Talk:No true Scotsman

This article was the subject of a previous vote for deletion. An archived record of the discussion can be found here.

[Untitled]

Please note that the author does not state that Uncle Angus put the sugar on his porridge, merely that Uncle angus likes the taste of porridge with sugar.

Waynovitch

Bad Marker at top of page

Since this page does cite an external source, why does it have the marker at the top saying it doesn't ?

Proposed Section: Misuse

Considering how often this fallacy is misused, specifically with regard to religious/social groups, I would like to propose a new section: Misuse, which describes the incorrect application of this fallacy as a strawman attack on the reputation of a group. I'd edit it straight in, but I don't really know how to word it, and I don't know what would be a good source - don't really want Wikipedia to link to some toxic forum debates on a philosophy page for example.

- Misuse - The no true Scotsman fallacy is often misused, particularly when applied to social or religious groups whose requirements for membership are not strictly defined. In these cases, a disreputable example is applied to a group, in order to associate negatively their behaviour with the ideals of the group, if any attempt is made by a representative of that group to distance themselves from the example, they are accused of the night true Scotsman fallacy. - end-

Personally, I think the true fallacy is to ever use self-identification as a definition for membership in anything.

Chengarda (talk) 02:11, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Your proposal is sound. The "Scotsman" is born into that heritage. Membership in an organization with principles that could be broken is an entirely different matter. Go ahead and put it in. -- Glynth (talk) 17:38, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

"Good sources" are defined at WP:RS - as you rightly expect, forum debates aren't any use, we'd need a textbook or a published article. --McGeddon (talk) 20:58, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I would argue that the example should be cleared up, as to make it clear that the alleged "misuse" is actually the correct usage of the term. It's misused when used in an attempt to logically invalidate any generalizations. I.E interpreting the phrase "Americans speak English" as "absolutely every single american speaks English" and asserting that the original statement is incorrect, since you can prove at least one american doesn't speak English, and that the no true Scotsman argument applies to attempts to clarify. With respect to religious debates, no true Scotsman absolutely applies when one argues that a particular subset of followers does not practice the TRUE version of that religion. 92.220.28.214 (talk) 16:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)William

Additions to quote

I removed them, because they're silly. Either you know where Brighton and Aberdeen are, or you don't. If you think other people might need to know where they are or which country they're in, link to their actual pages, don't add in some weird syntax to a quote! Either way, it adds nothing to the quote, so they're gone. Feel free to make them links. Yb2 (talk) 03:30, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd already reverted this because your edit summary just referred to removing "strange additions to quote that aren't in the quote" which suggested you didn't know what the square brackets meant.

But if someone is reading this article in a print version or accessing it through a screen reader, asking them to click through to two further articles to fully understand a simple example isn't helpful. The double brackets look a little clunky and it might be neater to mention the cities' locations when introducing the quote instead, but it does not "add nothing" to explain where Brighton and Aberdeen are. --McGeddon (talk) 09:17, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Really, it does add *nothing* because the cities are (a) unimportant to the logic, which is the point of the quote and the page, and (b) linkable, which is far preferable to adding "clunky" syntax. I'm well aware of what the brackets mean, but the edit summary is just that, a *summary*, and as such should remain pithy. Hence, a longer explanation here. I can see you'll just keep reverting so I'll leave it, but you haven't changed my mind one iota. Yb2 (talk) 05:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

A reader outside Britain who doesn't know where the cities of Brighton and Aberdeen are will find it harder to understand the point of the example; it's not entirely baffling, but it's awkward enough that it's worth balancing with a slightly awkward explanation. In my opinion.

(If I've reverted you twice in as many weeks on this, it's because one edit was from an IP address removing the square - but not rounded - brackets, making the quotation inaccurate, and the other was you removing the country names with a summary that suggested you didn't understand why they were there: assume good faith.) --McGeddon (talk) 09:30, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Moving the Goalposts?

Is this related to the logical fallacy moving the goalposts? To my admittedly-inexpert eye, it certainly looks similar.

*Septegram*Talk*Contributions* 15:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

They are related in that both are ad hoc changes in an argument, typically to re-gain advantage after the fact (post hoc). They can be the same thing, but No true Scotsman involves re-defining a term ("I meant this") whereas moving the goalposts is changing the difficulty in meeting required proof. (Someone more verse in logic could probably express this more exactly that I.) / edg ☺ ☭ 16:33, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I may be wrong here, but I don't think they are that related. (AFAIK) No true scotsman is not so much about ad-hoc changes to an argument, but about making arbitrary distinctions to argue against examples of the contrary. IE. If the counterargument is "No young scotsman would eat sugar", it is not an instance of no true Scotsman because the distinction is not arbitrary. If it's not about the arbitrary nature of the distinction, then then that means that any clarifition of an argument or generalization is an instance of no true scotsman. 92.220.28.214 (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2015 (UTC)William