperative that scientists especially must keep in mind that when dealing with people that they are people and not just cells or numbers or enzymes. The book also brings up a related problem that is not easily solved with empathy and understanding. That being, the borderline nefarious world of tissue banking and research. All throughout the book and especially in the afterword Skloot exposes the reader to the fact that when doctors remove things from your body, they don't have to tell you where it's going for what its going to be used for. Everything from tonsils to blood samples are kept, stored and possibly experimented on. On the plus side, experimentation on tissues like these has led to modern medicine as we know it. On the down side, not knowing where your tissues are going and the fact that you have no ownership over something when it's removed from your body means they can be used for things you do not want them to be, and also means you do not get any money made off of them, such as in Henrietta Lacks' case. Companies made millions selling vials of her cells to researchers, and yet her family did see a cent of it. Overall, it opens the reader's eyes to a world usually hidden from public view, and also teaches the lesson that ignorance can be bliss.   

Patterns

Throughout the book I am reading, I have noticed one main pattern. Saying that, that pattern is not particularly subtle, nor do I believe it was meant to be. The pattern is simply that every few chapters or so the perspective changes from the narration of historical events to the author's, Rebecca Skloot's, experience tracking this story down, as well as her experience leading up to her investigation into it. This dual narrative works quite well, as her search for the story is almost as important as the history aspect. I have seen dual narratives like this before in books, and in some ways it is a personal detriment to my experience of the book. What happens is I very quickly start to enjoy one narrative over the other, so the time I spend reading the narrative I less prefer, I am waiting to start reading the other one. My personal preferences aside, in reality it is an excellent technique for telling this story.