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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DOUG H who wrote (267226)	6/26/2002 3:31:39 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

And that is the encouragement of a witch hunt. you know they are out there, but you don't know who they are, but you want to investigate everyone until you find the ones that float. edit: Monte Python are the world's experts on witches. They float, right? Monty Python: A lesson in logical thought For those of you who have never heard of it, Monty Python and the Holy Grail is a classic movie by the comedy team of the same name. If not for the ending, it might have been listed as one of the greatest comedies of all time. But I'd like to use an interesting scene from the movie to demonstrate logical and illogical thinking as it progresses. The scene is a small medieval village, where a group of peasants(mob) have brought a woman accused of being a witch to the local knight for permission to "BURN HER!!!!!" The knight is trying to find out if she really is a witch: [Knight]There are ways of telling whether she is a witch. [Peasant]What are they? Tell us! Tell us! (Do they hurt?) [Knight]Tell me: what do you do with witches? [Peasant]BURN THEM!!! [Knight]And what do you burn apart from witches? [Peasant]MORE WITCHES!!![smack]Wood! [Knight]So, why do witches burn? (long pause) [Peasant]...cause they're made of wood... [Knight]Good... Here is the first mistake. Wood and witches both have the same property: they burn. However, a single shared property does not mean they are the same thing. The witch obviously possesses properties that wood does not, and vice versa. This is a Basic Assumption Error #2. [Knight]How can we tell whether she is made of wood? [Peasant]Build a bridge out of her. [Knight]Ah, but can you not also make bridges out of stone? [Peasant]Oh yes. Here the knight applies good logic. He ignores his previous error and applies the very same rule to the peasants argument. A bridge can be made of both wood and stone, so just because it's a bridge doesn't mean it's wood. [Knight]Does wood sink in water? [Peasant]No. No, it floats. It floats! THROW HER INTO THE POND! If the beginning assumption were true, this might be a good strategy. However, this ignores that other, different objects, may also float. As you'll see, they have quite a list of objects that float. (having settled down crowd) [Knight]What also floats in water? [Peasant]Bread, apples, very small rocks, cider, gravy, churches, lead... [King]A duck. [Knight]Exactly! So logically... [Peasant]If she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood. [Knight]And therefore.... [Peasant]A WITCH!!! There are two problems with this final step of logic. First, the assumption is made that objects float because of their weight, which is not true. Second, despite having listed a huge number of things they think float (obviously some don't), they still think that if something floats, it's wood.