Swanand Dhawan | Tinkering thoughts

Common terms used in my posts

· · [5 min] · [Swanand Dhawan]

Table of contents

NOTE: This post may be updated frequently with better explanations and examples.

Logical fallacy

Fallacy means invalid or faulty reasoning. A logical fallacy is a pattern of reasoning which can be proved invalid by a flaw in its logical structure. For example, the argument could be true but still lead to false conclusions.

For example: The faster that windmills are observed to rotate, the more wind is observed. Therefore the wind is caused by the rotation of the windmills.

In this example, the correlation between windmill activity and wind velocity does not imply that windmills cause wind. It is instead the other way around.

You can read more about it here:

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_fallacy
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Formal_fallacies

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values. People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills. See more on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.

Contradictory, exaggerated, or unfalsifiable claims often characterize pseudoscience; reliance on confirmation bias rather than rigorous attempts at refutation; lack of openness to evaluation by other experts; the absence of systematic practices when developing hypotheses; and continued adherence long after the pseudoscientific hypotheses have been experimentally discredited.

You can read more about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoscience

Humanism

Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.

Most frequently, humanism refers to a nontheistic view centered on human agency, and a reliance on science and reason rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world. Humanists tend to advocate for human rights, free speech, progressive policies, and democracy. Those with a humanist worldview maintain religion is not a precondition of morality, and object to excessive religious entanglement with education and the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

Scientific method

The scientific method is often represented as an ongoing process involving the following steps:

  1. Make an observation / Ask a question
  2. Research on the topic.
  3. Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
  4. Test the hypothesis or explanation.
  5. Analyze the results from the tests.
  6. Report the conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Authoritarianism

Favouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom. In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people. The freedom to create opposition political parties or other alternative political groupings with which to compete for power with the ruling group is either limited or nonexistent in authoritarian regimes. Authoritarianism thus stands in fundamental contrast to democracy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism

Scientific temper

The term scientific temper is broadly defined as “a modest open-minded temper—a temper ever ready to welcome new light, new knowledge, new experiments, even when their results are unfavourable to preconceived opinions and long-cherished theories.” Discussion, argument and analysis are vital parts of scientific temper. It aims to inculcate the values of scientific thinking, appreciate scientific development, and drive away superstition, religious bigotry, and all forms of pseudo-science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_temper

Falsifiability

A theory or hypothesis is falsifiable (or refutable) if it can be logically contradicted by an empirical/experimental test that can potentially be executed with existing technologies.

An example of a falsifiable theory/claim is: “All humans have five fingers on each hand at birth.” We can count the fingers on the hand, and the claim can also be refuted or falsified by the evidence of a single human having more or less than five fingers.

An example of an unfalsifiable theory/claim: “A teapot, too small to be seen by telescopes, orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars.” The above claim cannot be proven right or wrong with the existing set of technologies and hence is also useless.

It is a famous quote from Bertrand Russell and often gets referred to as Russell’s teapot. Here are the exact words:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

You can read more about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability