I can't find my past post right now, but I wrote about another popular fallacy that is used from time to time. Something along the lines of: You say that pepper spraying nonviolent protesters is wrong. But you didn't mention how millions of fetuses are aborted every day. So therefore your initial statement is false.

I even used yahoo answers to solicit more info on this:

What logical fallacy or rhetorical device is this? If A is stated and B,C,D not mentioned, A is false.?

Example: Person 1 says A = "I'm concerned about forest fires, I believe more attention should be paid them.". Person 2 says that since Person 2 did not also mention B,C,D as in "I'm concerned about fires caused by kids playing with matches." (add in other examples) that they then don't care about B,C,D and that their original statement about A is stupid and false.

This is used as a distraction and in an attempt to make the discussion go off track.

My guess is that this employs a logical fallacy or two. Or that there is some term for what is being done and a fuller explanation.

Anyone able to help me out with this? I haven't found the answer yet in looking through logical fallacies. One idea is that perhaps the answer is in classic debate rules, as in -what not to do-.

This is called dissembling, distraction, and/or discrediting. It is used in extensively in debate, legal arguments, and political campaigns. It is based on the fallacious inference that if you can get an audience to accept that your opponent has neglected something, your opponent therefore prevaricates about everything. Basically it's a perversion of the syllogism.

Who cares.

Yorn desh born, der ritt de gitt der gue
Orn desh, dee born desh, de umn børk! børk! børk!
The Swedish Chef

However, in courts of law, we begin with the presumption of innocence. That's actually a perfect example of how we've created a system to deal with this logical falacy. Because we often cannot prove that some one did not commit a crime, we call everyone innocent by default. "You are innocient because there is no proof that you are not innocent" is a legal construct, not a logical conclusion.

As for poor Phil, put it in terms of my original question: "Phil is a virgin because there is no proof he is a not virgin."  Phil's virginity is not the issue here.  It's the method of reasoning that is in question. 

I am told we may have more productive conversations if we simply forego this whole true and false dichotomy and just keep smiling and nodding at each other.

Comments like this give me a real strong sense that you harbor a profound disrespect for this blog and for its participants.  I wish you would rethink your relationship to the community here. 

The Canaanite's Call

were excellent, especially the breakdown of important facts behind what would otherwise be a statistical misrepresentation.  

If all the posters here could understand the stats and studies as you do, we would have more meetings of the mind.  

You and I share affection for our civil rights and the ability to understand and deconstruct studies and stats to find a nugget of truth if such exists.   

I think with enough capital I could commission 400 prominent scientists to support a contention that the science shows a Nagant to be an incredibly safe handgun.  Doesn't make it so as you have shown here, but the word of 400 prominent scientists might cause a sudden and temporary spike in Nagant sales.    

Sometimes things are cut and dried, sometimes they aren't.  What do you do when they aren't?  When there is no black/white yes/no on/off.  What if there is black/grey/white, yes/maybe/no on/standby/off?  

An ethical position is to post things we know to be true as true.  To publicly retract if and when something we "know" to be true turns out to be untrue or very uncertain, and to post about things that are not cut and dried, are not clearly true of untrue as areas of question, areas where study is needed, more thought, study, is required if it is an area of important public policy.  

You know that, right?  Human communication, ethical presentation, accountability, this stuff isn't quantum physics.