5. Logical Fallacies: Complex Question

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6. Logical Fallacies: Bifurcation

00:00

Four is the complex question.

00:08

This is the interrogative form of begging the question. When the arguer attempts to persuade by asking a loaded question.

00:16

You've probably heard this before. A classic example is, have you stopped beating your wife? Imagine getting asked that question.

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Either a yes or no answer would seem to imply that the person is beating his wife, which may not be the case.

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When have you stopped beating your wife? Any answer to that question assumes that you are beating your wife.

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It's a complex question. It should be broken up in two parts. The question is complex. It should be divided into two questions.

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First would be, did you ever beat your wife? The second would be, if so, have you now stopped doing this?

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Do you see the difference? It's two questions in one.

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Your job is to listen to what they say and try to separate those things out so that they don't pass this by you.

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A good example of this would be, so you're going to vote for that incompetent candidate. So he's assuming that the person is going to vote and the vote that he makes is an incompetent candidate.

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He should separate those two things and say, well, are you going to vote? Yes. Who are you going to vote for?

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Those are two different things. So if the guy says, no, I'm not going to vote for that person, he's assuming that it's an incompetent candidate because it's baked into the same question.

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You've got to separate those two things. Another example would be, if the world is so young, then why does it look so old?

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If the world is young, then why does it look so old? They're assuming, okay, again, it's two different questions.

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You have to break that out. What is your reasoning behind why the earth is young?

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What is your facts for why the earth looks so old? Those are two different questions.