(Actually I guess this applies to bloggers and everyone else too who either played truant or slumbered through maths classes).
A statement such as
"All racists love flags"
does not mean that
"All flag lovers are racists"
The Friday Project (and ZANU Labour) should pay attention. The reason for this is quite simply that there is no stated one to one correlation between "flag lovers" and "racists" in the first sentence and thus there remains the possibility of flag lovers who are not racist. Hence the second statement is not something that can be derived from the first. An initial statement such as
"Only racists love flags"
on the other hand would logically lead to the second statement because it denies the possibility that non-racists can love flags.
[Note that we are dealing with logic and sentence analysis here not facts - in the real world it is also entirely possible that there are racists who are not flag-lovers etc. etc. but that is irrelevant to this logical analysis]
Now that we have dealt with the simple case lets try something mroe complicated by seeing what conclusions we can draw from two statements:
Terry White makes sweeping generalizations
Sweeping generalizations are made by clueless idiots
Can we derive from these two statements the conclusion that
Terry White is a clueless idiot
Unfortunately not. The second sentence may be rewritten as
Clueless idiots make sweeping generalizations
And thus it should be fairly clear that the only way to combine the two sentences is
Both Terry White and clueless idiots make sweeping generalizations
If however sentence two were
Sweeping generalizations are only made by clueless idiots
Then because that would be rewritten as
Only clueless idiots make sweeping generalizations
We could state that since Terry White makes sweeping generalizations he is therefore a member of the group of clueless idiots and therefore that
Terry White is a clueless idiot
Here endeth the lesson (But do read this and this for more background)
I despise l'Escroc and Vile
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