Douglas Hill in Costa Mesa 12.16.07

CFI-L.A.'s FEED YOUR BRAIN Lecture Series presents

Fallacies: Where Arguments Go Wrong

Douglas E. Hill, Ph.D.

Sunday, Dec. 16
4:30 p.m.
Costa Mesa Community Center
1845 Park Ave. in Costa Mesa map

$6, or free for Friends of the Center

Fallacies are common forms of bad arguments; although flawed they are more psychologically compelling than they should be. One reason for this is that they often resemble forms of good arguments. This talk will discuss the difference between formal and informal fallacies, with examples of each, as well as the good arguments that they resemble. Formal fallacies to be discussed will include fallacies of propositional logic as well as syllogistic fallacies. Informal fallacies to be discussed will include fallacies of irrelevance, fallacies of ambiguity, and fallacies of unwarranted assumptions.

Douglas E. Hill got his bachelor's degree in Mathematics/Computer Science from the College of Idaho, a master's in Biomathematics from UCLA, and a master's and Ph.D. in Philosophy from U.C. Irvine. His research was in rational choice theory, and the title of his dissertation is "Reputation in a world of errors and corruption."

While at UCI he founded "Students for Science & Skepticism", a skeptical student club, and hosted "Campus Talk UCI" on KUCI radio 88.9 FM. He is currently an adjunct professor of Philosophy at Cal State Fullerton where he teaches classes in Critical Thinking and Logic, from which the material for this talk is taken.

Costa Mesa Community Center
1845 Park Ave. in Costa Mesa
One block West of Harbor and Newport blvd. map