Talk:Chronological snobbery/Archive 1

Weasel words

Without trying to be rude Dbergan, I think you've just changed it from Unsourced to weasel words. Ashmoo 23:16, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough... I'll try to rephrase it in terms of a logical fallacy. If you have another solution in mind, let me know. David Bergan 14:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Rework

The biblically related parts of this article are tenuous at best. The passage where Elijah meets God in the silence is not a refutation of God causing natural disasters. The writer (pardon the rudeness) has apparently missed the point of God "not being in" the furies that precede him. The real message there is that Elijah ascends beyond the physical manifestation of God to a higher (and "truer") experience of God. It certainly does not refute the belief that inexplicable natural disasters were supernaturally caused. There are much better examples of Chronological snobbery. I will try to fix this up when I have time but does anyone else have some input/better examples (like the Aristotle/astrologer example)? Rtrev 01:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)--

1 Kings 19:11-13

11 He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12 and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13 When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The Holy Bible  : New Revised Standard Version. 1996, c1989 (1 Ki 19:11-13). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

I don't see where you get your interpretation that "The writer (pardon the rudeness) has apparently missed the point of God "not being in" the furies that precede him." Do you have a source for that? Because I don't think it is at all obvious from this English translation of the text.

I am definitely in favor of including other examples, but I think this also helps make the point that the ancient Hebrews didn't ascribe God to natural disasters, unless the disaster was completely out of the ordinary (ie Noah's 40-day flood; lightning striking the altar in broad daylight; successive plagues in Egypt that devastated the Egyptians, but left the Hebrews untouched). David Bergan 14:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This discussion, to me, points out the general problem with this article. Wikipedia is not a place to discuss interpretations of Bible passages. We need to be reporting notable sources who have interpreted the Bible and explain how their views relate to the topic of the article. Ashmoo 00:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Interpretation? The text says "the Lord was not in the wind" "the Lord was not in the earthquake" and "the Lord was not in the fire." Nobody's interpreting anything... just reading. And the reading reinforces the point that ancient Hebrews did not believe natural disasters were always God's anger.

But God is in bits of nature everywhere in the Old Testament, and sometimes even the new ("Even wind and sea obey him" -Mark 4:41). God guided the Israelites with fire and cloud. He sent lightning to light Elijah's fire and sent a downpour shortly thereafter to quench a drought that He had caused. The story about God failing to appear to Elijah in the wind and fire and earthquake does not prove anything about Hebrew chronology. And furthermore, I don't see the basis for calling Job "quite possibly the oldest book we have." I just stumbled on this page, but I think I'll be bold and remove the paragraph in question. Fishal 04:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew chronology? I don't follow.

I'll restore and find a source for the Job part. David Bergan 15:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Erm...

Isn't this just a different name for the Appeal to novelty fallacy? -- Sasuke Sarutobi 23:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

They have similarities, but aren't strictly the same... usually the context is different. For example, to say that iPods sound better than CDs is an appeal to novelty... and to use the term chronological snobbery wouldn't really fit at all. Likewise, to say that Plato's philosophy is invalid because they didn't even know about the heliocentric solar system, would be chronological snobbery and not an appeal to novelty.

I'm sure that there are examples that could fit under both, but that doesn't mean that the concepts are exactly the same. I can find an example of a car that's also a Buick, but that doesn't mean that "car" and "Buick" are synonyms.

I'd prefer if you take the merge disclaimer down, at least until we talk it out more. I had a similar experience on the magical thinking page, where I came upon that article and thought that it was pretty much just another term for superstition. So I put up the merge tag first, and then started discussing. It wasn't long until I felt ashamed for that approach, once some substantive arguments were made. Kind regards, David Bergan 04:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

logical fallacy?

I am not sure that Chronological Snobbery is a logical fallacy. If it is, then it should be listed on the logical fallacy page. Snobbery is more of an attitude than a logical argument. Saying that it is a fallacy in the first sentence suggests that the snobs are always wrong. Roger 19:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Roger, and thanks for your input. Just beacuse something fits the form of a logical fallacy does not mean that it is always wrong... it means that it could be right or wrong, but in that form the argument is unacceptable. For example, let's take the post hoc fallacy which states that you cannot assume that there is a causal link between two events simply because one occurred before the other. That form applies to both of the following arguments:

• I rode my bicycle around the block.
• My mom started throwing up later that day.
• My bicycle riding caused Mom to throw up.

• My mom ate a piece of pizza off the bathroom floor.
• My mom started throwing up later that day.
• Eating the pizza off the bathroom floor caused Mom to throw up.

It's more likely that the second is true. However, both are framed as a logical fallacies, and from this info alone, we cannot make a sound judgment. Simply expressing the temporal sequence doesn't explain the causes. To make it a sound argument we would have to dress it up more like this.

• My mom was throwing up and showed the symptoms of food poisoning.
• She ate a piece of pizza off the bathroom floor earlier that day.
• The bathroom floor was dirty and tested positive for bacteria that cause food poisoning.
• Therefore, eating the pizza off the bathroom floor caused Mom to throw up.

In the same way, chronological snobbery could be right or wrong, but it doesn't amount to a sound judgment without recasting the argument in better terms. The ancients were in fact wrong about the Earth being the center of the universe... but they weren't wrong just because they were ancient. They were wrong because they didn't have telescopes. Anyone arguing that such and such is false merely because it is an old argument, is committing a fallacy.

As for the logical fallacy page, you're right that chronological snobbery is not explicitly listed. However, it is of the red herring form, which is listed on that page. Actually fallacy is a better page than logical fallacy, and neither page says that they have a comprehensive list of all the fallacies. Kindly, David Bergan 16:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The descriptions and examples of chronological snobbery are not presented as logical arguments. Chronological snobbery is a belief, or an uncritical acceptance, or an ignorant opinion, or a prejudice, but none of the examples present chronological snobbery as a logical argument.

The recent edits make the article more neutral, but someone needs to finish the job and get rid of "logical fallacy". Or find some usage of the term that actually treats it as a logical fallacy. Roger 03:09, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

From fallacy: A fallacy is a component of an argument that is demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, thus rendering the argument invalid in whole, except in the case of begging the question, a false analogy and other informal fallacies.

I think that the example presented on the page of CS Lewis resisting Christianity because in his mind it was "medieval" is a perfect example of flawed reasoning based on chronological snobbery. It is as much a "logical argument" (to use your words) as ad hominem, which we could call simple "snobbery": ie. don't listen to Martin Luther King's argument because he is poor and Black. Both of them consist of attacking the source of the argument (be it a person or a time period) rather than the argument itself, which is why they are fallacious.

Please explain to me how chronological snobbery is not a flaw in reasoning. Maybe it doesn't get laid out on paper in strict syllogistical terms very often... but fallacies rarely do, because as soon as they are, they are usually found to be fallacious. David Bergan 15:36, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, some people might have disregarded MLK's arguments because he was poor and black, but I don't think anyone would claim that him being poor and black is a good logical reason to disregard what he says. OTOH, people really do disregard ancient teachings just because they are ancient. There are also people who refuse to watch old movies, just because they think that the current stuff must be better. That seems like a form of chronological snobbery to me. I may think that they are mistaken, but why isn't it just an opinion? Roger 18:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)