🚀 go-pugleaf

Merlin Dorfman wrote:
>      And what argument is that?  I said that it was a recollection
> based on education and experience, but I could not substantiate it
> in the short term, and might or might not be able to subsantiate
> it in the long term.

You said that later, after you were challenged.  There is nothing wrong
with making such a statement, if clearly labeled as a vague recollection
or opinion.  Your original claim, however, was instead presented as a
definite statement, with the appearance of being either supported fact
or a valid scientific conclusion.  Given your admitted lack of evidence,
it is neither.

> : An example of this prinicple would be Denying the
> : Antecedant:  "The argument that A -> B and ~A, therefore ~B." This
> : *argument* is itself false, but ~B could well be true, it is just not
> : supported.
> 
>      This is not an example of what we are discussing here; it
> is an example of a logical fallacy.

It isn't the form of the fallacy itself that is relevant (I could have
chosen *any* form of fallacy), it is the idea that an argument, taken as
a statement in formal logic, can itself be false even if the conclusion
is not proven to be false.  Another way of expressing the same thing in
formal logic, using a different fallacy but without changing the meaning
of what I'm saying here, would be as follows.

The argument "A imples B and B, therefore A" can be expressed in formal
logic as

   ((A -> B) & B) -> A   

This statement is itself false regardless of whether or not A is true.

Similarly, the statement that "A is true because I say it is" is a false
argument even though A might be true.

> In fact, your statement is an
> example of the logical fallacy called "false analogy."

I was not making an analogy to the *form* of your argument.  Certainly
it was not of that form.  If I were making such an analogy, it would
indeed by a false analogy.  Rather, I was making an analogy of the idea
that a flawed argument, such as proof by mere assertion, is false even
if the conclusion is not shown to be false.

Sometimes people make these arguments because they don't realize they
have no supporting evidence, and that's just an honest error.  However,
since you admit that you have no evidence, making such an argument is
also insincere.  This insincerity or attempt to "pass off" an invalid
argument as a valid one are well within the concept of "bogus" or
"sham."

You could, of course, render all of this moot by providing some real
evidence that a common handgun bullet is likely (or even remotely
likely) to cause explosive decompression of (or even anything other than
a small hole in) an aircraft.  

Meanwhile, pro-gun advocates are busy collecting evidence, in the form
of allegedly expert testimony that this is not the case (although, to be
fair, I wouldn't consider such a biased source to be all that
credible).  See
https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2474