Glossary A – B

For a comprehensive categorical listing of both formal and informal logical fallacies, cognitive biases, statistical broaches and styles of crooked thinking on the part of those in the Social Skepticism movement, click here, or on the Tree of Knowledge Obfuscation icon to the left.

The Ethical Skeptic Site Glossary (and Lexicon)

a corps perdu – The principle of differentiating trust between two types of madman. Which madman do you trust? One who has succumbed to his impulse a corps perdu, expressing such prejudice generously inside the authority of his intimate knowledge of the mind of an infinite omni-being or even absensus based science, unquestionably promulgated and escalated by his fellows, or one who has recognized and surrendered his madness to the not sufficient, but necessary evidence at hand; being measured and compassionate in his compunction towards imparting risk upon his fellow madmen? It is sophistry only, to promote the former madness as ethical. (See intra ludio, or ‘the telltale of the inside actor’)

Abductive Inference – a form of precedent based inference which starts with an observation and then seeks to find the simplest or most likely explanation. In abductive reasoning, unlike in deductive reasoning, the premises do not guarantee the conclusion. One can understand abductive reasoning as inference to the best known explanation.

absens sciens absens iniuria – literally, no knowledge – no harm. A procedural fallacy or error in principle similar to ‘what they don’t know, won’t hurt ’em’. An erroneous principle which cites that a person cannot be harmed if they do not know that they were harmed. Alternatively, if a group of people is unaware that a harm has been done, then no one in that group has been harmed. A form of pluralistic ignorance exploitation.

Absensus – if 1000 are convinced by experimental measure, that is consensus. If 1000 are coerced by social unwillingness to examine, that is absensus (see Jackboot Consensus).

absurdum originem – a philosophy or principle which cites that eventually everything must reduce to something absurd which stands as its basis. There exists no miracle-free eschatology, science, nor ontology. The idea that something is natural or conventional in its understanding only appears as such based on the relative range of discussion in which it is considered. The notion that every explanation eventually must appeal to a miracle to underpin its argument.

Abusive ad hominem – usually involves attacking the traits of an opponent, including implying their lacking of critical thinking skills or rationality or membership in a pigeon hole of stupidity, which are irrelevant to the argument at hand, as a means to invalidate the arguments of the opponent. This includes an attack on a person when there is evidence to support it. The attack is still ad hominem if the attack had nothing to do with the preexisting discussion context. Also, when one rejects 100% of what a person has to say, in order to demean or categorize that person in some way. Given sufficient discussion domain, no one is 100% wrong, and such declarations are out of context of appropriate discussion and person focused.

acatalepsia Fallacy – a flaw in critical path logic wherein one appeals to the Pyrrhonistic Skepticism principle that no knowledge can ever be entirely certain – and twists it into the implication that therefore, knowledge is ascertained by the mere establishment of some form of ‘probability’. Moreover, that therefore, when a probability is established, no matter how plausible, slight or scant in representation of the domain of information it might constitute, it is therefore now accepted truth. Because all knowledge is only ‘probable’ knowledge, all one has to do is spin an apparent probability, and one has ascertained accepted knowledge. Very similar in logic to the Occam’s Razor aphorism citing that the ‘simplest explanation’ is the correct explanation.

Accent Drift – is a specific type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning of a sentence is changed by placing an unusual prosodic stress (emphasis on a word), or when, in a written passage, it’s left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall on.

Acceptance Pleading – a form of special pleading or resignation through conflating acceptance of the reality of a personal circumstance or injury we cannot change, and making the most of life despite it – with acceptance of the ongoing societal mechanisms, ignorance and corrupt practices which caused the circumstance or injury in the first place.

Accident – the fallacy of applying a generally accepted rule to a particular case whose special circumstances or context render the rule inapplicable or irrelevant.

Actor-Observer Bias – in a situation where a person experiences something negative, the individual will often blame the situation or circumstances. When something negative happens to another person, people will often blame the individual for their personal choices, behaviors and actions.

ad feminam – is marked by the discrediting of an argument, data or observation by appealing to the apparent or assumed bias towards or irrelevant personal considerations concerning women, especially prejudices against them on the part of an opponent. Applies also in the cases of reference to minorities or the disadvantaged.

ad fidentia – attacking the person’s self-confidence in place of addressing the argument or the evidence at hand.

ad hoc Fallacy – an ignoratio elenchi response to an argument or evidence, which seeks to exploit ambiguity or non-accountability as a domain in which to craft a defense which cannot be readily distinguished from something made up. Invention of an explanation which distracts attention away from critical path logic, and/or for which evidence to the pro and con cannot be derived in the now, and/or falsification is unapproachable. A tactic of pseudo-theory and a form of rhetoric.

ad hoc/Pseudo-Theory – a placeholder construct which suffers from the additional flaw in that it cannot be fully falsified, deduced nor studied, and can probably never be addressed or further can be proposed in almost any circumstance of uncertainty. These ideas will be thrown out for decades. They can always be thrown out. They will always be thrown out. Sometimes also called ‘blobbing’ or ‘god of the gaps’, it is a bucket into which one dumps every unknown, hate-based, fear-based and unexplained observation – add in a jigger of virtue – then you shake it up like a vodka martini, and get drunk on the encompassing paradigm which can explain everything, anything and nothing all at the same time.

ad hominem Appeal to Authority – an appeal to authority which is made de facto through the disparagement of another person – typically a variation of the claim that they ‘have demonstrated that they do not understand’ an argument. Often a claim made in the case where the appeal to authority arguer fails to present evidence to support such a contention, and tenders the disparagement simply for the reason that someone possessed the temerity to have disagreed with their authoritative position.

ad hominem Fallacy – inappropriately citing the objections of an opponent as constituting an ad hominem attack, when the personalized objections are simply made as counter evidence to the claims a proponent has made regarding themselves. An exception occurs when the personalized objections could not have been possibly ascertained by objective research or knowledge, or are simply made for pejorative argument.

ad injuriam – appeal to injury. When you can’t refute someone’s work, so instead you hire trolls to threaten a person’s career, reputation, and/or family.

ad nauseam Fallacy – the intolerance of an argument or a set of data through implying that it has been hashed and re-hashed over and over so much by science or sponsors, that everyone is tired of the subject and if there were anything true to it, it would have come out and been published already.
Affirmative Characterization from a Negative Premise – believers in this subject are typically credulous, and credulous people do not command science; therefore all believers in this subject are pseudo scientists.

ad stalkinem – a focus on the opposing person in a debate, to such an extreme that the ad hominem party also begins to stalk or obsess over that person – through a continuous critique by means of meaningless rhetorical statements, and/or by delving into their personal life in a disturbed and inappropriate manner. Typically, the imbalance here suggests that the stalker never comprehended nor was really interested in the subject being debated in the first place.

ad verecundiam – accepting as evidence for a proposition the pronouncement of someone who is taken to be an authority but is not really an authority. This can happen when non-experts parade as experts in fields in which they have no special competence.

ad virtutem – a form of rhetoric wherein one attacks the virtue of the opponent, through citing their being a racist, or anti-science, or Nationalist Nazi, or baby killer, or homophobe, etc. Usually comes in combination with the accusers having virtue signaled about their personal correct identity inside the good group in such a matter – thereby condemning their opponent through inclusion in the not-good group.

Adams’ Law (of Slow Moving Disasters) – for Scott Adams, Dilbert Comic strip author. Mankind has a 100% batting average at historically averting slow moving predicted disasters.

Corollary 1 – provisional knowledge (of fake skepticism and science) always selects-for and stacks worries faster than it does realities.

Corollary 2 – taking action to address a slow moving disaster worry is not the same as planning for risk.

Corollary 3 – those who habitually stack provisional slow moving future disasters routinely fail to recognize actual existing and past disasters.

Corollary 4 – any disaster that takes longer to come to fruition than the average lifespan of an academic scientist will exhibit an underpinning of 97% supporting consensus.

Adissonance – the natural human desire or state of escape from the discomfort of dissonance. A lever used by fake skeptics to bring a curious person back to a state of contrived and pleasant, ignorance.

Adoy’s Principle (House Hedge) –

Inside a conflict in interests, glitches and errors will always favor a single side.
Penalty systems rarely fail, while benefit systems are dispositioned to do so.

(an inversion of Yoda’s axiom in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”) – systems which administer punitive actions and/or penalties rarely if ever fail (they ‘do’); while systems which deliver awards and/or benefits often fail or are designed so as to increase the likelihood of failure (they ‘try’). The difference is called a ‘house hedge’. The house hedge is expressed in two ways. First as the economic inefficiency of extraction by taxation: the taxing body gets to keep the house hedge illegitimately as a defacto program inefficiency. Second as a feature of club quality: fake skeptics are allowed to deliver condemning dispositions without any scientific rigor, while their victims must produce flawless science in order to negate the easy proclamations of the fake skeptic.

