After a Word From These Sponsors...

Here are some links on advertising and reasoning.

• The first is about the underlying intellectual dishonesty in even the most honest of ad campaigns.
  
• By the way, if you're into advertising, that entire blog is great. I'm a bit biased, though, since I used to work with the guy who writes it.
• Here's a radio interview with the director of FactCheck.org, a great website devoted to debunking claims in political ads.
• I also used to work with the guy who interviewed FactCheck's director. Yup, I'm a pretty big deal.
• I wish those fact checking websites made a difference. Actually, I just wish they didn't hurt their own cause. Silly humans and your naturally biased minds!
  

Now for some news stuff.

• Lots of people worry about conservative or liberal news media bias. But there are several interesting biases that are much less talked about. Here's a discussion of the bias toward anything that's dangerous or newsworthy.
  
• Here's an interview with a scientist who claims that similar biases exist in scienctific research journals.
  
• What's so important about news, anyway? Here's an interesting argument against caring so much about current events.

Finally, here's a recent Saturday Night Live skit on the distortions of political ads:

Prepare to Cry

Aaron Neville had me at "hello."

Homework #3

Homework #3 is due at the beginning of class on Tuesday, April 28th. Your assignment is to choose an ad (on TV or from a magazine or wherever) and evaluate it from a logic & reasoning perspective.

• First, briefly explain the ad. If you don't want to summarize it yourself, you can attach it if it's from a newspaper or magazine, or transcribe it if it's a commercial on TV.
  
• Then, explain the argument that the ad offers to sell its product.
• Finally, list and explain the mistakes in reasoning that the ad commits.

The Source of Satan's Fingers

An anonymous sleuth did some quality googling to discover that "Satan's Fingers" and "The Hospital Bombers" are band names referenced in a Mountain Goats song called "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton." Here's the song:

BONUS! Here is a video of the Mountain Goats performing the song in Philly a year and a half ago:


I was so totally at this concert. Attentive listeners will notice that he changes the name of one of the bands in this video.

Satan's Fingers? The Hospital Bombers?

OK, before we start rocking all night, perhaps we should come up with a name for our logic band. What's a good name for us? Woodwind-itis?

Hmmm... hopefully, you can come up with better names than that. Post some names in the comments to this post.

(Extra credit to anyone who knows what the title of this post refers to.)

35 + 101 = 217?

So, I was wrong. They used 217 dalmations to film the live-action remake of 101 Dalmations, not 35 or so like I made up in class. I'm fascinated at how fake facts can seep into my feeble mind like that. Fortunately, one of the lessons of our class is that I'm not alone.

Anyway, here are some more random fun facts: The only semi-reliable source I was able to find on the total population of dogs on Earth places the number at around 400 million. That book, however, doesn't explain how it arrived at that figure, and it does warn that the estimate could be off fairly significantly.

I found a map the top ten pet dog populations by country (although again there's no source on this map's estimates, so caveat emptor):


Also, some dogs do not bark. That's why, in the inductive argument we discussed in class, I was careful to conclude only that "Most dogs bark," not "All dogs bark."

Hey, this is too much focus on dogs for my taste.

Cat Statements

What kind of statements are these?

Let us know in the comments.