BALOONEY DETECTION KIT PART 4

Not really sure how far I'm going to go with these. It's been fun playing with these. It's also fun to see how many "pieces" of baloney your can find in one article. Say the description of a film that being put out by Santorum on how the US is turning in Nazi Germany. Or a  politician who believes that it would be ok and Biblical to stone gays to death. Not that he's actually advocating doing that. Oh no. However he is looking forward to getting elected so he "can apply Biblical principles to Oklahoma law. Oy.

Anyway onward. Here's the latest.

Fallacy:
Non sequitur


Type of Fallacy:
Non sequitur
Definition:
Latin for “it does not follow”

Example:
Plants and animals believed to be extinct have been found to have survived after all. One example is a fish known as a coelacanth.Kind of an ugly speciman isn't it. Notice the differences in the fins and tail from the fish we're familiar with. Scientists are reasonably certain that something looking this was probably the first critter to haul itself out of the water, on to the set sand or mud and go staggering off. There are still small fish that can spend some time out of water. They have very rudimentary lungs and are usually driven out of pools that are drying up in search of someplace wetter.

 It was assumed to have gone extinct sixty five million years ago. At least until the 1930’s when one was caught in a fisherman’s net. Westerner’s were amazed. Turns out that if anyone had known to ask the fisherman they would have said. Oh yeah, we know about them. Lousy eating but the dried skin makes great sandpaper.

Actually the living form is known as Latimeria, very similar to the lines that went extinct millions of years ago. This one may have branched off from the original line and found itself a nice little niche that nobody else was using and managed to survive.

So, since one representative of the coelacanths survived; a representative that may not have even existed sixty five million years ago, dinosaurs could have survived and coexisted with humans. It doesn’t follow that just because an ancient fish survived that dinosaurs did too.

Actually I prefer my baloney with cheese, mustard and relish on a couple of slices of good bread.