What can happen if one uses your arguments

I appreciate the story. However, having a similar name to someone else is not something I see as a coincidence. True, my given name is Robert, but I have never went by "Bob." There are other Bo Bennett's out there, but I have never seen it as my responsibility to separate myself from the actions and behaviors of all the other Bo Bennett's. Especially, when the "sin" of the similarly named is simply being a member of one of two major political parties.

So, Rolly, are you going to call Dr Mike Yeadon who served as the chief scientist and vice-president of Pfizer's allergy and respiratory research unit in Sandwich, Kent, where he oversaw the development of drugs for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) a conspiracy theorist?

He says he doesn't believe there ever was a covid virus ...
https://planetwavesfm.substack.com/p/pfizers-former-chief-scientist-mike

... and what about Michael Wallach who presents statistics which show that the April 2020 mortality spike in Europe and the US had more sinister causes than a novel virus?

Where's the false correlation? Is Michael Wallach making a false correlation or ... ?
https://theviraldelusion.substack.com/p/the-great-lie-and-the-data-that-shows

Well Petra, I do not think Bo wants to make this section a discussion about Covid or anything related to it. So I keep the answer short. I think that whoever thinks that there are no viruses and that esp. there is no SARS-CoV-2 virus is a total nutjob. 'Nough said.

Being bombarded with propaganda 24/7 of course it's very easy to believe that someone who says something in complete opposition to it is a nutjob, however, this person you consider a nutjob has made a case using uncontested facts and statistics and a critical thinker needs to look at those statistics and the case made for them and decide whether the case stands up or whether a false correlation has been made.

False correlation is a logical fallacy - this is what this site is about, no, logical fallacies?

Does the case made constitute a logical fallacy or doesn't it?

[To Petra Liverani]

Petra, this is the last answer you will get from me on this topic, as said I do not want to hijack Bo's site for that discussion. I will not go into analyzing the statistics you linked to. I am a Mathematician, but specialized on Numerical Analysis, not Statistics. I do however know how Science works and I know that Science does not work with posting single, non peer reviewed articles on a fringe virus denier site and then complaining that this so called "Science" is ignored by the scientific community. There are literally hundreds of articles out there analyizing the death rates during and after the pandemic, they use the same data and come to different conclusions. So why is this article ignored? Because it tries to shoehorn data in a sort to comply with a totally nutjob assumption, that "viruses do not exist", overturning about 150 years of medical science history. You can believe that, you can abstain from vaccines and other treatments, all fine by me. But please not here and and not with me. I wish you a plesant and happy life.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/germ-theory-denialism-a-major-strain-in-alt-med-thought/

[To Rolly]

Your argument falls into the logical fallacy Argument from Authority, doesn't it, Rolly? 150 years, peer review, the usual. Heard it all before.

Michael Wallach's argument that the cause of excess mortality around April 2020 is not the assumed covid but a variety of more sinister causes is backed from two directions:

• measures we can easily see would be responsible for this mortality
• the figures not fitting what is expected from a contagious illness, for example, that spikes were very sudden where they occurred and were localised in ways we wouldn't expect

Nothing can recommend an argument better than support coming from various angles, can it? That's what counts, Rolly, not 150 years and peer review - how well an argument is supported.

Another analyst who goes under the pseudonym John Dee claims he is a former NHS head of department for clinical audit at a busy teaching hospital with specialism in assessment of clinical outcomes before which he headed a statistical modelling section as a G7 government scientist. He certainly seems to know how to analyse statistics. He doesn't think the statistics show what they're purported to show either.
https://jdee.substack.com/p/excess-covid-death-part-1

[To Petra Liverani]

I hate it when I have to fail on a promise, but at least this comment falls square into the purpose of this site.

Your argument falls into the logical fallacy Argument from Authority, doesn't it, Rolly? 150 years, peer review, the usual. Heard it all before.

Please read the entry on Appeal to Authority

Exception: Be very careful not to confuse "deferring to an authority on the issue" with the appeal to authority fallacy. Remember, a fallacy is an error in reasoning. Dismissing the council of legitimate experts and authorities turns good skepticism into denialism. The appeal to authority is a fallacy in argumentation, but deferring to an authority is a reliable heuristic that we all use virtually every day on issues of relatively little importance. There is always a chance that any authority can be wrong, that’s why the critical thinker accepts facts provisionally. It is not at all unreasonable (or an error in reasoning) to accept information as provisionally true by credible authorities. Of course, the reasonableness is moderated by the claim being made (i.e., how extraordinary, how important) and the authority (how credible, how relevant to the claim).

What you are doing is appealing to one or two selected and percieved authorities, while claiming that all other authorities in the field are wrong. I am sure there is also a fallacy descriping such a behavior.

galileo fallacy

Where did I say any particular person was wrong, I'm simply saying that you are calling on authority to dismiss an argument rather than addressing the argument itself.

You don't have to be an authority or defer to an authority in order to evaluate the argument in question, can you not see that? It's a pretty simple argument based on straightforward facts and statistics.

Moreover, not all those whom we might regard as credible authorities agree on the subject.

If you read my question correctly, I have already answered that to the person in question with exactly the same content. The reason I told the whole story was

• to point out the coincidence
• to highlight that it is oftentimes not sufficient to have the logical high ground. People are dumb and do not realize their own faulty logic.

[To Rolly]

This is a forum for questions - asking about fallacies. It's also for answers - pointing out where a fallacy has been committed and why.

I assumed you were asking about the exchange you had with another Quora user, but it does look like I've misread your post. My mistake.

As I already said in another comment, my story is not about Covid or the discussion about Covid, but in using bad logic in discussion, trying to use entries in this site to point out the faulty logic and being rebuked by an even more faulty argument in several aspects. Your answer is in so far off the mark in my eyes.

I do not want to dive deeper into the subject of your answer because of that, but there are several researches that tell you otherwise, and this not only for the recent Covid epidemic, but also when reviewing the measures taken during the Spanish Flu in the beginning of the 20th century.