Posted by beardedlady on June 16, 2002, at 5:59:25
In reply to Re: re moderation of lostboync » katekite, posted by omega man on June 16, 2002, at 1:32:47
As a writing teacher, I always tell students not to begin their opinions with "I think," "I feel," or "I believe," as everyone knows it's an opinion, and adding those qualifiers weakens an argument. That said, I'd be willing to bet you'd find overgeneralizations in about 50% of the posts.
Overgeneralizations are logical fallacies, but they're not evil. And they happen without incident all the time. Some fall for them; some don't. In this case, it really has more to do with whether one believes what the poster is saying.
If I put up a post up that said in it somewhere, "Alcohol is bad for you," would I have been called out for overgeneralizing? How about, "Milk is good for you"? Both are overgeneralizations. A glass of wine or beer a day, for example, is actually considered good for you, while milk is horribly high in fat and actually bad for a majority of our lactose-intolerant population.
I may not agree with the statement that was made, but it's what some of us know as, "a provocative opinion asserted provocatively." [from the textbook Writing Worth Reading] And it made me interested in hearing the argument.
beardy : )>
poster:beardedlady
thread:5639
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020510/msgs/5646.html