Advantageously Obtuse (Bridgman Reduction) – a principle which has been translated, reduced or dumbed-down for consumption so as to appear to be a ‘simple’ version of its source principle; however, which has been compromised through such a process. Thereby making it easy to communicate among the vulnerable who fail to grasp its critical elements, and moreover to serve as an apothegm useful in enforcing specific desired conclusions. Statements such as ‘the burden of proof lies on the claimant’ or ‘the simplest explanation tends to be correct’ – stand as twisted, viral forms of their parent principles, which contend ironically, critically or completely different standards of thought. A Bridgman Point is the point at which a principle can no longer be dumbed-down any further, without sacrifice of its coherency, accuracy, salience or context.

aeunoia – parsimony, humility and reasoned balance adopted simply as a form of rhetoric; appearances adopted merely to underpin persuasion of an audience. A position calmly spun as representing science, rationality or ‘where the facts lead’, typically belied by the enormous amount of unknown inside a subject field or the lack of true knowledge held by the virtue signally aeunoia practitioner.

Affectation of Science – an effort to appear to have a quality or understanding of science not really or fully possessed.

Affiliation Bias – when one chooses something due to a current or past closeness, love, sentiment or affiliation with the something.

afto anaforás Appeal – appeal to self reference. A form of posturing and prevarication on the part of a person who regards disagreement with them as constituting a personal attack upon them. If one habitually fails to be able to separate an opponent’s argument from the opponent them self, this is an indicator that one is not skilled in developing an argument separate from one’s own self either. A key indicator of fully entrenched religious beliefs. Many positions held by such an arguer will stem from selfish and emotional origins, as opposed to objective inference. Counterarguments will often be punctuated with a change in inflection to ad hominem as the closing remark inside each successive set of discourse. A gradual shift will occur in their focus from the argument at hand, to a focus upon the person whom they are arguing with, starting initially with gentle aspersions or backhanded/insincere compliments, thereafter growing to flat out insults as the discussion continues – hoping to provoke their opponent into escalating the ad hominem. Often this appellant could care less about the topic/argument in reality – they are just out to embarrass someone they dislike.

Agency – an activated, intentional and methodical form of bias, often generated by organization, membership, politics, hate or fear based agenda and disdain. Agency and bias are two different things. Ironically, agency can even tender the appearance of mitigating bias, as a method of its very insistence. Agency is different from either conflict of interest or bias. It is actually stronger than either, and more important in its detection. Especially when a denial is involved, the incentive to double-down on that denial, in order to preserve office, income or celebrity – is larger than either bias or nominal conflict of interest. One common but special form of agency, is the condition wherein it is concealed, and expresses through a denial/inverse negation masquerade called ideam tutela. When such agency is not concealed it may be call tendentiousness.

ideam tutela – concealed agency. A questionable idea or religious belief which is surreptitiously promoted through an inverse negation. A position which is concealed by an arguer because of their inability to defend it, yet is protected at all costs without its mention – often through attacking without sound basis, every other form of opposing idea.

Tendentious – showing agency towards a particular point of view, especially around which there is serious disagreement in the at-large population. The root is the word ‘tendency’, which means ‘an inclination toward acting a certain way.’ A tendentious person holds their position from a compulsion which they cannot overcome through objective evaluation. One cannot be reasoned out of, a position which they did not reason themselves into to begin with.

Agency and The Handedness of Information – any increase in the entropy of the integrity of a purported information set as it is developed, communicated or codified. Handedness often is expressed in terms of stacked layers of sourcing, any introduced source layer or modifier which bears a conflict of interest regarding the integrity of the information, and/or any non-idempotent exchange of that information – collectively as a series group, known as the ‘hands’ of influence. There are nine hands of information exchange. The first four hands are typically regarded as the least corrupted – expressing merely as a phenomenon of social handling, The last five hands of agency constitute the least reliable hand-offs of information; and are moreover, earmarked by any goal to exploit ‘handed’ information for organizational or personal gain or power.

Social Handedness (The ethical skeptic maintains epoché on this information)

1st Hand – Something you personally observe

2nd Hand – Something related to you by a reliable witness or trusted friend

3rd Hand – Something related to an interested group by a knowledgeable and involved party

4th Hand – Something commonly or controversially discussed/rumor

Agency Handedness (The ethical skeptic is not required to maintain epoché on this information)

5th Hand – A prejudicial spin, straw man, disinformation, or exaggeration which is extracted from 4th Hand information

6th Hand – A transformed, misleading, witness disparaging and cherry picked set of 1st – 5th Hand information

7th Hand – Codification, club review or false authority derived from 5th and 6th Hand information

8th Hand – Ongoing doctrine and pseudo-philosophy which is enforced upon the basis of official 7th Hand information

9th Hand – Power, monetary income, club authority or personal celebrity which is derived from 8th Hand information

Agenda of Social Skepticism – a 200+ point set of religious beliefs, social agendas and oligarchy goals which are bundled into a mandatory platform of talking points which every SSkeptic must vehemently support through demonstrative public argument. Any doubt as to allegiance to the entire set of these points risks one’s exclusion from the protection of the Social Skepticism Cabal.

Ahab’s Axiom – axiom which goes “The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser.” Muttered by Captain Ahab in Melville’s Moby Dick, while observing the Manxman scolding the cabin boy, Pip during a breakage in the ship’s speed log line and reel. A symptom of imbalance in ability to judge or be circumspect, is a habit of incessant scolding targeting one individual.

Akratic Trolling – when an advocate of an agenda plays the game wherein they will troll and provoke their perceived enemy, then suddenly retreat into the pure technical of science or atheism and adopt a holy or statesman facade when the perceived enemy objects to their behavior. This presents the enemy in the worst light possible through highlighting only one type of expression.

Aleatoric Casuistry – employing statistical uncertainty, representative of unknowns that differ each time we run the same experiment, observation or situation, in order to push the idea that something very uncommon is actually common, can be, or has been common. A version of ‘you never know’ or ‘I bet this happens a lot’. A way of implying that an epistemological basis for a frequency of epistemic uncertainty exists, when indeed it does not.

Algorance (from ‘Algorithm’ and ‘Ignorance’) – a circumstance wherein individuals or entities utilize sophisticated algorithms or advanced analytical tools in absence of a thorough understanding of the underlying data domain, the essence of the problem, or the fundamental question being addressed. This term encapsulates a disconnect between the complexity of the tools employed and the depth of comprehension or insight of the user. The presence of high-tech methods, programming scripts, or packaged solutions applied superficially or ineffectively, often due to a lack of foundational knowledge or subject immersion. In the context of decision-making, research, or analysis, algorance signifies a misplaced reliance on technological or industry tool bedazzlement over substantive understanding, leading to potentially flawed or misguided outcomes.

Alinsky’s Rule #9 – from Saul Alinsky’s work Rules for Radicals, the contention that “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” This apothegm was expanded upon by Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel in 2011, inside his corollary, “Never allow a good crisis to go to waste.”

Amara’s Law – we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. Named after futurist Roy Amara (1925–2007).

Amateur Confidence Fallacy – the act of substituting simple probability math to manipulate outcomes, because one does not understand the difference, or because it looks like the same thing to a layman, in instances where only confidence intervals can be correctly applied under the scientific method.

Ambiguity – the construction or delivery of a message in such words or fashion as to allow for several reasonable interpretations of the context, object, subject, relationship, material or backing of the intended message.

Anodyne Phrasing – phrasing deliberately posed in suitable apothegms or buzzwords which are not likely to provoke dissent, offense or disagreement – so that more extreme agendas backed by such locution can be subtly approved by all. Terms such as ‘justice’, ‘hate’, ‘Nazi’, ‘equality’, ‘immigration’ – where the hearer hears one thing, but the agenda poser means another.

Organic Untruth (verum mendacium) – a constructive form of argument which exploits concealed ambiguity or altered premise as the core of its foundational structure. A statement which is true at face value, but was not true or was of unknown verity under the time frame or original basis, soundness, domain or context under discussion.

Not a Logical Truth – It is not that this type of statement is false. The basis of this type of assertion may even reside in scientific validity, or may be only categorically true – i.e. only true if given a specific set of circumstances. However the statement is not a logical truth – a truth of syllogism which is comprehensive, unqualified and unequivocal. Logical truth is the state of syllogism which a deceitful person is wishing for you to infer when they state a categorical truth, yet do not specify its conditions. It is a means of lying through stating something which is only conditionally accurate – hoping that their victim will accept the statement as one which addresses all circumstance.

