Discuss the difference between inferences and assumptions. What is a justifiable assumption? How is making an unjustified assumption or invalid inference used in the Strawman Fallacy? How are words like “seem” or “appear” danger signs? I605 5 - 2

Assumptions are generalizations and/ or beliefs that often are deeply embedded in a person’s mind or can be a part of a group think. At the individual level these are things/ facts that are taken for granted with the result that the person assumes that he or she does not have to defend them. As an aspiring “Watchman on the Wall” I answer to a higher authority so I’d better be correct.

The election of 2012 in the United States was group think on steroids with the result that assumptions became fact in the minds of many of the electorates. The GOP was accused of conducting a war on women due to the party’s pro-life stand. This spin of a war on women took on a life of its own and became an unjustified assumption which resulted in an invalid inference that cost the GOP many votes and possibly the election.

A valid inference is a conclusion that something is true based on something else being true.

The Law of Rational Inference:

All A is inside B

All B is inside C

Therefore all A is in C

In high school I learned this as “If A = B and B = C, then A = C.

Unfortunately unjustified assumptions led to invalid inferences. In the case of the “War on women”, availability of free birth control was the mantra, the opposing view. Birth control costs very little and this unjustified assumption led to invalid inference.

Words like “seem” or “appear” are weak words that imply rather that outright stating something. Using expressions like “It seems that” or “It appears that” imply agreement or a fact. More of group-speak resulting from group-think.

With a Straw Man, “a person misrepresents his opponent’s position and then proceeds to refute that misrepresentation rather than what the opponent actually believes.” In addition to the fabled war on women the strawman (scarecrow) was alive and still looking for a brain during the run-up to the presidential election of 2012.  The hidden “47 percent” video was used to beat up on then candidate Mitt Romney. Add to that Bain Capital and the war on the “rich” was on. This war has festered into “The One Percenters” and a war on capitalism. Group think is so much easier than thinking for oneself and we are reaping the whirlwind!

How it Works

•You read or listen to what someone states explicitly, but then you make an unjustified invalid inference (something that they did not state explicitly) from the statement that they made.
•Then you take the unjustified, invalid inference you made and use a valid logical argument to refute that inference.
•That is a Strawman Fallacy.

Using the Strawman Fallacy can affect and possibly even destroy the reputation of the author that it is being used against.

The One Percent: Obama’s Dog Bo Gets a Private Helicopter & Security to Martha’s Vineyard: The Obama’s dog has arrived for the family’s annual vacation in style, jetting in on a state-of-the-art aircraft with his own contingent of security agents.

Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2013/08/the-one-percent-obamas-dog-bo-gets-a-private-helicopter-security-to-marthas-vineyard/#UFMRWQqB0FY9MdBQ.99

Read more at http://clashdaily.com/2013/08/the-one-percent-obamas-dog-bo-gets-a-private-helicopter-security-to-marthas-vineyard/#UFMRWQqB0FY9MdBQ.99

http://clashdaily.com/2013/08/the-one-percent-obamas-dog-bo-gets-a-private-helicopter-security-to-marthas-vineyard/#3YEgbwAfyws7D5rK.01

“Romney answered without hesitation: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it— that that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.” (Corn Locations 277-281)