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Topic: No true Scotsman

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	"No True Scotsman"
		This ploy is sometimes known as the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
		Since this rationalization is completely subjective, it renders the definition of a "true" Christian virtually meaningless.
		A "true" Christian is based on personal preference and nothing more.
	www.geocities.com /b_r_a_d_99/noscotsman.htm (381 words)

	No True Scotsman - RationalWiki
		'No True Scotsman is a logical fallacy by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing.
		When later confronted with evidence of another Scotsman doing even worse acts, his response is that no true Scotsman would do such a thing, thus disavowing membership in the group "Scotsman" to the criminal on the basis that the commission of the crime is evidence for not being a Scotsman.
		An example of this would be the case of someone claiming that Hitler was not a true Christian may not necessarily be guilty of this fallacy, given that there actually is a definition of what a true Christian is, and Hitler may fall outside that definition.
	rationalwiki.com /wiki/index.php?title=No_True_Scotsman (399 words)

	- Scotsman.com News
		Aye we probably are stupid to smoke, but no more stupid than anybody else as everyone (if they know it or not) indulges in something "stupid" but as it is supposed to be a "free country" i dont bleat on about their bad and in some cases "offensive" habbits.
		No doubt smokers will argue that they don't need to have these decisons made for them, but the decision is being made for the rest of the non smoking population.
		No, not the done thing, we all know how long it has taken them to catch up with global warming, not to mention the anti drugs report that they dished out to college students informing them they WOULD die from 1 single little ecstasy tab.
	news.scotsman.com /scotland.cfm?id=1271792006 (8758 words)

	Gadfly's Muse: A True Scotsman: The Boundaries of Evangelicalism
		It might be argued for example that no "true Scotsman" would, in the absence of extenuating circumstances such as the threat of torture, claim that he was not a Scotsman, or one who had never been to Scotland and had no ancestors from there.
		In other words no one can be a "true Scotsman" who denies that he is one, or who has no traceable linkage to the nation.
		That there is such a thing as a "true Christian" is, in fact, an essential doctrine of Christianity,(one of those that is in addition to the Apostles' Creed) for it is this term which distinguishes those who bear the external label and are not from those who bear the external label and are.
	gadfly.typepad.com /gadflys_muse/2007/04/a_true_scotsman.html (2309 words)

	dangerous idea: No true Scotsman
		It merely claims that ID is unscientific, which I think is a questionable claim, but nevertheless not a clear example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
		Of course the problem with invoking the Scotsman analogy is that the future of ID does not hinge on the credentials of any one scientist.
		No hard ball tactics here Victor, just a presentation of competing ideas, with the community as a whole left as the final arbiter.
	dangerousidea.blogspot.com /2005/10/no-true-scotsman.html (1618 words)

	libertarianism: In a recent post it was discussed in com
		Whilst it is true that fascism (specifically meaning the ideology developed by Benito Mussolini, not the one-size-fits-all term of political abuse) advocates the utilisation of the state, it is with the clearly defined goal of achieving such 'national purity'.
		Whilst it is true that Marxism advocates the utilisation of the state, it is with the clearly defined goal of defending the rights of workers; furthermore, we reserve the right to regard attempts by the state to oppress us as an act of civil war.
		Whilst it is true that people can be convinced to voluntarily waiver their rights, it is plainly not true that these populations were universally armed at these time periods (or indeed at any point in history).
	community.livejournal.com /libertarianism/2098877.html (3374 words)

	Answering the "No True Scottsman" Fallacy.
		That's why the no true Scotsman thing is a fallacy, because there is no way to know what a true Scotsman would say about any given issue, since being a Scotsman (or an American) is rarely a voluntary affiliation.
		Fore example; no true Scotsman is born in China of Chinese patrons who no relation of any kind of with Scotland and who have never been to Scotland.
		Perhaps one coulee be a true Scotsman if one pinched pennies, played golf, kept sheep, ate fried Mars bars, and wore lad, even if one had never been to Scotland and was not Celtic origin.
	www.doxa.ws /Fallacies/Scottsman.html (878 words)

	- The Scotsman
		I would point out that studies which have associated marijuana use with the onset of schizophrenia (no other mental disorder has been studied) have taken care to point out that those who have a family history of schizophrenia and smoke pot are more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia in later life.
		It is best if no one smokes cigarettes, uses marijuana, avoids all forms of alcohol except for the occasion glass of wine with a meal, and when you hit 50 plus, one shot of hard liquor a day to help the circulatory system.
		No, smoking dope may not kill you right away, but it is not a path that I would advise for anyone.
	thescotsman.scotsman.com /international.cfm?id=542172007 (8093 words)

