Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2013 March 4

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March 4

Logical fallacy name

Is this statement an example of the begging the question logical fallacy?:

"It is morally justifiable/morally permissible to force male victims of rape and statutory rape to pay child support against their will."

For the record, this statement expresses someone's personal opinion on this matter, rather than merely stating what the law says. This statement would appear to be an example of the beggining the question logical fallacy because it is establishing a premise (that biological parents should always be required to support their children) and then makes a conclusion based on this premise despite the fact that not everyone agrees with this premise in the first place. Is my logical fallacy analysis on this statement correct or not? Futurist110 (talk) 02:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

No. It's not a logical fallacy at all. They simply are saying that the obligation to pay for your children outweighs these extenuating circumstances. This isn't even a logical assertion, it's an opinion. StuRat (talk) 03:06, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

For an example of begging the question: "Marijuana should be illegal because the people selling and using it are all criminals." (Here they are criminals as a result of marijuana being illegal, so it's a fully circular argument.) StuRat (talk) 03:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

So are the "begging the question" fallacy and the circular argument the same thing? Futurist110 (talk) 04:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, according to that article, begging the question is a form of circular reasoning. StuRat (talk) 05:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Some commentators make a distinction (this is treated in the article). One of Fowler's examples of begging the question without making an overtly circular argument was something like fox hunting is not cruel, because the fox enjoys the hunt. You might be able to argue that this example is somehow circular when analyzed deeply, but it's not circular on the surface. --Trovatore (talk) 20:12, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Beware using the phrase "begging the question" because it is more widely mis-used than correctly used in the UK, even by people whom one would expect to be highly educated. I don't know whether such abuse of the phrase (as mentioned at the end of the article) is common in the US. Dbfirs 07:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

That's only true until a critical mass of people misuse it. At that point, that so-called misuse becomes the (new) standard meaning of the expression, and the old meaning becomes antiquated, and anyone who insists on it becomes old-hat and pedantic and reactionary and square. I should know: there are thousands of old expressions I'm hanging on to for grim death.  :) -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 09:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Likewise! :)

Unfortunately, in the UK, the critical mass for begging the question has now been exceeded, and people look at you in disbelief if you try to explain the real meaning. The language seems to be changing faster that it ever used to, or is that an illusion caused by ageing? Dbfirs 12:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The maddening and ironic truth is that the misuse often stems from an attempt at erudition. Of course language evolves, and things take on new meanings. But this is simply polluting the language. Why dilute the meaning by saying things like "this begs the question: why do people use phrases incorrectly?" - when we can easily say "this raises the question: why do people use phrases incorrectly?" Pro-tip: "begging the question", used correctly, takes no direct object. If you want to refer to an actual question, you mean "raises" .</rant> SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Note that, in my reply, I switched to the term "circular argument", because I prefer that term, being self-explanatory, versus "begging the question", which is not, leading to multiple interpretations. I'm always an advocate of simpler language, such as an "order to charge or release", versus a "writ of habeus corpus", which doesn't have an obvious meaning, even if you know Latin. StuRat (talk) 16:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Language change almost always proceeds from ignorance and error. There's no getting away from that. And SemanticMantis's "pollution" is part of all that. That's why people with long memories and/or a good education are able to be so superior and righteous about the proper use of words and expressions. We were taught to avoid error and go towards the light, and that's always pretty good advice. Trouble is, as I said above, things have a funny way of changing, and today's error may well be tomorrow's accepted norm, so at some point there has to be a letting-go exercise if one wants to remain a speaker and user of the living language. But letting go should not happen until and unless it's absolutely unavoidable; at that point, however, we have no option but capitulate to the enemy (and yes, it feels very much like being a traitor; but doing the decent thing and shooting ourselves in large numbers over the new use of "begging the question" is probably a little excessive in the overall scheme of things). I'm still holding on to words like "a lot" and "its" (the apostrophe-less possessive pronoun) etc, but before I die I expect to see many more wonders than were ever dreamt of in my philosophy. When all is said and done, and most of us have been by now, there is always merit in being open-minded. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:56, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

