<p>Haha, the only Socratic discussion I will entertain during the holidays is about how rigged the BCS is and how clueless the Heisman voters are. Something everyone in our family would agree. Discussion about politics would go for ever and a day with a family nicely divided between entrepreneurs and public servants.</p>
<p>Without a senior in the extended family, this is the first year that college applications will not be on the table. Last year, there were eight or nine cases to debate.</p>
<p>eh, Oregon is going to beat the pants off Wisconsin at the Rose Bowl. We’re Oregonians, and Knight is the secret weapon.</p>
<p>This time of year we tend to talk about football a lot, mostly Broncos. (OK, the kids and DH talk. Mom and I smile and nod).</p>
<p>Sometimes I’ll see a cute little magazine quiz and cut it out and put in the dining room for the next family formal dinner. At Thanksgiving I had a printout of “Thank You” in many languages and quizzed them. It was fun.</p>
<p>Our dinner conversation will probably include a lot of gripes about the Rose Bowl being on a weekday and after we have all returned to work.</p>
<p>Ah yes, kluge, and here is a greatly redacted review of that review of yours: [The</a> Australian - Michael Ashley reviews Ian Plimer’s Heaven + Earth | Australian Climate Madness](<a href=“http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2009/05/the-australian-michael-ashley-reviews-ian-plimers-heaven-earth/]The”>The Australian – Michael Ashley reviews Ian Plimer's Heaven + Earth – Australian Climate Madness)</p>
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<p>You started off quoting the reviewer’s ad hominem attacks - that’s not a good argument. </p>
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<p>I’ve read many other books and studies that do support global warming, and found huge gaps in the science - global warming theories start with history from about 200 years ago - leaving out the history of the many climate changes during the earth’s existence - and the many global warmings and coolings that we have not only scientific evidence for, but historical documents attesting to. Just pick up any earth science book and try to reconcile the known climate changes in the past with what the global warming scientists are saying. 20,000 years ago the place where I’m sitting was under a mile of ice. </p>
<p>During the last 400 years:
250 BC to 450 AD Roman warming to 2 degrees C higher than today- Rome boomed.
535-900 Dark Age cooling – civilization suffered
900-1300 Medieval warming – civilization rebounded
1300-1850 Little Ice Age, and in periods of coolness temperatures vary a lot- cold in waves from 1280-1340, 1450-1540, 1645-1715, 1795-1825, all due to solar inactivity
1850 on – Modern warming with cooler periods from 1940-1976 and 1998-present. So we are in a cooler period within that modern warming and can be expected to heat up. </p>
<p>Quote facts at me, not reviews.</p>
<p>My family has been involved in a fantasy football league and now are in the playoff stage. I think that will take up a bit of conversation. Go football!!!</p>
<p>At least two people at this thread table should really think about getting a washlet bidet. : you use less TP, which means less water to make paper and fewer trees cut. The appliance is a high valued manufactured product that requires people to put the thing together. While trees may be an endless resource, people having sex is godgiven, inexhaustable activity which will sometime eventually result in people and therefore more use of TP → trees cut.</p>
<p>The elegant solution for everyone at this table is of course the washlet bidet. Takes the load off your mind. You’ll smell better, too.</p>
<p>My D and I are too smart to discuss anything that is already so well settled. </p>
<p>We will be busy balancing spoons on our faces. That has somehow developed into the after holiday dinner tradition in my family.</p>
<p>@[Kluge](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13623576-post14.html]Kluge[/url]:”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13623576-post14.html):</a></p>
<p>The complete paragraph for the quote you provided is a follows:</p>
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<p>Thanks for the tip on including a discussion of propaganda and providing an example of it in your post:</p>
<p>[Propaganda](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda]Propaganda[/url]:”>Propaganda - Wikipedia):</a>
</p>
<p>Knowing my kids, I think they will veer the conversation into the topic of irony as well.</p>
<p>Cartera–in our family, it is juggling Clementines.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, there is a phone app called Tabletopics by Aloompa - too funny!</p>
<p>The current movie “IN TIME” makes for some interesting conversation. It is a world where the currency is time, not money. Once you hit the age of 25, you have to earn more time in order to survive. Everything costs time - food, rent, doctors, highway tolls to the rich neighborhoods, etc.</p>
<p>Wow, I was wrong. Sounds like the whole test-the-critical-thinking-skills-during-holiday-dinner thing could be a real hoot. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>@[Kajon](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13625765-post31.html]Kajon[/url]:”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13625765-post31.html):</a></p>
<p>IN TIME sounds like a great movie…will definetely track it down.</p>
<p>You might be interested in the BBC series that came out a few years ago called Socrates for Six Year Olds…actually it’s for everyone, but they concentrated on young students in the series. </p>
<p>If you search the title on YouTube you’ll find a few episodes. It’s fascinating to listen to the six year olds discussing complex subjects at such an early age.</p>
<p>Ooh! Ooh! This is good! Let’s discuss the different types of logical fallacies. 