	No true Scotsman - IIDB
		I've seen the "no true scotsman" analogy used several times now and I get the general idea of what the point is, but I don't think I've seen the full argument before.
		In the Christian case, the argument that 'true Christians don't stop believing' is often used, to wrangle their way of of uncomfortable definitions.
		But ironically, the use of the modifier "true" Christian actually gets them off the hook here, because it makes it clear that they are explaining their own personal beliefs about who God sees as a Christian and not trying to appropriate the language for propaganda purposes.
	www.iidb.org /vbb/showthread.php?t=85208 (2545 words)

	No true Scotsman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		No true Scotsman is a term coined by Antony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking.
		The statement "no true Christian" would do some such thing is often a fallacy, since the term "Christian" is used by a wide and disparate variety of people.
		It is also a common fallacy in politics, in which critics may condemn their colleagues as not being "true" liberals or conservatives because they occasionally disagree on certain matters of policy.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/No_true_Scotsman (300 words)

	No true Scotsman - Free Encyclopedia of Thelema
		No true Scotsman is a term coined by Anthony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking.
		The statement "no true Christian" is often applied to people whose way of life deviates from the recommendations laid down by the apostles of Jesus, and written in the books of the New Testament.
		It is also a common fallacy in politics, in which critics may condemn their colleagues as not being "true" liberals or conservatives simply because they occasionally disagree on certain matters of policy.
	www.egnu.org /thelema/index.php/No_true_Scotsman (389 words)

	The Autonomist - Logic Fallacies
		No doubt the prejudice against this very useful objective method lies in the name, "falsifiability." It does not mean the scientist must attempt to prove a hypothesis false, but the very opposite.
		Non causa pro causa fallacy - (There is no cause of the sort which has been given as the cause.) Asserting something is the cause of an effect when there is no true evidence it is the cause or asserting something is false because it implies something else that is false.
		She has no alibi for the night of the crime." The burden of proof is always on the accuser, not the accused.
	usabig.com /autonomist/fallacies.html (14595 words)

	Catholic Blogic: No true Muslim
		Thus we have a new version of the well-know 'No true Scotsman' fallacy.
		In this fallacy the fact that a Scotsman commits a particularly terrible crime leads to an arbitrary redefinition of the term Scotsman which excludes the possibility that if he were really a Scotsman he would/could have commited the crime.
		Using such a move, Scotsmen (and Muslims, or anyone else for that matter) can continue to believe that they are innately superior in all they do, since 'no true Scotsman or Muslim' would ever do something that would indicate that such an innate superiority did not exist.
	catholicblogic.blogspot.com /2005/07/no-true-muslim.html (197 words)

	One Pill Makes You Smaller, Robert D. Brown III
		However, because Massimo offers no objective proof that God does not exist and because the extant literature is full of readily available references as to why God does exist, I will likewise avoid arguing for the existence of God, per se, and defer the reader to a proper discrimination of the evidence in another venue.
		Massimo commits here a variation of the common fallacy called the "no true Scotsman." It's a convenient ruse used by novice apologists on either side of the debate to establish themselves as final authorities on questions of subjective determination in order to bully down their opponent.
		The "no true Scotsman" fallacy operates on the unstated bias that the truth of the initial proposition is determined by the agent who makes the statement as opposed to internal consistency or externally supported facts.
	www.scifidimensions.com /May01/onepillsmaller.htm (2874 words)

	Style over substance fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		No-one ever has a fire in their house, smoke detectors are a waste of money!
		The baseless denial/unreasonable doubt is often an argumentative tool that accompanies circular reasoning, ad hominem or the no true Scotsman fallacy.
		They're known to be sneaky, because no true member of our party could do something like that!
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Style_over_substance_fallacy (558 words)

	Parableman: No True ~~Scotsman~~ ~~Christian~~ Scientist
		It's the No True Scotsman fallacy when ID proponents want to call an anti-ID argument a straw man. That's supposed to stop debate about what most ID arguments actually involve and therefore allow the dysphemistic labeling the anti-ID crowd wants to use.
		But the more poignant issue here is that those who insist that there's no true Christianity becaue of different conceptions of Christianity and no true intelligent design argument because there are different versions of ID will then insist that there are those who occupy the scientific profession but aren't true scientists.
		The No True Scotsman fallacy is when someone defends the entirety of a group by excluding one thing or person from that group, someone or something that is part of the group on some reasonable conception of what the group consists of.
	parablemania.ektopos.com /archives/2006/08/no_true_scotsma.html (1201 words)

	defiant penguin (Site not responding. Last check: )
		This is just as true of the man who puts ‘native’ before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen.” Former president H.W. Bush proclaimed in an interview: “No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.
		In their statements, both former presidents commit the No True Scotsman fallacy, as does anyone who attempts to add additional requirements to the term American.
		No one wants to believe they are risking their life for someone else's financial gain.
	www.defiantpenguin.net /?sectionid=5 (2236 words)

