You Can’t Have It Both Ways

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/551281

They’ve done it again, this time ringing the changes on “You can have you cake and eat it too”.

From the article:

“Camels were introduced in Australia in the late 19th century ... were set free to live in the wild. But as they increased in numbers, they also increased greenhouse gasses“

This point is put forward to serve the argument “Eating (Camels) would be a good way to cull the herd,”

Same article, further down:

“Marsupial farms should replace those that produce beef and lamb, researchers say, because the kangaroos do not leave a strong carbon "hoof-print" and do not emit the same noxious greenhouse gases that other animals do.”

Get it? We should eat camels because they emit “greenhouse gasses”, and we should eat kangaroos because they do NOT emit “greenhouse gasses”.

I’m not coming out for or against eating feral meat here (although I suspect that my body is a direct result of my ancestors gaining protein form any available source) as much as against Bad Logic.

Promote camel meat by all means; promote kangaroo meat by all means. But don’t use greenhouse gasses (whatever they are) to support two different arguments. It’s a waste of my time, and should be seen as a waste of your time too.

That’s bad logic.

This is a classic example of tagging a point with “greenhouse gasses” just for the added emotional value, to get people to nod their heads and agree. “Anything that ‘greenhouse gasses’ has to be good”. Or bad.

Whatever!

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