Slack Exploitation – a form of equivocation or rhetoric wherein an arguer employs a term which at face value appears to constrain the discussion or position contended to a specific definition or domain. However, a purposely chosen word or domain has been employed which allows for several different forms/domains of interpretation of the contention on the part of the arguer. Often this allows the arguer to petition the listener to infer a more acceptable version of his contention, when in fact he is asserting what he knows to be a less acceptable form of it.

secundum quid – comes about from failing to appreciate the distinction between using words absolutely and using them with qualification. Spruce trees, for example, are green with respect to their foliage (they are ‘green’ with qualification); it would be a mistake to infer that they are green absolutely because they have brown trunks and branches.

uti dolo (trick question) – a question which is formed for the primary purpose of misleading a person into selecting (through their inference and/or questioner’s implication) the incorrect answer or answer not preferred inside a slack exploited play of ambiguity, interpretation, sequence, context or meaning. The strong version being where the wrong context is inferred by means of deceptive question delivery; the weak version being where the question is posed inside a slack domain where it can be interpreted legitimately in each of two different ways – each producing a differing answer.

praedicate evidentia – any of several forms of exaggeration or avoidance in qualifying a lack of evidence, logical calculus or soundness inside an argument.

praedicate evidentia – hyperbole in extrapolating or overestimating the gravitas of evidence supporting a specific claim, when only one examination of merit has been conducted, insufficient hypothesis reduction has been performed on the topic, a plurality of data exists but few questions have been asked, few dissenting or negative studies have been published, or few or no such studies have indeed been conducted at all.

praedicate evidentia modus ponens – any form of argument which claims a proposition consequent ‘Q’, which also features a lack of qualifying modus ponens, ‘If P then’ premise in its expression – rather, implying ‘If P then’ as its qualifying antecedent. This as a means of surreptitiously avoiding a lack of soundness or lack of logical calculus inside that argument; and moreover, enforcing only its conclusion ‘Q’ instead. A ‘There is not evidence for…’ claim made inside a condition of little study or full absence of any study whatsoever.

Amphibilogical – a word or definition which existentially bears two meanings of stark contrast, where the equivocation resides inside the term or definition itself and not inside its context of employment. Not entirely the same as ‘amphibological’ – the state of being an amphibology.

Amphibology – is a situation where a contention may be interpreted in more than one way for a variety of deceptive reasons, due to ambiguous sentence structure. An amphibology is permissible, but not preferable, only if all of its various interpretations are simultaneously and organically true.

Amplanecdote – something which has occurred a scientifically significant number or many times over, however which is ignored through agenda or by means of a baseless claim to categorization as anecdote.

Anachronistic Fallacy – when applying modern societal morals, strictures, moors, rules, laws and ethics retrospectively or retroactively upon past events or persons. Any attempt to lens and judge historical characters through means of modern character framing. This fallacy of soundness fails in that its method only produces negative assessments, by failing to detect any higher standards versus today’s or regard of mitigating circumstances/considerations.

Anchoring Bias – when a person is over-reliant on the first piece of information they have encountered, or begin a branch and bound search or negotiation at a starting point which is arbitrary, yet causes them cede credence to that range from then on.

Anecdote Data Skulpting (Cherry Sorting) – when one applies the categorization of ‘anecdote’ to screen out unwanted observations and data. Based upon the a priori and often subjective claim that the observation was ‘not reliable’. Ignores the probative value of the observation and the ability to later compare other data in order to increase its reliability in a more objective fashion, in favor of assimilating an intelligence base which is not highly probative, and can be reduced only through statistical analytics – likely then only serving to prove what one was looking for in the first place (aka pseudo-theory).

Anecdote Error – the abuse of anecdote in order to squelch ideas and panduct an entire realm of ideas. This comes in two forms:

Type I – a refusal to follow up on an observation or replicate an experiment, does not relegate the data involved to an instance of anecdote.

Type II – an anecdote cannot be employed to force a conclusion, such as using it as an example to condemn a group of persons or topics – but an anecdote can be employed however to introduce Ockham’s Razor plurality. This is a critical distinction which social skeptics conveniently do not realize nor employ.

Angel Questions – a form of rhetoric or propaganda wherein easy lob questions are only offered to a person or organization who otherwise should be held to account. Prefabricated FAQ’s which fall in line with a prescripted set of propaganda or politically correct thinking. Questions which appear to come from a curious third party, however are scripted to hijack a discussion down an easy path of justifying the message of the person being questioned.

Anger Bankruptcy – the habit of reacting in anger on the part of a faking or immature skeptic who has painted them self into a corner logically, yet must win all arguments immediately at all costs. A habit of resorting to attacks, pejorative equivocation, insults, playground and social bullying and surreptitious attempts to harm in order to ‘defeat’ an enemy they have crafted, in the instance where they are bankrupt of reason and evidence.

Anomie – a condition in which a club, group or society provides little or negative ethical guidance to the individuals which inhabit it or craft its direction.

Anosognosia – a deficit of self awareness. A vulnerability to a sales pitch involving the ‘stupid’ versus us, on the part of those who see themselves as superior minded. This relates to the complex intricacies involving intelligence and rationality; a perception spun on the part of social skeptics which is wielded to seek compliance and social enforcement of their goals.

Antagonogenic – causing benefit as a result of or while in the process of intent to cause harm. A hacker who ironically ends up improving systems security. A leftist who influences younger generations to oppose his group, because of hate filled actions in the name of thinly-veiled virtue.

Antipode Path Logic – the inverse of critical path logic. A condition wherein an arguer develops a conclusion about a matter in absence of having addressed any critical path logic or epistemology (risk incremental, dependent series and probative questions or tests) before making the conclusion. The opposite of the condition where a person has pursued critical path logic, yet in finding insufficient evidence, refuses to tender a final conclusion or opinion (ethical skepticism).

Antiquing – the attempt to impugn a subject by citing or fabricating a remote dubious history, which is then touted as representative of and/or the sole basis of the subject at large, up and to the current date.

Antiquing Fallacy – the dismissal of an entire field of data by showing its false, hoax based or dubious past inside a set of well known anecdotal cases. Also the instance where a thesis is deemed incorrect because it was commonly held when something else, clearly false, was also commonly held.

Antonesque Rhetoric – a form of persuasion in which the arguer appears to be supporting one position; however in the same argument through locution tactics or eventually through escalating sarcasm, reveals a logical calculus or means of persuasion which implicitly yields or encourages the opposite position. From Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’, Caesar’s funeral speech by Marc Antony: “Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest– For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men– Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.” It is an ironic permissive. The art of rhetorical persuasion.

aphronêsis – twisted, extreme, ill timed, misconstrued, obtuse or misapplied wisdom, sometimes even considered correct under different contexts of usage – which allow an agenda holder to put on a display of pretend science, rationality and skepticism. The faking skeptic will trumpet loudly and often about the scientific method, evidence, facts, ‘skepticism’ or peer review, but somehow will never seem to be able to apply those principles, nor cite accurate examples of their application. The faking skeptic will speak often of ‘demanding proof,’ deny sponsors access to challenge ideas or fiat science, and incorrectly cite that denial of access to peer review is indeed – peer review. You will find them endlessly spouting incorrect phrases like ‘the burden of proof resides on the claimant’; its symbolic evisceration standing as de facto proof of their own beliefs. Vehement skeptics tend to be young and only academically/socially trained to a great degree – their ‘skepticism’ easing most of the time as they gain life experience. ‘Proof’ is the hallmark of religion. ~Bill Gaede

Apologetic – neutral, often scripted defense or vindication of a favored viewpoint as a defense against all forms of attack.

Apophenia Bias – the immediate dismissal of data as being manufactured, mis-analyzed, or reflecting random patterns which are ascribed empirical meaning, without having conducted the research into the data, nor possessing the background in the discipline involved in order to be able to make such a claim.

aposiopesis – an expression wherein a sentence is deliberately broken off and left unfinished, the ending to be supplied by the imagination fitting a preset context of implication or inference, giving an impression of unwillingness or inability to continue due to decorum or implied complexity in description. Used normally in the pejorative.

Apparatchik – the opposite of being a skeptic. A blindly devoted official, follower, or organization member, of a corporation, club or political party. One who either ignorantly or obdurately lacks any concern or circumspection ability which might prompt them to examine the harm their position may serve to cause.