But I will NEVER use "transition" as a verb. A man still has some standards. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The men in white coats will be arriving soon, to transition you to a rubber room. :-) StuRat (talk) 00:14, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

One that annoys me is newscasters who now say "The accident is working", which apparently means "The police are working to clear the road, following the accident". I hope, for your sanity, that hasn't made it's way to Aussieland yet. StuRat (talk) 00:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Why on Earth should the "real" meaning of the phrase be the obscure calque of a calque used in extremely limited situations as technical jargon by people interested in formal logic, rather than the everyday meaning that uses the everyday meaning of the English words to describe a common situation clearly? Why should someone who puts English words together to form a natural phrase that describes something they see a lot be told that this is "wrong", on the basis that someone clumsily translated some old text using these words and now that's the only thing you're allowed to describe with those words? 86.140.54.54 (talk) 20:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you there. A pre-existing common usage should take precedence over a later technical jargon usage. That is, those using the word in the original sense should not be told they are using it incorrectly. I'm not sure which sense came first, in this case, though. StuRat (talk) 00:12, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

True, but I can't find any pre-existing common usage of the original meaning of beg in relation to a question. (Why would one wish to ask alms of a question?) The original sense of beg (to ask alms) dates from before 1200, whereas the "take for granted; presuppose" sense dates from before 1581. A search of Google Books seems to indicate that people in the mid-20th century misunderstood a phrase they had heard and gradually (from the early sixties − John C Green on Darwin in 1961 and Leonard Binder on Iran in 1962 − ) came to use "beg" instead of "raise. Dbfirs 08:09, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

• The misuse of "begs the question" from "raises the question" is rampant in the US. Of course no one who speaks Latin would know what habeus corpus means. Habeas corpus, maybe. μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

As for logical fallacies: most of them apply to an argument, and its logical validity (i.e. lack thereof). What you've given is not at argument, but simply a statement. To be an argument, it would need some sort of "if" or "because" clause (or any related grammatical structure that introduces a consequent based on a premise.) SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Searching for images on Wikipedia

Where do I go if want to search for an image on Wikipedia? I can't go to Wikimedia Commons because the image I am looking for was on a "List of Characters" page. --68.186.238.19 (talk) 03:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Google images with wikipedia.org or wikimedia.org as the search field. μηδείς (talk) 03:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'll try that.68.186.238.19 (talk) 15:01, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, you can use something like:

site:en.wikipedia.org

for the English Wikipedia. The "site:" portion limits the search to that specific site. And then follow that with your keywords. Dismas|^(talk) 15:13, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

You can also go here: [1], which includes audio and video files, but it is still mainly images. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:24, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Just so you know, I forgot the name of the image.68.186.238.19 (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, the above advice is to search for images based on words found with them, such as in the caption or text. Searching for images based on the image itself is much trickier. TinEye does this, but you have to already have a similar image. I don't know of any search method which will allow you to find an image by saying "I'm looking for a picture of a house with a red tile roof and a green door, with an Asian couple in front playing with their toddler son on a blue, metal tricycle". StuRat (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Employment records and history

Where can I find an individuals employment records and history? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.174.111.104 (talk) 15:27, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

In many countries and places, probably no where. The employment records would not be centralised but kept by whatever compan/ies they worked for. There may be social security, bank, tax and insurance records which will give you an idea or where the person worked, how much money they got and in some cases the recorded working hours, but they probably won't tell you much else and for various reasons may not include some jobs. And for privacy reasons, you generally won't get access to any of these unless perhaps you get a court order or are the person who's records you're seeking and even if you are the person you still may not be entitled to everything. Do you have a specific location in mind like Montana, US where your IP looks up to? And when you say 'an individuals', do you have someone specific in mind like yourself? And are you thinking of the complete records or something else? Nil Einne (talk) 16:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

