Logic Penalty
There's a debate going on about the death penalty on another forum. Someone made the obvious assertion that innocent people have been executed. Two people asked for names. I have to say, that is one of the most ridiculous requests imaginable in that debate. Logically you would think that people would realize the statistical probability of no innocent people ever being executed is so low as to be not even worthy of question. Apparently not.
Anyway, I decided to play along a little bit and found a list. I even weeded it down in my specific response to take out the ones from that list where its obviously damn questionable that they belong on it. That narrowed it from 23 to 10. I then ended my response with the concept about the statistical probabilities, saying that the real question is not whether innocent people will be executed, its whether or not the fact that innocent people will be executed is outweighed by the benefits of having a death penalty. Wouldn't you know it, one of the two people who asked for names responded and challenged the list. That was it for me. I responded back and told him that believing that no innocent people had ever been executed was ridiculous and not worthy of debate. If he wanted to debate the philosophical question regarding risks and benefits, I would participate. But to engage in an idiotic discussion about something that should be glaringly obvious? No thanks.
Sometimes I despair at the reasoning capabilities of some, though.