Apparent Epistemology – treatment or regard of underlying assumptions or implicit assumptions as proved or accepted science, typically executed through locution deception. Statements such as ‘is known to provide’ in lieu of ‘has been shown (by study X) to provide’ inside a touted epistemology. The use of social constructs, common wisdom or pluralistic ignorance based consensus as a foundation for scientific understanding or underpinning for further stacked provisional explanation.

The Appeal of the Narrative Lie – a three-part principle which underpins the motivation as to why persons will lie in support of a Narrative. 1. To achieve assent via logical deduction means your case is powerful, but to manipulate assent via a lie means that you are powerful – the more people manipulated, the more gratifying is that power. 2. The lie is excused because one is lying for ‘virtuous or just cause’. 3. The most rewarding form of lying for the Narrative Narcissist therefore, is one in which intent can be laundered from the liar themselves.

Appeal to Accomplishment – where a position of opposition is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer, and not their merits or accomplishments inside the field in question.

Appeal to Apati Fallacy – ‘Appeal to the hoax’ fallacy of presumption and irrelevance. The attempt to impugn a subject by citing or fabricating a history or incident involving a hoax of one or more of the subject’s contentions. The fallacy resides in the fact that if it exists, there is porn of it; and likewise, if it exists or not, there is a hoax of it.

Appeal to Authority – the recitation of an individual’s (including self) opinion as constituting an empirical or rational evidence base supporting a particular contention, when in fact the recitation is only based upon the noteworthy status of the individual as an authority.

Consensus Appeal to Authority – in so far as scientists speak in one voice, and dissent is not really allowed, then appeal to scientific consensus is the same as an appeal to authority.

Richeliean Appeal to Authority – a contention which is considered correct by means of social power or celebrity held on the part of its proponent. An appeal to consensus made by a group which influenced or measured the claimed consensus. An appeal to an authority who is notable at least in part for authoritarian or coercive measures they have employed to maintain power. Also an employment of coercive tactics which include censorship or propaganda-charging the media, establishing a large network of internal spies or sycophants, forbidding the discussion of specific matters in public or publishing of one sided science studies, patrolling of public assemblies or media forums or seeking to harm or defame who dare to disagree.

Bowel Movement Authority – one who makes a claim to evidence, expertise, authority, ability to argue or skepticism, inside a subject or bearing a knowledge base, in which every other reasonable person also has direct and regular personal expertise. Don’t come to me claiming that your skepticism qualifies you to argue a subject – that is like claiming to be an authority in bowel movements.

Inverse Argument from Authority – because it says something in Breitbart, Fox News, ad absurdum, therefore it follows that it’s false. Inverse of Argument from Authority, possessing the same flaw.

Hypocritical Appeal to Authority – when suddenly and uncharacteristically recognizing as a recitation authority a resource figure whom one has previously or regularly shunned as an authority, simply because in the case cited, that resource happens to agree with or provide evidence supporting the proponent’s argued position.

False Appeal to Authority – the contention that the opinions of an authority contradict, appear to countermand, or reject the data, topic or ideas of an opponent when in fact either the recitation or the ideas of the opponent or both are taken out of context, misquoted or are false in their portrayal.

Ad Hominem Appeal to Authority – an appeal to authority which is made de facto through the disparagement of another person – typically a variation of the claim that they ‘have demonstrated that they do not understand’ an argument. Often a claim made in the case where the appeal to authority arguer fails to present evidence to support such a contention, and tenders the disparagement simply for the reason that someone possessed the temerity to have disagreed with their authoritative position.

Skeptic Appeal to Authority – using a persona who’s only expertise on a topic is that they have declared themselves to be a skeptic, or an expert of dubious credentials and/or using only one opinion to sell a product or idea. Appealing to skepticism as a basis for enforcing an idea.

Appeal to Social Skeptic – when a journalist, stage magician, author, psychologist or liberal arts activist is cited as a recitation authority on science, technology, engineering, math or skepticism as it is employed in those disciplines.

Appeal to Race/Class – in so far as it is forbidden to offend a specific race or class, yet other races’ or classes’ being offended is considered a reality of ‘freedom of speech’ then this hypocrisy is indistinguishable from an appeal to the superiority and authority of the former race or class. As Voltaire said, “To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.”

Appeal to Celebrity Skeptic – the recitation of opinions tendered by a celebrity or prominent figure inside skepticism, as constituting authority inside a set of data; or contention that such ideas, one-liners and figures in fact constitute positions or persons of scientific gravitas. The ranking of the opinions of such figures above those of lay or professional experts in a given field.

Evidence Based Appeal to Authority – when a claim to be ‘evidence based’ is used to excuse a sufficiently large set of comprehensive claims or is tendered inside a domain with a sufficiently large unknown – it is indistinguishable from an appeal to authority. Part of Corber’s Burden.

imperium ex absurdum – the appeal to god or infinity or holiness. Because god is holy, therefore you must be holy also. The recitation of an unattainable standard, which can conveniently therefore be used to condemn anyone at any time. Recitation of god or perfection as the source for one’s morals, beliefs or opinions, often tantamount to using the appeal to god to defacto establish that one’s self is, for all intents and purposes, god.

Science Romanticizing – when the magisterial history of the accrual of knowledge is used an an analogue to justify the oppression of current thought or alternative theories.

Kilkenny’s Law – final claims to expertise and evidence may be tendered inside established trade, transactional, technical and diagnostic disciplines. Therefore:

I. A conclusive claim to evidence inside a subject bearing a sufficiently unknown or risk-bearing horizon, is indistinguishable from an appeal to authority, and

II. Corber’s Burden: A sufficiently large or comprehensive set of claims to conclusive evidence in denial, is indistinguishable from an appeal to authority.

III. If you have brought me evidence based claims in the past which turned out to be premature and harmful/wrong, I will refuse to recognize your successive claims to be evidence based.

Authority from Fredkin’s Paradox – as two possibilities become equal, computational time increases. As deliberation time increases between two alternatives, so does the likelihood that two alternatives bear plurality under Ockham’s Razor. Therefore an appeal to authority must be employed to break the logjam, under a false assumption of Buridan’s Ass (a donkey placed exactly midway between two piles of hay, will starve to death from indecision).

Appeal to Authority Tell – a person who conceals a reliance upon appeal to authority will get particularly indignant when a ‘lesser ranked’ person with actual direct, deep and expert experience tells them they are wrong, or offers a differing view than what they were promulgating as truth.

Appeal to Class (Class Warfare) – using the excuse of helping lower disadvantaged strata of society as justification for one’s perfidious actions in harming everyone else or establishing power. The pretense that one’s political agendas are undertaken to help minorities, refugees or the poor, when in reality such actions more concern building power and attacking those a person hates. The pitting of class against class in order to work as a smokescreen and power mitigation tactic, inside surreptitious efforts to establish control.

Appeal to Elves – an argument which is foisted as plausible deniability employed to dismiss a perceived unlikely argument, however which itself is also virtually as outlandish and unlikely as the argument against which it is posited – moreover often implying a more sciencey, probable or possible perception in its offing. A condition of desperation in offering alternatives to a disliked hypothesis – according to the allegory of Santa Claus being a ridiculous concept, as no one could make and deliver that many toys – appealing to elves therefore as the more ‘scientific’ explanation.

Appeal to Fallacy – one of two forms of confusing the state of an assertion being in error, with positing a faulty argument, delivery or sound basis.

Fallacy Fallacy (Argument from Fallacy) – arguer detects a fallacy in argument and declares therefore the person to be ‘wrong’ in assertion as well. When an arguer employs either a formal, or even more an informal fallacy, to stand as the basis to declare a whole subject or assertion in argument to be therefore, false. A formal fallacy or redress on the basis of soundness or induction inference, only serves to invalidate an opponent’s argument structure. All three flaws tender nothing regarding verity of the argument’s assertion or conclusion itself, which may or may not be independently also true. As well, any instance wherein a circumstantial, expression, personal or informal critique or other informal fallacy is inappropriately cited as a mechanism to invalidate an opponent’s argument or stand as basis for dismissal of a subject.

Fallacy Error – arguer detects a condition of being wrong and incorrectly deems this condition to constitute a ‘fallacy’. When an arguer finds an argument assertion to be wrong and declares the incorrect conclusion, error, mistake or lie to constitute a ‘fallacy’. When in reality, a fallacy is nothing but a weakness or flaw in an argument, soundness, logical calculus, structure or form – and has nothing actually to do with the validity of its assertion or conclusion.

Appeal to Fear – a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side or group of people who support a disdained idea.

