MENSwikiman
Welcome
editWelcome!
Hello, MENSwikiman, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions, especially what you did for No true Scotsman. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
- The five pillars of Wikipedia
- Tutorial
- How to edit a page and How to develop articles
- How to create your first article (using the Article Wizard if you wish)
- Manual of Style
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome!
Joren (talk) 07:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
Hey I wanted to let you know that I undid your addition to the No true Scotsman article. It sounded a little bit original research-ish, but the main issue for me is that the fallacy usually takes the form of "no x is y", "here's an x that is y" "no true x is y". Your proposed argument is more of a "most x > y" "here's an x that's less than y" "that x is not a true x". Do you get what I mean? It kind of muddles things up a bit to say "most Christians have a higher moral standard than non-believers" because it's a "most" instead of an "all" and it's also a relative assessment instead of an absolute one. If you wanted it to be more reflective of the fallacy, it would be better to have an argument running something like this: "No Christian does a morally reprehensible thing" "Here's a Christian that did a morally reprehensible thing" "No true Christian would..." etc.
For what it's worth, we actually had a related conversation before at Talk:No true Scotsman and the original Christian/example argument ended up getting removed. We haven't really come up with a good example that's better than the namesake that's already there - "No Scotsman would do such a thing!" "well, er, uh... no true Scotsman would do such a thing!" The key is that the proponent is modifying his original assertion to avoid admitting defeat, whereas in the Christian examples, the implementation tends to run in such a way that original assertion is theologically complex to the point where it's possible the position has remained constant throughout, and simply wasn't expressed intelligibly to begin with (do some research into Calvinism sometime, which the talk-page example was related to...it can make the head spin :O ). Anyway, if you feel sufficiently passionate about the example argument, feel free to reform it and make it clear and understandable :) thanks for Wiki-ing! Joren (talk) 07:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)