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Are logical Fallacies good heuristics?

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Are logical Fallacies ever good heuristics?
Yes 40%  40%  [ 4 ]
No 60%  60%  [ 6 ]
Total votes : 10

JakobVirgil
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25 Sep 2012, 6:18 pm

ruveyn wrote:
GGPViper wrote:

However, abductive reasoning goes from a phenomenon to a likely cause, not a logically necessary one.


Only God knows necessary causes. All humans can manage is hypothesizing likely causes. And if humans come up with ten possible causes all consistent with the evidence at hand then they will pick the cause that is most plausible (a subjective judgment) or the cause that is most tractable for the mathematics available.

Necessary causes are a philosophical will of the wisp. No one has ever proven an empirically established causes as a necessary cause. Necessary causes or for philosophers and other producers of effluent. Likely causes that fit the evidence are for engineers and scientists who actually do something useful for the rest of us.

ruveyn

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AspieRogue

25 Sep 2012, 7:32 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Some of the informal fallacies are, as a few of them are valid forms of inductive reasoning. So, appealing to an authority is a good heuristic. Valuing the person's character traits is a good heuristic. And so on and so forth.

Not all of them are beneficial, as some are blatant efforts to win, or characterized only by sloppiness. I'm definitely not going to break it down too much.



How is appeal to authority a good heuristic? If a person is an authority due to their credentials and their academic knowledge, then I would agree with you. If you regard someone(or certain people) as an authority because of their social status and use the appeal to authority fallacy that is a very BAD heuristic.



Tiranasta
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25 Sep 2012, 10:17 pm

AspieRogue wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Some of the informal fallacies are, as a few of them are valid forms of inductive reasoning. So, appealing to an authority is a good heuristic. Valuing the person's character traits is a good heuristic. And so on and so forth.

Not all of them are beneficial, as some are blatant efforts to win, or characterized only by sloppiness. I'm definitely not going to break it down too much.



How is appeal to authority a good heuristic? If a person is an authority due to their credentials and their academic knowledge, then I would agree with you. If you regard someone(or certain people) as an authority because of their social status and use the appeal to authority fallacy that is a very BAD heuristic.

No, it's a good heuristic giving an incorrect result. We use heuristics because they're faster than a rational inference. We use rational inference because it's more accurate than a heuristic. If heuristics were never wrong, we wouldn't need rational inferences.



enrico_dandolo
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26 Sep 2012, 7:26 am

AspieRogue wrote:
Awesomelyglorious wrote:
Some of the informal fallacies are, as a few of them are valid forms of inductive reasoning. So, appealing to an authority is a good heuristic. Valuing the person's character traits is a good heuristic. And so on and so forth.

Not all of them are beneficial, as some are blatant efforts to win, or characterized only by sloppiness. I'm definitely not going to break it down too much.



How is appeal to authority a good heuristic? If a person is an authority due to their credentials and their academic knowledge, then I would agree with you. If you regard someone(or certain people) as an authority because of their social status and use the appeal to authority fallacy that is a very BAD heuristic.

A proper appeal to authority is due to the authority's credentials an their academic knowledge.



ruveyn
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26 Sep 2012, 8:04 am

AspieRogue wrote:


How is appeal to authority a good heuristic? If a person is an authority due to their credentials and their academic knowledge, then I would agree with you. If you regard someone(or certain people) as an authority because of their social status and use the appeal to authority fallacy that is a very BAD heuristic.


Some people earn their authority by demonstrated expertise and competence in their fields. Who would you ask to explain a principle of physics: Lawrence Krauss or Depak Chopra? Where the use of authority goes astray is to invoke an expert's authority in Field A to apply to an unrelated Field B. I do not consult my physician for advice in mathematics.

ruveyn