Posted by: thefishtailbites
What I don't like is that it's easy to discredit everything based on these "fallacies." Limits critical thinking imo. I passed 10/10 and I don't really know/understand all the definitions of fallacies or care to. "Science" is the new normal and can't be denied...right?
I guess congrats on getting all of them right even if you're not sure of all the definitions. However, it's not "easy to discredit everything based on these fallacies." Fallacies are tests, or basically truth statements, and have strict definitions even though some of them may have weird names. Like a light switch they're on or off, so a fallacy will only discredit something if it's incorrect. Fallacies don't limit critical thinking, but they are an integral part of it and help define the boundaries. Without any rules and checks, critical thinking would be nothing more than unsupported opinion where anyone could claim anything. I think where some confusion can happen with fallacies is they sometimes get applied incorrectly or people misunderstand their use. That page above has lots of good info on fallacies and the rules of critical thinking and it's worth taking some time to check it out imo.
Re science, it's not the new normal and it can be denied if done or applied incorrectly. Like fallacies and critical thinking, science has a general set of rules to be followed and some branches of types of science might have specific rules. One thing that guides science is the scientific method. You sometimes might see it described/defined in slightly different ways, but it follows a pattern of observe, question, hypothesize, test, analyze, and most importantly reproduce/retest. Good science is reproduceable, meaning different people can do the same testing and get the same results as the original experiment.
Edit: We all use critical thinking and fallicies, often in an informal way, in our lives every day. Everytime you question something you're using critical thinking to asses how true or accurate something may be.