Appeal to Hypocrisy – the argument states that a certain position is false or wrong and/or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with that position.

Appeal to Implicit Conspiracy – the default position taken by a pseudo-skeptic that in order for a counter-claimant to actively research or have confidence in their proposition, then quod erat demonstrandum they must therefore believe a conspiracy exists which is holding back their preferred alternative from being studied or accepted. This default ad hoc fallacy explanation can be accused of anyone, without discretion, distracts from the logic at hand, can never be verified and results in only finding what we already think we know, to therefore be true. A substitute form of science (pseudo-theory) issued in the form of pejorative ad hominem and straw man, all rolled up into one baseless and easy claim on the part of a pseudo-skeptic.

Appeal to Infinity (Plenitude) – a variation of an appeal to magic wherein the infinite size (or other suitably large scale) of the containing domain is posited as the all powerful but scientific rationale behind the existence of a stack of incredibly unlikely happenstance. A closure of scientific argument and refusal to consider other alternatives, especially when an appeal to infinity hypothesis is unduly regarded as the null hypothesis – and further then is defended as consensus science, without appropriate underlying reductive science ever actually being done.

Appeal to Lotto – Informing a person who has been harmed that their instance of harm is extremely uncommon (‘they won the Lotto, simply because someone had to win’ scam). A double appeal to infinity involving convincing a target regarding the personal experience involved in a remote happenstance. A million dollars just fell out of the sky in neat little stacks and then subsequently, you just happened to be the first person to walk by and observe it – two appeals to infinity stacked upon one another. Often used as a sales pitch or con job. Any instance where a ‘Law of Large Numbers’ is used as an apologetic to justify why a person was harmed or an extremely unlikely occurrence emerged.

Omnifinity – any argument which ascribes to a theoretical god, such powers, knowledge and capability such that the god in question is simultaneously able to do anything, and at the same time evade any level of comprehension on our part. This type of god is simply a placeholder argument (the ultimate special pleading) which is a parallel argument to the Infinity of the Gaps argument below. These are twin arguments, which contrary to superficial appearances, are the same exact argument. Neither one constitutes science.

Infinity of the Gaps – any argument where an appeal to infinity is simply employed to avoid the appearance of using a ‘god of the gaps’ explanation, when in reality the employment of infinity as the explanation for an infinitesimally remote chance occurrence is virtually as ridiculous or lacking in epistemological merit as is the god explanation – see Appeal to Elves.

Infinity as Science – any argument where an appeal to infinity is spun as constituting a superior scientific explanation, in comparison to, and in an effort to avoid examining the underlying assumptions which precipitated the invalid perception/belief that an event or series of events are extremely rare or statistically next to impossible in the first place.

Boundary Semantics – pushing the meaning of a term (such as ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’) into highly or specially plead realms of extreme definition variants, in order to provide an special pleading exception out of any or every argument. This is never a form of being semantically precise, despite a temptation to regard these types of extreme definitions as such. Rather is simply form of equivocation based explanitude.

Explanitude – the condition where a theory has been pushed so hard as authority, or is developed upon the basis of pseudoscience such as class struggle theory or psychology of sex, that it begins to become the explanation for, or possesses an accommodation for every condition which is observed or that the theory domain addresses. A theory which seems to be able to explain everything, likely explains nothing (Popper/Pigliucci).

Appeal to Magic – justifying reasoning inside an observed and constrained domain by underpinning it with rationale derived from inside another unconstrained domain. Ten quadrillion-to-one chance happenstances in series are indistinguishable from an appeal to magic. A hidden miracle is more scientific than is a professed one. Grant me one miracle and I can explain all the rest.

Appeal to Motive – a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis or a set of data or observations by calling into question the motives of its proposer. Attacking a person who is asking questions as hiding a motive or ‘JAQing off,’ in social skeptic lingo.

Appeal to Perfection (Nirvana Fallacy) – occurs when one rejects a reasonable solution to a problem by unfairly comparing it to an ideal or perfect solution that is unrealistic, unachievable, or is tasked to answer every question conceivable. Essentially, it involves setting unreasonably high standards and then discrediting anything that fails to meet these standards, regardless of its merits or practicality. This fallacy can be particularly misleading because it often dismisses progress or positive steps simply because they do not solve every aspect of a problem completely or perfectly. This is distinct from a proposition which contains a magical or fabricated critical assumption, which is ignored, and is then used to explain everything.

Appeal to philía – using an appeal to brotherly love as an ad hominem (ignoratio elenchi personal attack) styled argument when an opponent is firm or direct in countering what they perceive to be duplicitous or ignorance-cultivating. An appeal to love and understanding – which stand alone bears merit – however, is not salient as a defense in a circumstance of logical critical path risk. A form of appeal to hypocrisy. Not everyone who is hard on you is bad, and not everyone who smiles at you is good. This is something one must teach young people entering professional services.

Appeal to Pity/Poverty/Morality (argumentum ad misericordiam) – an argument which attempts to cite the poverty level or objective refusal to seek money on the part of academics and Social Skeptics, as a way of assigning them unmerited objectivity inside a topic of pluralistic contention.

Appeal to Probability – the false contention of a skeptic that the most probable, simple, or likely outcome in a set of highly convoluted but unacknowledged assumptions, is therefore the compulsory or prevailing conclusion of science.

Appeal to Ridicule – an argument is made by presenting the opponent’s argument in a way that makes it appear ridiculous.

Appeal to Scientific Democracy – the contention that if the majority of scientists believe something to be true, regardless of epistemological merit, then it must be assumed as true.

Appeal to Scientists Fallacy – an argument that is misrepresented to be the premise held true on the part of the prevailing group of scientists; or concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to a more successful career in science.

Appeal to Skeptic – citing a skeptic as an authority, recitation or expert witness on a subject or observation, when a skeptic in reality provides no particular relevant expertise. In recitation rules, not qualifying as an authority. Under the Rules of Federal Evidence, skeptic testimony is the lowest ranked of any kind, being ranked under eyewitness testimony, not possessing any particular expertise other than a specious claim to know the scientific method, or lacking in the court’s Duty of Candor.

Appeal to Skepticism (Fallacy of Irrelevance)

1. The invalid use of skepticism to act in lieu of science. The employment of skepticism, in absence of any form of scientific study, in order to derive a scientific conclusion. Philosophy (skepticism) cannot be used to supplant science, as that is neither its role nor capability.

ergo sum veritas Fallacy (of Irrelevance)

2′ (strong). The assumption that because one or one’s organization is acting in the name of skepticism or science, that such a self claimed position affords that organization and/or its members exemption from defamation, business tampering, fraud, privacy, stalking, harassment and tortious interference laws.

2a. The contention, implication or inference that one’s own ideas or the ideas of others hold authoritative or evidence based veracity simply because their proponent has declared themselves to be a ‘skeptic.’

2b. The assumption, implication or inference that an organization bearing a form of title regarding skepticism immediately holds de facto unquestionable factual or ideological credibility over any other entity having conducted an equivalent level of research into a matter at hand.

2c. The assumption, implication or inference that an organization or individual bearing a form of title regarding skepticism, adheres to a higher level of professionalism, ethics or morality than does the general population.

Appeal to Skepticism (Fallacy of Irrelevance)

3a. The declaration, assumption or implication that a consensus skeptical position on a topic is congruent with the consensus opinion of scientists on that topic.

3b. The argument assumption or implication that an opinion possesses authoritative veracity or a proponent possesses intellectual high ground simply through allegiance to a consensus skeptical position on a topic.

4. The presumption or contention that taking a denial based or default dubious stance on a set of evidence or topic is somehow indicative of application of the scientific method on one’s part, or constitutes a position of superior intellect, or represents a superior critical or rational position on a topic at hand.

Inverse Negation Fallacy – the asymmetrical strategy of promoting an idea through negation of all its antithetical concepts. A method of undermining any study, proponent, media byte, article, construct, data, observation, effort or idea which does not fit one’s favored model, in a surreptitious effort to promote that favored model, along with its implicit but not acknowledged underpinning claims, without tendering the appearance of doing so; nor undertaking the risk of exposing that favored model or claims set to the scientific method or to risky critical scrutiny.