On the other hand, if you're looking to hire someone, and want to browse through multiple resumes, then an only job search site, like monster.com, might be the way to go. StuRat (talk) 16:41, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Linkedin, if you're their friend/connection and they've added it. 20.137.2.50 (talk) 17:53, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Those sites will contain employee-supplied resumes/CVs, which are usually massaged to present the employee in the best possible light. They downplay or gloss over (or outright lie about) periods of unemployment and the reasons for unemployment, and highlight successes. Plus, they're supposed to be relevant to the job or type of job they're seeking, so many details that are not relevant may not appear at all in any particular version. A resume is a start to getting a complete picture of a person's work history, but only a start. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 19:21, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Are there sources that indicate the level of embellishment regularly advances to the level of fraud the majority of the time? 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I never said that. I said it happens. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 22:33, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

To what extent it happens would be proportional to how good/bad advice it is to use such sites. Yes, it happens. If it happens often, that makes the suggestion to use the site worse, but if it happens relatively infrequently, and you brought it up simply to bring it up, with no implication that the reason you're bringing it up is to say it's a bad idea to go by one's profile to get an idea of their job history, then it wouldn't be a bad suggestion. I'm not the OP, but I'm the one who mentioned Linkedin. And I'm not trying to advocate them, I just want to know if you brought up all the possibilities that profiles are "usually massaged to present the employee in the best possible light. They downplay or gloss over (or outright lie about) periods of unemployment and the reasons for unemployment, and highlight successes." so as to imply that one ought not to go down that road. 67.163.109.173 (talk) 23:52, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I only brought it up because in order to acquire a person's full employment records and history, you'd have to (a) hire a private investigator and (b) still be prepared to never get all the information you seek, because much of it would be private, protected and unavailable to third parties through normal channels. What you get on resumes etc is what the subject of the resume provides themself, and they're inherently biased, if only by omission. Who is going to say on their resume: "1999-2002 Federal Penitentiary; serving sentence for fraud"? I'm not suggesting most people have anything to hide along those lines, but how do you ever know you're getting the full story? You don't. Public figures are a little different, because they tend to spend their whole adult lives in the spotlight they crave, and it's impossible to hide significant gaps. Most people are not public figures. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Regular life consists more of satisficing with imperfect information than optimal decision making with perfect information. 67.163.109.173 (talk) 16:29, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh, of course, I agree totally. Risks have to be taken every day. I would never have mentioned any of the above except for the OP's question, which was somewhat vague. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 18:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

:) 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:10, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I suppose you want a reliable employment record, and not what the employee claims that it's important. The best source that I know is the social security, which doesn't grant public access due to privacy reasons. But even then, the source is not complete, since it won't include any employment abroad. Anyway, that's why there are references, interviews and a probation period. That should give you enough information about someone. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:32, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

There are commerical services such as The Work Number [2] that will do employment and salary history verification. RudolfRed (talk) 21:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Not real aircraft, right?

Check out this WWII-era recruitment poster for the AAF. Those aren't actual types of aircraft depicted, are they?! TresÁrboles (talk) 22:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The WWII AAF poster shows a slightly tidied-up Martin B-26 Marauder, and that same poster is reproduced in the article. Acroterion (talk) 22:30, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Wow, thanks, good find! That transparent nose cone just looks so weird. TresÁrboles (talk) 22:48, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much every bomber of that era had a transparent nose cone for the bombardier and nose gun: see the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, Boeing B-29 Superfortress or Heinkel He 111. May Soviet aircraft had them through the 1960s for navigational purposes: see most models of the Tupolev Tu-134.

Resolved

Cacti experts around?

Anyone know what species this is? (from http://www.itsnotworkitsgardening.com/2012/02/tiny-cactus-again.html) TresÁrboles (talk) 22:23, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking at other posts from that site, some commenters say that one of the plants may be claret cup. TresÁrboles (talk) 22:52, 4 March 2013 (UTC)