geoffkait,
Please brush up on your understanding of fallacies. You’ve completely misunderstood what should have been the obvious point. No my post was not a personal attack at all, and does not even imply oregonpapa believes any of those other things. In fact, if anything it relies on the opposite: that he or others here will recognize other dubious beliefs as fallacious (like homeopathy).
oregonpapa’s post obviously implied, against the skepticism of a few here, that the a far larger number of people - tens of thousands! - have bought fuses believing they make a difference.
Insofar as that is meant to imply the truth of the disputed claim "fuses make a sonic difference," it’s a fallacious argument.
It’s been recognized as a fallacy for a looooong time and it’s called:
Argumentum ad populum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
And I rightly replied to this fallacy with a type of reductio ad absurdum:
Taking the same logic ("so many people believe it, it must be true") and showing the same appeal large groups of believers can support an absurdity ("look how many customers believe homeopathy works, homeopathy must be true"). So, since this for of appeal doesn’t help distinguish the truth of the matter, it’s a poor form of rebuttal.
Hope that clears things up for you ;-)
And, anyone paying attention will note: Nothing in my reply argued that fuses DO NOT make a sonic difference. Only that the type of arguments and evidence on offer are of dubious quality.
Please brush up on your understanding of fallacies. You’ve completely misunderstood what should have been the obvious point. No my post was not a personal attack at all, and does not even imply oregonpapa believes any of those other things. In fact, if anything it relies on the opposite: that he or others here will recognize other dubious beliefs as fallacious (like homeopathy).
oregonpapa’s post obviously implied, against the skepticism of a few here, that the a far larger number of people - tens of thousands! - have bought fuses believing they make a difference.
Insofar as that is meant to imply the truth of the disputed claim "fuses make a sonic difference," it’s a fallacious argument.
It’s been recognized as a fallacy for a looooong time and it’s called:
Argumentum ad populum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
And I rightly replied to this fallacy with a type of reductio ad absurdum:
Taking the same logic ("so many people believe it, it must be true") and showing the same appeal large groups of believers can support an absurdity ("look how many customers believe homeopathy works, homeopathy must be true"). So, since this for of appeal doesn’t help distinguish the truth of the matter, it’s a poor form of rebuttal.
Hope that clears things up for you ;-)
And, anyone paying attention will note: Nothing in my reply argued that fuses DO NOT make a sonic difference. Only that the type of arguments and evidence on offer are of dubious quality.