171: Logic Saves Lives Part 6 - Reality Time For Bill Maher

Logic is about understanding reality in a non-contradictory way and how can we see things for what they are.

Metaphysical Laws
1.Identity
2.Causality
3.Non-Contradiction

Topic: Today's show is a personal exercise to help me let go of a long-standing resentment against comedian and political commentator Bill Maher. Cory, Osborne and I analyze several clips from his HBO show, Real Time With Bill Maher, primarily focusing on two fallacies: composition and division. Many tangents result!

Composition: This fallacy is a result of reasoning from the properties of the parts of the whole to the properties of the whole itself--it is an inductive error.

Division: This fallacy is the reverse of composition. It is the misapplication of deductive reasoning. One fallacy of division argues falsely that what is true of the whole must be true of individual parts.
Source: Logical Fallacies Handlist

"The process of forming and applying concepts contains the essential pattern of two fundamental methods of cognition: induction and deduction.

The process of observing the facts of reality and of integrating them into concepts is, in essence, a process of induction. The process of subsuming new instances under a known concept is, in essence, a process of deduction." -Ayn Rand, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (p28)

This is an edited version the 11-1-12 live show with additional non-live segments. School Sucks is live on the Liberty Radio Network and UStream Thursdays at 10pm EST.

Bumper Music:
"Kickstart My Heart" Motley Crue

Look Closer:
Logical Fallacies Handlist
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html

Hasty Generalization
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html#hasty_generalization_anc…

Logical Fallacies Basics
http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm

Logical Fallacy: Tu Quoque
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html

Ayn Rand Lexicon
http://aynrandlexicon.com/

HBO: Real Time With Bill Maher
http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/index.html