When I was young, I was transfixed by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! As I viewed and reviewed the drawings that appeared in the newspaper, I learned about a great many jaw-dropping oddities. But of all ...

The Internet is teeming with crazies, jerks, and blowhards; and in online forums, debaters are full of passionate intensity. Peruse the comments area on any popular blog, and you’ll find more ...

If you’ve been in on any online debates, you’ve probably heard of the ad hominem argument, an “argument against the person” in other words, attacks on someone’s character. Here’s one formal definition ...

Six months of xenophobic political bloviation do not overturn centuries of experience. Trade and immigration are good for the US economy. As Adam Smith and David Ricardo explained two centuries ago, ...

"I strongly object to wrong arguments on the right side," said GK Chesterton. "I think I object to them more than to the wrong arguments on the wrong side." Arguments are attempts to persuade by ...

The biggest lie those who create and spread misinformation perpetrate is that they want you to think for yourself. They warn their target audience not to be "sheep" and not to let themselves be told ...

Yuri Arcurs peopleimages.com / Getty Images/iStockphoto When I was in college, I remember naively signing up for a course called “Introduction to Logic.” It turned out to be one of the greatest ...

During an intellectual battle, one's true colours are tested. The side losing ground, as a last resort to assert tenacity, turns argumentation into sophistry. Objectivity becomes the worst casualty ...

Donald Trump is a “racist,” a “white supremacist,” a “misogynist,” a “homophobe,” and so on. Hence, his position on X (where X stands for whatever in the world we choose to plug for it) is illicit.