Truzzi Fallacy – the presumption that a position of skepticism or plausible conformance on a specific issue affords the skeptical apologist tacit exemption from having to provide authoritative outsider recitation or evidence to support a contended claim or counter-claim. The context wherein a cynic, debunker, or denialist regards that it is only necessary to present a case for their counter-claims based upon a notion of plausibility, fictitious versions of Occam’s Razor, or probability no matter how slight it may be, rather than any actual empirical evidence. “Pseudo-Skeptics: Critics who assert negative claims, but who mistakenly call themselves ‘skeptics,’ often act as though they have no burden of proof placed on them at all. A result of this is that many critics seem to feel it is only necessary to present a case for their counter-claims based upon plausibility rather than empirical evidence.” – Marcello Truzzi (Founding Co-chairman of CSICOP)

Richeliean Appeal to Skepticism – an inflation of personal gravitas, celebrity or influence by means of implicit or explicit threats of coercive tactics which can harm a victim one wishes to be silenced. Coercive tactics include threats to harm family, contact employers, tamper with businesses, employment of celebrity status to conduct defamation activities or actions to defraud, or otherwise cause harm to persons, reputation or property. This includes the circumstance where a Richeliean skeptic encourages and enjoys a form of ‘social peer review,’ empowered via politics or a set of sycophants who are willing to enact harm to a level which the Richeliean power holder himself would not personally stoop.

Appeal to Skepticism Position – the argument assumption or implication that an opinion possesses authoritative veracity or a proponent possesses intellectual high ground simply through allegiance to a consensus skeptical position on a topic.

Appeal to Skepticism Status – the declaration, assumption or implication that a consensus skeptical position on a topic is congruent with the consensus opinion of scientists on that topic.

Appeal to Skepticism Fallacy – the presumption or contention that taking a denial based or default dubious stance on a set of evidence or topic is somehow indicative of application of the scientific method on one’s part, or constitutes a position of superior intellect, or represents a superior critical or rational position on a topic at hand.

Appeal to Spite – a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made through exploiting people’s bitterness, spite or political orientation regarding an opposing party; or implication that certain politically disdained groups adhere universally to specific set of beliefs.

Appeal to Tradition (argumentum ad antiquitam) – a conclusion advertised as proven scientifically solely because it has long been held to be true.

Argument Abuse – argument is a set of propositions expressed with the intent of persuading through reasoning. In an argument, a subset of propositions, called premises, constraints and predicates, provides support for some other proposition called the conclusion. The nature and structure of an argument can be evaluated by four groups of measures regarding its basis, quality, type and outcome.

Argument from Celestial Intention – an appeal which cites that a contention stems from a desire to impart intent or value to aspects of the observable universe, and therefore identifies the contender as a creationist or god believer.

Argument from Fallacy – the false assumption that the simple act of catching an opponent in commission of a logical fallacy immediately invalidates all of their ideas, observations and data.

Argument from Hubris – an appeal which cites that a given contention stems at least in part from arrogance, entitlement or over-confidence on the part of the party making the contention. This argument is most often flawed in that first the appeal is a projection and assumption, and second there may be a myriad of other factors which could warrant such a theory or contention.

Argument from Ignorance – asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false, or is false because it has not been shown to have any evidence.

Argument from Incredulity – also known as argument from personal incredulity or appeal to common sense, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one’s personal or common expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

Argument from Self-Knowing – if P were true or false then I would know it as a skeptic; in fact I do not know it; therefore P cannot be true or false.

Argument from Silence – the pretense that the exhibiting of silence on one’s part is somehow indicative of higher intellect, ethics, rationality or knowledge and skill regarding a topic at hand.

Argument Theory – the formal and informal methods of evaluating the robust, weak or fatal nature of argument. In order of importance, the six elements are

Formal Strength

1. Coherency – argument is expressed with elements, relationships, context, syntax and language which conveys actual probative information

2. Soundness – premises support or fail to adequately support its proposed conclusion

3. Formal Theory – strength and continuity of predicate and logical calculus (basis of formal fallacy)

4. Inductive Strength – sufficiency of completeness and exacting inference which can be drawn

Informal Strength

5. Circumstantial Strength – validity of information elements comprised by the argument or premises

6. Integrity of Form/Cogency – informal critique of expression, intent or circumstantial features

Argumentative Definition – is a prima facia equivocation which purports to describe the ‘true,’ ‘unique professional employment’ and/or ‘commonly accepted’ meaning of a term, while in reality stipulating an irregular or altered employment of that term, usually to support an argument the proponent is attempting to force.

Argumentum Ad Baculum (appeal to the stick, appeal to force, appeal to threat) – a counter argument made through coercion or threats of force on the part of a Social Skeptic, via the media, one’s employment or on one’s scientific reputation.

argumentum ad ignorantiam (Argument from Ignorance) – a species of assertion in which one contends that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been researched, studied by science or proven true.

argumentum ad populum – appeal to popular or apparently popular opinion; appeal to the majority. The fallacy of attempting to infer or induce acceptance of a conclusion by citing that the conclusion is shared by large or expert groups of persons. Alternately arousing the feelings, prejudices, or interests of a person based upon their political party, a mob, or any large group of people. Two common corollary fallacies are the bandwagon and the snob appeal fallacies.

argumentum ad rudem – also known as an ‘appeal to raw data’ or the ‘naïve empiricism fallacy’. An argument, analysis, or reasoning that leans on a crude or simplistic understanding of data or facts, without the depth of analysis or expertise necessary to interpret it accurately. This term aligns with the concept of a fallacy where the correct raw data is identified or graphed, but the confounding analysis, interpretation, or necessary comparative is naive or lacks sophistication.

Argumentum Ergo Decedo – responding to criticism by attacking a person’s perceived affiliation as a shill or as a member of an activist organization as the underlying reason for criticism they have tendered; rather than addressing the criticism itself.

Arrival Bias – the tendency to tender more credibility or gravitas to information which is hot off the press or has just been introduced.

Artifarce – a slow moving disaster, drought, famine, inflation, eclipse, change in climate, or other natural phenomena – which is speciously blamed upon one’s political opponents or those they hate, and is used to justify taxation, enslavement, and/or genocide.

As Science as Law Fallacy – the implication or assumption that something is ‘innocent until proven guilty’ under the scientific method, when in fact this is an incorrect philosophy of hypothesis reduction.

Ascertainment Bias – a form of inclusion or exclusion criteria error where the mechanism of sampling, specimen selection, data screening or sub-population selection is inherently flawed, is developed based upon an inadequate or sophomoric view of the observations base or produces skewed representations of actual conditions.

Asch Conformity – participants in an argument fed false or misleading information, who conform to the majority opinion on at least half of these misleading ideas, are reported as reacting with what gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch called a “distortion of perception”. These participants, who make up a distinct minority (social skeptics or sycophants inside public discourse), will express belief that misleading or false answers are correct, unaware as to the actual veracity or lack thereof, of the answers originating from the majority to which they have paid reverence (appeal to authority).

Associative Condemnation – the attempt to link controversial subject A with personally disliked persons who support subject B, in an effort to impute falsehood to subject B and frame its supporters as whackos. Guilt through bundling association and lumping all subjects into one subjective group of believers. This will often involve a context shift or definition expansion in a key word as part of the justification. Spinning the idea that those who research pesticide contribution to cancer, are also therefore flat Earther’s.

Astroturfing – the attempt to create an illusion of widespread grassroots support for a policy, viewpoint, or product, where little such support in reality exists. Multiple online identities coordinate around celebrity siren calls, manufactured data, fake-hoax counter propaganda and shill pressure groups; all employed to mislead the public into believing that the position of the astroturfer is a socially acceptable, rational reality and/or a commonly held view.

Ataraxia (ἀταραξία, “tranquility”) – the Greek term used by Pyrrho and Epicurus for a lucid state of robust tranquility, characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. The state being enabled by removing one’s self from the fear/hate/disdain cycle of religion through employment of a suspended state of judgement, Epoché.

atéchne – a misconstruing of fact and method. Pretenses of false science and skepticism, portrayed by faking skeptics and social agenda apparatchiks. An inventory of fake methods, such as Occam’s Razor, anecdote dismissal, assailing the facts, dismissing eyewitness testimony, informal fallacy, etc.; all of which are abused, misapplied or are indeed not applicable at all to the subject or research under consideration.

Atheist’s Conundrum – if I research evidence which backs atheism, then I am pursuing science. If however, I research any topic which relates to a context of higher order beings, then I am a theist and have conducted pseudoscience. Therefore the only way to pursue science is to be an Atheist.

Attentodemic – a pandemic which arises statistically for the most part from an increase in testing and case-detection activity. From the two Latin roots attento (test, tamper with, scrutinize) and dem (the people). A pandemic, whose curve arises solely from increases in statistical examination and testing, posting of latent cases or detected immunity as ‘current new cases’, as opposed to true increases in fact.

