Sunday, December 7, 2008

Terrorism and fallacy of the undistributed middle

There is a simple human fallacy at work here and the way it works is as follows:

The fallacy of the undistributed middle takes the following form:

All Zs are Bs
Y is a B
Therefore, Y is a Z

The above is a fallacy and it is explained in detail here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle

Instead of using Z, B, Y ... see this for yourself:

All terrorists(Z) are found to be muslims(B)
Mr.Y is a Muslim(B)
Therefore, Mr. Y is a Terrrorist(Z)

To complicate matters further, it is also a sad fact that all terrorists are NOT muslims because there is no consensus on what constitutes muslim ideology which these terrorists seem to follow. Let me explain that: My name is "Sabu Francis" and it seemingly looks as if I am a Christian. But actually I am an atheist.

Add more confusion to this: Many non-muslim terrorist do not make it to the media, because they have more powerful connections. So even the first premise that "all Terrorists happens to be Muslims" is quite likely wrong.