Humanities desk
< October 3	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 5 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 4

Type of fallacy

Here's a type of fallacy I sometimes notice in public debate:

Person A: Studies show that people with green hair are statistically more violent than other people.

Person B: That's wrong. Bob from accounting has green hair, and he's not violent at all.

Is there a name for this kind of fallacy, when someone thinks they've disproved a generalization by pointing out an exception? Thanks! 2607:FCC8:87C5:100:78FA:8B26:2B8C:66C1 (talk) 00:54, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Fallacy of Division. Omidinist (talk) 05:10, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it more of an anecdotal fallacy? Sjö (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2015 (UTC) Added: That link redirects to Misleading vividness which is kind of strange, anecdotal evidence might be a better link, or [1]. Sjö (talk) 06:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Accident (fallacy) seems to be appropriate. Tevildo (talk) 08:13, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's also a certain smack of affirming the consequent Asmrulz (talk) 12:01, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if anything, it's denying the consequent (modus tollens), which is a logically valid way of reasoning. The mistake is in going from "people with green hair are more likely to be violent" to "all people with green hair are violent". Tevildo (talk) 13:13, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right, my mistake. It'd be a.t.c. if the argument went "Bob is violent, but his hair is not green." Plus the whole thing is a different "logic family", i.e. not predicate logic but something else Asmrulz (talk) 21:46, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Along those lines, moving from a correlation to a universal implication is a faulty generalization. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Person B's argument is "Bob has green hair; Bob is not violent at all; therefore people with green hair are not statistically more violent than other people." That doesn't fit most of the patterns linked above. I think it's just a hasty generalization. -- BenRG (talk) 16:58, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sun Style Tai Chi for Arthritis

An acquaintance unfamiliar with the internet has asked me to find a helpful DVD course based on Sun-style Tai Chi for people with arthritis. She studied it years ago at the gym under the aegis of the "Arthritis Foundation" in the US. She did such moves as:

Commencment

Waving Hands in the Clouds

Pushing the Mountain, aka Spreading the Sheets

Parry and Punch

Spanking the Monkey

She would like to find a similar program with videos on line, or the description of a program she can buy satisfaction guaranteed (many such disks are quite expensive) on line. I am as ignorant of tai chi as she is of the internet, so together we are like a leaky boat with one paddle.... Basically a somewhat familiar but somewhat challenging routine that can be done in front of the TV would be ideal. Thanks for any suggestions. PS, she has ordered Paul Lam's original 1997 24 positions. But he gives very few examples on line, while other people give much more complex programs. She is most interested in the sun (same vowel as book) style. Again, thanks, μηδείς (talk) 03:57, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Been meaning to look into Tai Chi for my mom. Youtube seems to have a fair amount of stuff, though some of it is short, and some of them are just samples for videos you can order. If you find any she could use, you can use Keepvid to download the videos. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yes, my mom (the she of my example) simply has no clue. She buys 4.7GB DVD's and has my dad print 25kb of info one one at a time to take to the photo developer. I have told her that if she gets the disks I can record the videos, and that I should be the one to buy the proper disks for images and videos, since they usually burn about 8MB or far less per 4.7GB disk they buy.

That being said, searches under sun, paul lam, arthritis, and tai chi all seem to give promotional videos for lam, which cover one move she is familiar with, such as commencement--they are videomercials. So the question is not really how to download, since I can handle the tech, The question for her is, what are the best sun-Style videos available, the ones that have some of the moves she knows, and introduces sun-style ones she doesn't. μηδείς (talk) 04:49, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eleanor Roosevelt's preference in the 1948 election

Who was endorsed by Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1948 presidential election? Did she favor incumbent Democratic President Harry S. Truman or Progressive candidate, former VP Henry Wallace? --89.13.120.11 (talk) 09:16, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Truman, unambiguously. "Dear Mr. President: I understand that there is some comment in the newspapers in the United States that I have not come out for you as the Democratic candidate and prefer the election of the Republican candidate. I am unqualifiedly for you as the Democratic candidate for the presidency." - October 4, 1948. [2] --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 14:49, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The question referred not to Republican candidate Thomas Dewey but to a third-party candidate, Henry Wallace of the Progressive Party, who it was thought might draw votes away from the Democrats. However, on the same page of letters cited by jpgordon, there is an earlier one where Eleanor Roosevelt writes: "The great trouble is that Mr. Wallace will cut in on us". In other words, she stood with the Democratic Party and did not support Wallace either. --174.88.134.156 (talk) 19:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. She didn't much care for Truman, but she was loyal to her party. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 03:21, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And not her uncle's party then.Hayttom (talk) 03:22, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Receiving funds in France from the US… What forms to fill ?

Hello, I’ll won a security bounty from a big company (the account has been confirmed by the company).

According to http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-trty/france.pdf and http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/treaties/Documents/Treaty-Protocol-France-1-13-2009.pdf. It see seems there are many exception where a W8_BEN should not be filled.
However, I’m having problem understanding legal English, so I’ve been unable to find my case inside the treaty (the case of a one time payment from a US company to a French citizen).

The Company is telling it’s up to their bounty hunters to do the necessary work for staying fine with US IRIS and their equivalent in their local country. 2A02:8420:508D:CC00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid we can't give legal or financial advice on the Reference Desk. You should contact an accountant or lawyer (independent of the company that's offering you the money). Tevildo (talk) 11:41, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

... and, of course, never pay the "big company" any administration fee in advance, just in case it's a scam. Dbfirs 07:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

whar are the formal terminologies describing the sliding scale between hard serious attitude and apathetic jocular attitude

want to know the names of the various related philosophical views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahfuzur rahman shourov (talk • contribs) 15:32, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose, using the humoural theory, this could be regarded as the choleric/sanguine axis. According to this paper, "the most frequently used measure for aggression is Buss Durkee Hostility inventory." We don't have an article on this, but it's mentioned in a footnote to the Bobo doll experiment. Tevildo (talk) 18:04, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are we sure that there's a sliding scale? In Internet forum discussions we quickly become aware that a statement is either meant literally or sarcastically. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Generally when trolling we choose language to convey such attitudes as earnestness and irreverence. Bus stop (talk) 13:24, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Itsmejudith and Bus stop:sliding scale in that the intensity of seriousness vs jocularity in all aspects of life varies in a percentile amount or any other measure of ratio.

"LEAD competencies" ("Leadership, Excellence, Achievement & Development")

The titular phrase seems to surface here and there as being something useful for managers. Example sites: Tennessee government UM-Flint. But everyone seems to have their own formulation, the number of competencies might be six or eight, and nobody seems eager to give credit.

What is the point of origin of the phrase and idea?

Has any objective test been made of its effectiveness?

I should add that I'm wondering whether it is possible to loot a perhaps demystified version of the idea, rebalanced toward leadership among equals, as something for Wikimedia editors to use. Wnt (talk) 22:19, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]