	Logical Fallacies .info - Fallacies of Presumption - Argument from Ignorance
		Arguments from ignorance infer that a proposition is true from the fact that it is not known to be false.
		Not all arguments of this form are fallacious; if it is known that if the proposition were not true then it would have been disproven, then a valid argument from ignorance may be constructed.
		This argument is fallacious because the non-existence of God is perfectly consistent with no one having been able to prove God’s non-existence.
	www.logicalfallacies.info /argumentfromignorance.html (120 words)

	Democracy vs. Democracy: Murdoc Online
		Yes, the "No democracies have EVER fought a war against each other" isn't as 100% waterproof as some claim, though the argument is usually made from a 20th Century-onward point of view, so the War of 1812, US Civil War, etc., are really from "an earlier era" and so on.
		The thing that gets me is that the darling of the anti-warish types, the draft which creates a military that is a perfect cross-section of the population and is all-inclusive, is strikingly similar to the idea that free democracies don't fight each other.
		No matter what happens with the EU, I don't see a ever war with them unless they really go over to the socialist/communist side in a big way.
	www.murdoconline.net /archives/002851.html (1867 words)

	True Refrigeration - True Refrigerators - True Refrigerator
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		True is without a doubt one of the best commercial refrigerator companies in the world.
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	www.galasource.com /vendor.cfm/2734,XX (394 words)

	The "No True Scotsman" Fallacy
		There is a story where a Scotsman reads a newspaper story about a horrible murder in London, and proudly states that this sort of thing can only happen in England because no Scotsman would ever be so deranged.
		The Scotsman reading the article revises his statement, saying that no *true* Scotsman would do such a thing.
		I then say "Ah, yes, but no *true* Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Obviously the original assertion about Scotsmen has been challenged quite well, but in attempting to shore it up the speaker uses an ad hoc change combined with a shifted meaning of the words from the original.
	www.usenet.com /newsgroups/rec.nude/msg01823.html (739 words)

	More logic: Which fallacy does this commit, if any? :: Forums :: The Infidel Guy Show :: Taking a Critical Look At What ... (Site not responding. Last check: )
		FALLACY OF REDEFINITION OR The "No True Scotsman..." fallacy.
		No matter how smart the person is who accepts evolution, the person uttering this phrase can counter "ah, but no one who has CRITICALLY analyzed the world says that..."
		This is an example of an ad hoc change being used to shore up an assertion, combined with an attempt to shift the meaning of the words used original assertion; as well as "counting the hits and forgetting the misses" -you might call it a combination of fallacies.
	www.infidelguy.com /ftopicp-79135.html (2153 words)

	FreeSpeech.com: Brad DeLong and the "No True Scotsman" argument (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Brad DeLong and the "No True Scotsman" argument
		For the first time in a while, we see someone using the No True Scotsman argument.
		His point, in my opinion, was DeLong's use of the "No True Scotsman" argument, and what a flimsy rhetorical tool that is. It's a simple observation that DeLong is saying that anyone who disagrees with him can't be a true economist.
	www.freespeech.com /archives/001209.html (1035 words)

	Arab World Sees Through Cheesy Osama Videos : SF Indymedia (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The "No True Scotsman..." fallacy Suppose I assert that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.
		We have absolutely no evidence that Osama bin Laden or his organization was involved in the September 11 attacks.
		There's no interfering noise and the distance between the cameraman and the speakers does not appear to be large.
	sf.indymedia.org /news/2001/12/112079.php (2670 words)

	Dr. Phil.com - Messageboards - Messages for (Site not responding. Last check: )
		In other words, if I insist on holding to my original ambiguous argument that no true Scot eats sugar on porridge, Fiona, be she born in Edinburgh or Inverness, falls short of the mark.
		As we search for the true, we rush to draw close the weird month of August, when slow news days cough up odd bits, and Fox's Greta Van Susteren, who, from every indication, started in the news business with a soul, has traded hers for the story of the teenager still missing in Aruba.
		No true Scot eats sugar on porridge, and no true American...
	www.drphil.com /messageboard/view.user/225051/4 (2273 words)

	Pax Democritus? by Jason Gonella
		This does nothing to disprove the theory, as every theory in science, from Gravity to Relativity to Evolution is accepted based on the preponderance of data and the absence of contradictory data.
		Many examples of democracies at war are resolved to "Ah, but that one isn’t a democracy." It’s a classic example of the No True Scotsman fallacy.
		"No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." "My uncle Angus puts sugar on his porridge." "Ah, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." In cases of a war between democracies, proponents of the theory are quick to discount one of the participants as "not a democracy."
	www.lewrockwell.com /orig3/gonella5.html (1547 words)

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