"Kreisleriana" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:18:51 +1100, "Yowie"
yodeled:

If anyone has teenage kids who need to practice essay writing and
debating
skills, that peice of FUD (fear, uncertaintly and doubt) is a perfect
peice
to analyse.

There are many fallacious arguments, such as arguing from authority,
false
analogy, gross overgeneralisation, as well as using emotive words and
tones
to gain sympathy (ie, agreemenet) from the reader.

One could use
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/index.htm
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/



I wish this was more widely taught. People in the highest areas of
public life regularly use absolutely ridiculous arguments all the
time, and people just go "Yeah!"

its much easier to spot a fallacious argument when one is in disagreement
with the author. When one is in agreement, it is far harder to work out that
they are not arguing fairly. And to give them their due, the person spouting
the FUD may well not be aware of their poor analytical skills either, as
they firmly believe that they are right, and that they are just using the
facts. Even "facts" are debatable, of course, because anything us humans
talk about has to be interpretted through a human brain first, with all its
biases and preconceived notions.

Yowie (getting deep now)