Did 2+2 birth a new logical fallacy?

[SNOWBALL]

My guess is no, however, let's examine the structure of the following argument:

"In a fight to the death with no rules, a navy seal would be a favorite over the best UFC fighter because he has experience killing"

It's like saying "In a footrace between Los Angeles and San Diego, a native San Diegan will have an advantage over an elite marathon runner, because the San Diegan will have more experience getting to and being in San Diego"

So, is this a unique logical fallacy, or is it sort of a mishmash of different fallacies? If it's unique, let's give it a name. How about "The fighting Sklansky fallacy"

[Tom1975]

I don't get the analogy. Also, I doubt there are many Navy Seals who have actually killed a person with their bare hands. A better statement of the premise would be "In a fight to the death with no rules, a navy seal would be a favorite over the best UFC fighter because he has been trained how to kill whereas a UFC fighter has been trained to either knock out people or make them submit."

[alphatmw]

because killing an unconscious person or one with a broken arm would be severely hard.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
because killing an unconscious person or one with a broken arm would be severely hard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. In a fight to the death, there is absolutely no difference between immobilizing someone and killing them. So, who cares if the SEAL is better at the latter? I'd settle for the best in the world at instantly blinding someone.

[soon2bepro]

I don't see a logical fallacy, however the statement is only valid assuming certain facts. For example, that killing a man is easier than rendering it momentarily motionless (unconscious or severely beat up, or whatever the UFC fighter would do).

If you assume that the UFC fighter won't know or won't be accustomed to the best strategy in hand-in-hand combat to the death, whereas the navy seal would, the statement could hold true.

[m_the0ry]

I think your analogy is way off the mark.

But I also think that the original statement about the two fighting to the death is false. In a fight where both people know it is a fight to the death they're influenced far more by millions of years of evolution than personal experience. When you know for a fact your life is threatened, your survival instinct will always overpower your hesitance to kill another.

The most skilled fighter would win. If your argument includes the fact that the navy teaches the seals finishing - killing - blows to the point where they are second nature then i think it's an unfair comparison. Equally trained individuals in a fight to the death will always be a coin toss regardless of whether you have killed before or not.


Note this leads to a minor paradox, we can't quantify the amount of training that the experience of killing someone else yields, and we certainly can't exchange that experience for some quantifiable amount of some other kind of training.


But in any case, evolutionary instinct wins. Proof enough exists in the fact that people with no criminal record will kill someone in the blink of an eye when they are overcome with rage.

[Kaj]

Another example of the Fighting Sklansky Fallacy (FSF):

If a fat, bald 40-something and a great-looking rich 20-something tried to score with a hot model, the 40-something would win because he's ejaculated more over his lifetime.

[SNOWBALL]

the basic structure of this argument is that if person A has an advantage over person B in the last term of a process, then he has an advantage over B in the entire process regardless of the beginning or intermediate steps that comprise the rest of the process.

Somebody trim that down for me. It's too wordy.

[Metric]

I suppose this is a pretty compact way to write it:

P(total) = P(1)P(2)...P(N)

Maximizing P(N) =/ maximizing P(total)

In the special case of fighting to the death, I think most of us would agree that if steps 1 through N-1 have been successfully completed, then P(N) is pretty close to 1 anyway. Thus training to maximize P(1) through P(N-1) would be a much better strategy than training to maximize P(N).

[SNOWBALL]

[ QUOTE ]

I suppose this is a pretty compact way to write it:

P(total) = P(1)P(2)...P(N)

Maximizing P(N) =/ maximizing P(total)

In the special case of fighting to the death, I think most of us would agree that if steps 1 through N-1 have been successfully completed, then P(N) is pretty close to 1 anyway. Thus training to maximize P(1) through P(N-1) would be a much better strategy than training to maximize P(N).


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks metric. That was elegant. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]