Attribution Bias – when one considers the traits of another to stem from situational factors that may affect a person’s behavior as opposed to dispositional factors; yet views their own traits as stemming from chiefly dispositional factors.

Authority Credulist – the opposite of a conspiracy theorist, but even worse in terms of harm imparted. Believes authority with very little question. Vulnerable to and often exploited by authorized propaganda outlets, through bearing an abject weakness in ability to grasp asymmetry, spot patterns or develop intelligence. Seeks to be an agent which foments conflict between what they view as authority, and everyone who disagrees.

autoaufheben appeal – a doubled meaning or self-canceling argument: it means both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time. A form of rhetorical argument which serves to cancel itself through apologetic issued simultaneously with its primary claim. A person who says they are not a thief, while simultaneously demanding money from you at knifepoint.

Autodidact Straw Man – accusing a person in ignoratio elenchi ad hominem, of being only self taught. Disparaging a person’s view as being insignificant or irrelevant since it was not developed under the guise of a directed academic influence.

Autological – is a word that describes itself. For example, ‘pentasyllabic’ or ‘fractal’ are either conjunctions or meanings/imagery that describe the word itself.

Availability Bias – to elicit or recite opinions of only those persons that come most easily to mind or who are most familiar inside a proponent’s group, rather than a wide or representative sample of salient evidence, recitation or opinion.

Availability Error – to adjudicate the answer to questions according to the examples that come most easily to mind, rather than a wide or representative sample of salient evidence.

Availability Heuristic – to adjudicate the answer to a question according to only the information which is available at that time.

Babysitter – a celebrity or journalist who performs the critical tasks of agency inside a topic which is embargoed. The science communicator assigned a responsibility of appeasing public curiosity surrounding an issue which the public is not authorized to research nor understand. A form of psychosis, exhibited by an individual who is a habituated organic liar. A prevarication specialist who spins a subset of fact, along with affectations of science, in such as way as to craft the appearance of truth – and further then, invests the sum of their life’s work into perpetuating or enforcing a surreptitious lie.

Badwill – a detrimental and exploitable asset similar to goodwill found on a company’s financial statement. It refers to the influence that a governing body or entity holds over a target population, utilizing factors such as widespread ignorance, disinformation, fear, or other means of manipulation. It acts as a tool of intimidation and control, which is administered by illegitimate forms of governance, supervision, or management.

Bandwagon Blindness – when a group fails to see their own mistakes or errors inside a hot issue, usually obscured by the common spread of propaganda, and therefore must view any critique of, error or data contradiction as being the fault of opposition or outside parties.

Bandwagon Effect – the tendency to do (or believe) things because many in the Social Skeptic community do (or believe) the same. See Margold’s Law.

Base Rate Bozo – when employing a baseline reference from the past produces a forbidden observation – this poseur will make up some generalized claim about the ‘past not predicting the future’ and give it a sophist name (Base Rate Fallacy) to intimidate those who do not understand.

Base Rate Fallacy – an error in thinking where, if presented with related base rate information (i.e. generic, general information) and specific information (information only pertaining to a certain anecdotal case), the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter in characterizing the whole set of relevant data regarding a subject.

Basic Human Right to Knowledge of Mankind’s Origins and Progression – public access to study artifacts serving to illuminate mankind’s social, morphological and genetic history should not be denied based upon property conventions of any haplogroup, culture, owner, propriety, government, nation, intelligence group or institution. Knowledge is a basic human right; and in particular, it is a basic human right to access freely the knowledge of where mankind came from and the pathway which brought us here as a species. The Artifacts involved in such study are the property of mankind before they are the property or propriety of any and all other entities. Public access to objective physical, morphological, phenomenological and DNA study is the first duty of all paleontology and archaeology.

A. The free study of found artifacts should not be impinged based upon provenance alone, provided that such artifacts are eventually retired to their cultural owners. Cultural or national propriety over found artifacts only takes precedence once all appropriate study has been completed and communicated into the public domain.

B. The knowledge of any hybrid, exceptional, novel, extra or ultra-terrestrial, technological, extinct, predecessor or otherwise equal or advanced intervening culture of any form, whether past or present, shall not be the property of any single or collective group based upon haplogroup, culture, property, propriety, government, nation, intelligence group or institution. Such knowledge is, as the supreme and immediate priority, the irrevocable property of mankind.

C. Access to such knowledge shall not be denied, and no law shall be written nor considered legally binding, which restricts the free access thereof.

Beatles Effect – people who rise through their career having not served in a supporting role, in too fast a progression, or are assigned celebrity without substantive merit – these individuals will often exhibit a cruelty in their leadership, selfishness, or an inability to get along with peers, which expresses as a knee-jerk desire to denigrate subjects and persons, without adequate underpinning research.

Bedeutungslos – meaningless. A proposition or question which resides upon a lack of definition, or which contains no meaning in and if its self.

Begging the Point – the framing of a question from a desired answer in such a fashion that its desired conclusion is the only viable answer.

Begging the Question – falsely setting the starting point of an argument, or its foundational assumptions, such that the promoted conclusion is assumed as an inherent element or inevitable outcome of this starting position or set of assumptions.

Belief Accusing – the pejorative categorization of an individual expressing a contention into a stereotypical ‘true believers’ box pertaining to such contention. The fallacy of presumption and insult which implies that the victim is neither intelligent enough, informed enough nor of sufficiently social or credible status to merit possession of an epistemologically derived conclusion; therefore they must only ‘believe.’

Belief Bias – an effect where someone’s evaluation of the logical strength of an argument is biased by the believability of the conclusion, or suitability under their acknowledged or unacknowledged set of beliefs.

Belief vs Belief-Domain Conflation – misinterpreting identification of a belief as being based on a method of pseudoscience, as tacit permission to declare the entire belief-domain associated with the specific belief, to also constitute pseudoscience.

Benford’s Law of Controversy – passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.

Bergson’s Razor – one sign that an arguer or opponent does not really understand nor care about the argument at hand or that they secretly doubt their own argument elements. This can be found inside the tactic of a discrediting refutation or disputation incorporating a multiplicity of approaches and reasons as its basis. In this case, either the opponent did not understand that only one counter is required to refute an argument, if done properly; or they did not really believe their counter point in the first place, or were only seeking to personally embarrass or discredit their opponent – and not really dialectic the issue at hand.

Bespoke Truth – the idea that truth is not congruent with facts. Nobody thinks their own beliefs are untrue or nonfactual. The problem resides instead wherein people pick and choose what they decide to accept from among the array of facts in order to fit or craft a truth of their liking. A flawed application of inference or scientific study (torfuscation) – wherein it is not that the study or facts are incorrect, rather that they stand merely as excuses to adopt an extrapolated and tailored ‘truth’ which is not soundly represented by such ‘facts’.

Betteridge’s Law of Headlines – an adage about rhetoric that states: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”

Bias Blind Spot – the tendency to see oneself as less biased than other people, or to be able to identify more cognitive biases and faults in others than in oneself.

Bias Error – when using bias, fallacy or judgement error proclamations to condemn opinions of those who disagree with you, solely to push political, social or economic goals inside decision sets which are not clearly addressed by empirical or scientific backing.

Bias Inflation – a baseless claim of discrediting an observation set through identifying a plausible, relevant or even salient observer bias, which might have or did contribute to the observational profile, yet which can at most only explain a small or negligible portion of the observation base itself.

Bien Pensant – the clique of those who are deluded into viewing their educational degree or ability to ‘think rationally’ as constituting a just basis for social controls resulting in their favor. A right-thinking or orthodox person.

Bifallication – when one is forced to choose between two answers in a false dilemma, and there is a great likelihood or ignorance that both choices are also false themselves. A middle, more likely ground is ignored because of fanaticism influences and social polarization.

Bifurcation Fallacy – committed when a false dichotomy is presented, i.e. when someone is asked to choose between two options when there is at least one other option available.

Bifurcation Proof – when one makes up or spins an overly negative representation of another person’s position or a set of ideas/observations, and contends that this condemnation, and an implied sleight-of-hand bifurcation, therefore proves their own position or stands as scientific proof of their own idea.

Big is Science Error – bigger sample sizes and study data is a way of bypassing the scientific method, yet still tender an affectation of science and gravitas. Any time a study cannot be replicated, and a call to consensus is made simply because it would be too difficult to replicate the study basis of the consensus.

