Author: Drifter

THE SCENE: 30 and very little wind. Cold enough for pants, but you could get by without once you got moving.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
20 SSH, 10 IC Merkins, 10 Imp Squat Walkers, 10 Peter Parkers, and a warmup lap (butt kicks, high knees, side shuffle, lunge stretch, jog, sprint)

THA-THANG:
We played Hangman. A correct guessed letter gave us 4 Mary Katherines. An incorrect guess gave us 10 Merkins, 10 box jumps, and 10 LBCs. If we hung the man, we got 20 burpees.

The words were:

Logic – the art of reasoning well in the search after truth and the communication of it to others

Syllogism – an argument stated at full length and in its regular form

Sophism – a fallacious argument, especially one used deliberately to deceive

MARY:
Bearway to Heaven. 7 cones and a base line. Bear crawl to the first cone, one beast merkin. Bear crawl to the first and second cones, 1 then 2 beast merkings. 1st, 2nd, and then 3rd cones, 1, 2, and 3 merkins. And so on to 7. 

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
5 PAX
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Assigning a false consequence or “Slippery Slope” Sophism.

The “slippery slope” argument … says that, given the danger of going down the regulatory road, it is safer never to begin. But the slippery slope argument is another one of those exercises in abstract reasoning that imagines a worse-case scenario every time because nothing fills up its landscape but its own assumptions. That is, the slippery slope argument assumes that there is nothing in place, no underbrush, to stop the slide; but in any complexly organized society there will always be countervalues to invoke and invested person to invoke them. Slippery slope trajectories are inevitable only in the head, where you can slide from A to B to Z with nothing to retard the acceleration of the logic. In the real world, however, the step even from A to B will always [or may very likely] meet with resistance of all kinds from person differently positioned, and, as a matter of fact, the chances of ever getting to Z are [or may be] next to nothing. Somewhere along the route some asserted interest will stop the slide, and a line will be drawn beyond which regulators will be prevented from going, at least for a time, until new pressures and new resistances provoke a new round of debates, at the end of which still another line will be provisionally drawn.

Stanly Fish, There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 130

MOLESKIN:
I think it is important of us to be such men as we can spot fallacious arguments and put a stop to them sooner rather than later. To be well rooted “underbrush” and so be anchor points for our society. We do that by sharpening our minds, but more importantly by deepening our reliance on God and his promises.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Dec 11 – Breakfast at Drifter’s
Dec 18 – Ugly Christmas Sweater Brew Ruck