Because I really think it is important to understand what is a logical fallacy, i.e. an argument which is dishonest and not actually valid, from arguments which may be rude or unpleasant but which are actually making valid points.</p>
<p>Here’s a couple of links to good sites describing different logical fallacies: [Fallacies[/url</a>]
[url=<a href=“http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html]Logical”>Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate]Logical</a> Fallacies and the Art of Debate](<a href=“http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/]Fallacies[/url”>Fallacies - Nizkor)
[List</a> of fallacies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies]List”>List of fallacies - Wikipedia) </p>
<p>An ad hominem argument goes like this: </p>
<p>A argues in favor of X
A is a bad person
Therefore, X is false.</p>
<p>So, an argument which goes like this:
is a classic ad hominem argument.</p>
<p>On the other hand, an argument which goes:</p>
<p>A argues in favor of X
A’s argument is based on falsehoods and bad science
Therefore, A is a bad person</p>
<p>is not an ad hominem argument; it is not a logical fallacy. It may be rude or mean, but ridiculing a person because he has made a false argument is not the same thing as asserting that a person’s argument is false because they’re a bad person. Even bad people can be right. The astronomer didn’t make an ad hominem argument; he argued that Plimer’s science was bad, and made fun of Plimer because of that. An ad hominem argument would have been something like this:</p>
<p>“Plimer is the director of several Australia mining corporations who claimed as recently as 2008 that asbestos doesn’t cause cancer. He is clearly a man who will make scientifically unsupportable claims which favor his financial interests. Therefore the substance of his book must be wrong.” That would be an ad hominem argument, and therefore a logical fallacy (even if, as it appears, it is true.)</p>
<p>By the way, Stitch, this is a link to a very thorough investigation into the numerous factual errors, misstatements, distortions, plagiarisms and false citations in Plimer’s book: <a href=“http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91[/url]”>http://www.complex.org.au/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=91</a> And yeah, they are pretty critical of Plimer, but because of his [lack of] scientific accuracy, not the other way around.</p>
<p>I hope all of you are planning to have a rip-roaring discussion of logical fallacies with your kids this Xmas! And while you’re at it, don’t forget my favorite, the false dichotomy (AKA false dilemma)!</p>
<p>(The only time we’ve had this kind of conversation at home, to be truthful, was discussing one of my son’s infatuation with the 9/11 “truthers” claims a few years back. It was an interesting discussion, though.)</p>
<p>Our dinner time conversations have revolved around the facial hair that S, like half the college freshmen on the planet, has decided to sport. Who needs global warming when we can kid him about the 'stache?</p>
<p>Kluge, our dinner table discussions have revolved around logical fallacies since our kids could talk. H is a philosopher. Dinner at our house has been know to go three hours. Our kids friends LOVE to come to our house for dinner. My role in all of this is the keep the food and drink coming.</p>
<p>S-1 is a consumer of newly invented board games. The boxes are always marvels of graphic design. He buys and sells on a site called (I think I’ve got it here): gamesgeek. </p>
<p>He hand-selects them for the crowd like fine wine, calling me ahead to find out which relatives are attending. Then he packs 3 games to fill a suitcase. Games vary in length from a half hour to 3+. We’ve never played the same game twice in the past 5 years. It’s very entertaining.</p>
<p>If the crowd is heavily “Mom’s side of the family” I take out my guitar and multiple copies of Rise Up Singing (Pete Seeger) because we all grew up on American folk music. We sing for many hours.</p>
<p>When it’s my H’s family, though, it’s much different. Five boys all aligned themselves with different denominations of the same faith, so they go hot and heavy on the fine points of Biblical interpretation. Also lots of family storytelling happens. I like it all. Their general assumption is that adult siblings carry the dinnertable conversation and kids grow up into it as they’re always welcome at the table. When they can break in to add a comment (not easy thing to find airspace), they are usually around 14 years old. Nobody ever asks them what they think; we just kind of wait for them to get old enough to inject it into the conversation. When they do, they’re beamed a praise-glance or wink.</p>
<p>If you want something FUN to talk about the dinner party download is full of fun stuff. They usually do a bit on Marketplace Friday evenings on NPR. Here is last Friday’s segment: [Small</a> talk: Cuddle class, an Occupy Wall Street class, when Virginia starts classes | Marketplace from American Public Media](<a href=“http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/small-talk/small-talk-cuddle-class-occupy-wall-street-class-when-virginia-starts-classes]Small”>Small talk: Cuddle class, an Occupy Wall Street class, when Virginia starts classes - Marketplace)</p>
<p>I remember when my son and best friend met Plato and the allegory of the cave in high school they had a good laugh. They’d had that discussion back when they were six - all on their own!</p>
<p>[@Kluge](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13628549-post34.html]@Kluge[/url]:”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13628549-post34.html):</a></p>
<p>The logical fallacies links will come in handy. You may find Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert’s New York Times Op-Ed, [I’m</a> O.K., You’re Biased](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/opinion/16gilbert.html]I’m”>Opinion | I'm O.K., You're Biased - The New York Times), illuminating.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, Stitch. The first part, about people’s perception of data which does or doesn’t comply with our preferences, is a type of confirmation bias. I was pretty up on that. The second part, about perceptions of other’s susceptibility to bias, is interesting. I’d like to see more data on that.</p>