"CHENEY'S LOGIC
ONE OF the few college textbooks I still have is "Introduction to Logic" by Irving M. Copi. When I read Vice President Cheney's argument that because of the war in Iraq, 'there has not been another attack on the United States' ("Cheney defends hard-line role," Page A9, Sept. 11), I pulled that book from the shelf. Sure enough, there it was - a logical fallacy so old that it has a Latin name (post hoc ergo propter hoc, or "false cause"). The example Professor Copi gives is remarkably apt: 'Certainly we should reject the savage's claim that beating his drums is the cause of the sun's reappearing after an eclipse.'"
The Boston Globe
September 12, 2006 Tuesday THIRD EDITION
LETTERS; Pg. A14
ROGER GOULET
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