Critical Thinking To Go: Dodging The Pepperoni Pizza Fallacy
Today we commonly hear in the news journalistic items about religion and politics, or faith and something else, where the suggested "duo du jour" usually sit in opposition to one another. One could do this, of course, just as easily with other areas of human thought, as with sociology vs. history, or economics vs. psychology. But most people do not seem nearly as interested in this exercise as they seem anxious to set "religion" over against whatever other area they might find interesting. But this represents quite an odd way to view things (at the very best), and one might rightly call it propaganda (at the worst) in many instances. You see, life does not come at us in slices, as though it were one very large pepperoni pizza to go. When humans experience an event, we do not encounter it in a parade of neatly snipped segments, as though the civil war first showed us its psychological effects, then came its economic aspects, only after which we then got a look at its technological innovations. Just as with the runningback who grasps a fumbled football in the midst of many linesmen, life happens to us "all at once." Only after taking in an historically important event, and reflecting on it a bit, can we slice it up to study some of parts or aspects in isolation from the others -- as pundits might do, say, in an economics textbook. This, of course, makes students especially prone to confuse the way things happen on paper with how they occur on a battlefield, or in the midst of a revolution. Now this fallacy -- the error of confusing real life with its written counterpart, does not show up in informal logic texts. But it should, since it clearly misleads many these days. So, what to call it? I at first tried the "fallacy of compartmentalized reality." But the students in my head just blurted out, "WhatEVER." Then I mused, "fallacy of reflective segmenting." But I didn't understand that one myself. Finally, I landed on the more user-friendly label, the "Pepperoni Pizza" fallacy. Surely students could grab and digest this supreme combination of words (or was that "combination supreme"?). By way of illustration, I recently engaged a lively proponent of Mr. Darwin's views. In the course of our discussion, he suggested that evolutionary notions merely comprised "biological theories," and that I had mistakenly inquired about the ethics of it all. Here, the pepperoni began to fly. He didn't seem to realize (as Mr. Darwin clearly did) that theories we might properly call "biological," (or scientific) can -- and often do -- have obvious ethical implications. Ideas have logical effects not restricted to one academic field. You cannot win a debate by simply putting an arbitrary fence around an idea and yelling at its offspring, "Now stay!" Like illegal aliens, they tend to jump the borders when you aren't looking. This means that Darwinism, neo-Darwinism and "Punctuationism," like all other ideas, have logical consequences (implications) that affect every area of human thought and life. This is why you can find evolutionary ideas discussed in psychology textbooks, history books, and even pop magazines. In any case, evading or ignoring certain aspects of an idea's logical consequences to gain the upper hand in a debate -- or else to keep one's ship from sinking altogether -- now has a name. Armed with this knowlegde, you can clearly and distinctly show others when the need arises, that life tranpires only as a set of integrated circumstances, and that ideas have logical effects not properly limited to any one academic field. Reality and logic do not come made-to-order with extra cheese, so you don't get a discount on them with a coupon. To make a good case, then, we must follow the rules of valid and sound reasoning. Carson Day has written approximately 1.3 gazillion articles and essays, many with very insightful, if alternative, viewpoints. He presently writes for Ophir Gold Corporation, and specialized in the history of ideas in college. He has been quoted in the past as saying "What box?" and remains at large despite the best efforts of the civil authorities. You can visit the Ophir Gold Corporation blogsites at http://scriberight.blogspot.com (Writing With Power), http://ophirgoldcorp.blogspot.com (OGC's Free Web Traffic), or http://ophirgold.blogspot.com (Church and State 101)
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To start this chapter we have a response from the journalist Hippie and friend who uses the name Eternum1 on the web. He was a part of the founding of web logs as these journalists went to the hot spots of the world and kept in touch with each other. I think he sees where I am going with this book.
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Due to the indoctrination of World Religions and their control over the masses, prior peoples were told to procreate the next generation to serve their god or gods. They were told how to live their lives and taught about sinful thoughts. Most of which are the very reason our species evolved to the top of the food chain. However now we see those who have superior intellect readily debunk the notions and tales of those religious leaders and their stories. What is happening now is that non-believers in Allah, God, Santa Clause or other Creator are not reproducing as much as those who do believe in superstition, voodoo dolls or World Religions.
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Is there life ( extraterrestrial life or any other form of life) elsewhere in the universe.....a universe consisting of millions of galaxies, nebulas, blackholes, millions and millions of stars, unknown planets and other heavenly bodies millions of light years away from our solar system ?
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Recently I discussed what sets humans apart from other animals and species. The basic question, which has been kicked around for centuries is what makes man so unique? So, different than the other species we see? Many immediately take their religious doctrine and use it to answer the question; they say things like "God made us in his image." The animals were put here for us to use, eat, fish and etc; they are indeed here to serve man? After kicking around such notions which cannot be proved either way; a gentleman, David, came up with an interesting concept.
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Archetypes
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY (ARCHETYPES): - "All material bodies are condensations of frozen bodies." (2) Jung is becoming 'in vogue' again, I hear. Perhaps this time around it won't just involve so little real appreciation for all that he meant and understood. Dream interpretation and projected Western values can be a Freudian gambit - Jung grew to see things few will ever admit to in the present ideologies of the West. He was able to contact the future before the First World War and it almost convinced him he was mad, until he saw his visions were right - then he knew it wasn't himself who was mad - it was the world he lived in! His archetypes may be a contact with the genetic 'history book' that the Director of the Human Genome Project talked about recently when he announced that only 2.8 centimetres of 1.8 metres of a gene are required to make the human being. It might be a collective 'tap-in' or even the 'medulla oblongata' has the ability to record the knowledge of previous evolutionary experience of man's development. Personally I feel it is a matter of some of each of these things and the factors relating to chaos and the interference of conflicting vibrations or wavelengths in the confusing array of bandwidths and personalities.
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