Reply #143: Straw men. Straw men. Straw men. Straw men.

[oblivious]

I wasn't too interested in the topic, so I just skimmed through the threads, but I got the impression that the main problem in those threads was certain posters throwing up straw men to disrupt what seemed to be a reasonable discussion: "Is it possible for nuclear testing to have an influence on earthquakes?" or something like that.

I don't remember seeing many posts that claimed a specific nuclear blast set up the earthquake that causes this tsunami, or that we had the technology to create a 9.0 earthquake, or that there were no earthquakes before nuclear testing. Most just wondered if underwater nuclear blasts could trigger an earthquake where one was already likely on a fault line, or a bigger one than nature might normally cause.

But certain posters obviously didn't feel comfortable with a discussion that underground nuclear testing might be dangerous and set up straw men to ridicule the thread. It's hard to believe that continuous use of a logical fallacy can be effective, but here you are. Discussion shut down.

As for the NYT, their readership is likely falling while DU's seems to have gone up about 50% in the last year. Can you smell panic? Which website to you go to first every morning -- NYT or DU?