Bigger Data is Better Fallacy – the invalid assumption which researchers make when attempting to measure a purported phenomena, that data extraction inside a very large source population as the first and only step of scientific study, will serve to produce results which are conclusive or more scientific. The same presumption error can apply to meta-analysis. Wherein such an analysis is conducted in a context of low/detached, rather than informed knowledge sets, and will serve to dilute critical elements of signal and intelligence which could be used to elucidate the issue further.

bildungsphilister – a philistine possessed of a facile, cosmetic culture. Someone who reads articles and reviews and imagines themselves to be cultured and educated but lacks genuine, critical or introspective erudition. Nitzsche’s name for the pseudo-intellectual class of social activist. Bildungsphilisters are prone to dogmatic, cliched, and unsubtle responses to events and things. An activist who sees a majority vote which goes their way as ‘democracy’ and one which does not as ‘populism’. One who sees arguments which indicate their view, as being scientific, and those which do not, as pseudoscientific. Political and scientific constructs are mere artifices to be used and cast aside when not to their advantage. They wallow in rhetoric, apothegm and bear the inability to discern sophistry; vulnerable yet to it. A member of social skepticism or Nassim Taleb’s Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) class.

Black Swan Fallacy – a claim that the highly improbable will never happen, or that one has a grasp of the full set of the highly improbable, or that one has ascertained the likelihood of a highly improbable event through statistics – when there is not a precedent or knowledge base which allows for any objective epistemic basis for such a calculation. Any form of lack of knowledge which dismisses any highly improbable even from happening, based upon a faulty estimation of the likelihood of a single unlikely event not happening.

Blame – an expressed and dysfunctional absence of responsibility, which demonstrates an intellectual/spiritual deficit of awareness of the distinction between the two principles.

Blind-spot Bias – when one fails to recognize or attempt to recognize, or be circumspect about their own biases in side an argument or data set. To notice a bias, fallacy or error in others more readily than in one’s self.

Bolt’s Axiom – a belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind. Attributed to Robert Oxton Bolt, English Playwright.

bonus sive malum – a condition of Nelsonian ignorance, willful blindness or other circumstance of low information/diligence wherein inaction in addressing an error/shortfall or skepticism in its regard – serve to render incompetence as indistinguishable from professional malfeasance. There is no such thing as Hanlon’s Razor with national strategy for example. When it comes to human rights and the role of government, an absence of diligence is indistinguishable from malice. A limit/boundary to Hanlon’s Razor. Also known as the ‘Hanlon lived a sheltered life’ axiom.

Bootstrapping (Index/Strength) – from the tall tales about the 18th-century German nobleman Baron Munchausen and his wartime exploits against the Ottoman Empire; specifically wherein he pulled himself up out of a well by his own bootstraps. A computational technique for estimating a statistical set for which the underlying distribution is unknown, or a sampling technique which estimates sampling distribution by repeatedly sampling data from the original observation set. It is most often employed as a means to estimate confidence levels of clade structures within a phylogenetic tree in genetics. However, it can be used to describe an inference which is measured as to its risk in draw. A 50 Bootstrap index bears significant risk, whereas a 90/100 Bootstrap index implies a greater degree of confidence in the inference, and therefore less risk.

Boundary Semantics – (a form of appeal to infinity or plenitude) – pushing the meaning of a term (such as ‘proof’ or ‘knowledge’) into highly or specially plead realms of extreme definition variants, in order to provide an special pleading exception out of any or every argument. This is never a form of being semantically precise, despite a temptation to regard these types of extreme definitions as such. Rather is simply form of equivocation based explanitude.

Box Hunting – a set of questions posed by a fake skeptic or religious person which are designed to shepherd their conversant into a predefined box of irrationality in which they wish to place them.

Bradley Effect – the principle wherein a person being polled will, especially in the presence of trial heat or iteration-based polls, tend to answer a poll question with a response which they believe the polling organization or the prevailing social pressure, would suggest they should vote or which will not serve to identify them into the wrong camp on a given issue. The actual sentiment of the polled individual is therefore not actually captured.

Brechung Effect (German: Refraction Effect) – a principle which cites that, the further away an expert in a field is from personally conducting recent or field application/observation practice (eg. seeing patients or direct testing/observation/measurement/excavation, etc.), the more confident, appeal to credential, appeal to authority, arrogant, demeaning, and/or insistent will be their assertions.

Brevis Lapsus (‘Word Salad’ Fallacy) – the inability to understand technical or precise writing, mistaking it for constituting a pleonasm. This in favor of simplistic writing which is, either with or without the intent of the opponent, subsequently rendered vulnerable to equivocation. An accusation made when a dilettante person fails to understand philosophical or technical writing, wherein the base argument or its requisite vocabulary reside completely over the head of the individual who started the argument to begin with.

The Bricklayer’s Error – the presumption that academic, heuristic or deep single-function expertise (bricklaying) qualify one to stand as authority as to how the broader issue is to be managed (house is to be built or lived-in). Experience trumps consilience. Consilience trumps heuristic.

Bridgman Point – the point at which a principle can no longer be dumbed-down any further, without sacrifice of its coherency, accuracy, salience or context.

Bridgman Point Paradox – if you understood, I could explain it to you – but then again – if you understood I wouldn’t have to explain it to you.

Broad or Deep Fallacy – the habit of a pretend researcher to go deep into details on a subject possessing thin evidence, or alternately as the situation may warrant, to examine only old monkey suit stories or broaden the subject being considered sufficiently enough to include numerous anecdotes of a ludicrous or dismissed nature in an effort to avoid addressing a current body of robust observational evidence.

Broken Window Parable (Bastiat Fallacy) – actually a counter to the broken window parable which proposes that even in disaster, an economy profits on the repair and recovery. The Bastiat Fallacy points out the logical failure of such reasoning. Proposed by Nineteen Century French economist Frederic Bastiat, the fallacy states that the economic benefit derived from recovering from disaster is never superior to the economic benefit which was lost as opportunity cost, as a result of sacrificing the resources sacrificed in the disaster, nor committed to repair the damage or fix the disaster. The economic benefit of war is never compared to what was lost as a result of the war.

Broken Window Certainty Parable (Bastiat’s Certainty Fallacy) – a modified form of the Broken Window Parable, wherein the claim is made that harm imparted by a bad actor, or disaster cannot be claimed to ‘have been going to happen anyway, even if good decisions were made’. If benefit from such a disaster cannot be claimed as a positive credit for the disaster (Broken Window Parable), then neither can an argument that ‘harm would have happened anyway’ stand as a permissive nor partial exoneration of the disaster or bad action/decisions. Covid upheaval deaths, even though they might have happened under circumstances of good decision making, cannot be therefore deducted from the set of deaths which resulted from a reality of bad decision making.

Buchwissen – (book knowledge) the opposite end of the spectrum from an autodidact. A person who possesses scant or zero ability in original thinking, does not possess the gravitas necessary to assemble a logical calculus nor establish a set of sound conjecture from the substance of what they have learned under an academic context.

Bucket Characterization from Negative Premise – subject A is a disproved topic. As a ponderer of subject A you are therefore a pseudo scientist; and in being pseudo scientist you therefore then adhere to every other philosophy of pseudoscience and every philosophy a critical observer finds distasteful. Class stereotype disdain with fictionalized evidence.

Bucket Irrationality – a key sign of irrationality, resides in the circumstance whereupon, observing a problem inside a system – one contends that the entire system is evil and should be shut down. Moreover, the circumstance whereupon, identifying problems inside a topic, one declares it all to be ‘woo’ or ‘pseudoscience’.

Bundle Equivocation (Bundling) – when citing the detrimental aspects of a disliked subject, a method of deception where the cynic will list a series of likely flaws with one highly unlikely but pejorative flaw purposely intermixed in order to imply and impugn the subject targeted. Ron is slow at expression, not frugal with money or is a child molester, but we continue to evaluate Ron.

Bunk Nauseam Fallacy – the argument that a point is invalid by implying or citing incorrectly that the topic has been de-bunked many many times, and is now nothing but an irritating myth inside circles of stupidity.

The Ethical Skeptic

Challenging Pseudo-Skepticism, its Agency and Cultivated Ignorance

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For a comprehensive categorical listing of both formal and informal logical fallacies, cognitive biases, statistical broaches and styles of crooked thinking on the part of those in the Social Skepticism movement, click here, or on the Tree of Knowledge Obfuscation icon to the left.

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The Ethical Skeptic

Challenging Pseudo-Skepticism, its Agency and Cultivated Ignorance

For a comprehensive categorical listing of both formal and informal logical fallacies, cognitive biases, statistical broaches and styles of crooked thinking on the part of those in the Social Skepticism movement, click here, or on the Tree of Knowledge Obfuscation icon to the left.

The Ethical Skeptic Site Glossary (and Lexicon)

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