(L-R) Republican presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) participate in the Republican presidential debate at St. Anselm College Feb. 6 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Joe Raedle, Getty Images)
Re: The public debate sideshow, Feb. 7 Krista Kafer column.
President Obama may have been incorrect in asserting that the negotiated agreement with Iran was the only viable path to peace. But Krista Kafer s claim that Obama had presented a false dilemma (a logical fallacy) merely reflects her belief that a tougher agreement could have been reached. The fallacy is relative.
Marco Rubio called Ted Cruz a hypocrite for complaining about Donald Trump s New York values while raising funds in New York. This isn t a fallacy, as Kafer insists. Rubio didn t say that Cruz s hypocrisy made him wrong about Trump (an example of the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy).
Fallacy-finding can involve fallacies.
The reasons behind an argument are overlooked when it is scanned for logic errors; this is a form of the straw-man fallacy. And declaring an argument to be false excludes the middle ground of partial truth.
Logic is better suited to classrooms than newspaper columns.
Michael Walter Ryan, Highlands Ranch
This letter was published in the Feb. 14 edition.
