Sunday, October 24, 2010

You say my car is crap but you don't even have a car yourself?

I was recently at an auction and standing beside a grey truck waiting for some people to clear out before we left.  The conversation that followed actually happened:
Man standing beside me: (Him) "Is that your truck?"
Me: "No, sorry." (I thought he was going to ask me to move it.)
Him: "Good, Chevy makes a horrible truck.  I wouldn't drive a Chevy if someone gave it to me."
Me: "Oh, what kind of a truck do you recommend?  Or should I ask what kind of a truck do you drive?"
Him: "I don't own a truck but I'd definitely buy a Ford if I got one."
Me: "Oh? What kind of a car do you own?"
Him: "Well, I don't have one at the moment."
Me: "So you'd probably drive a Chevy if someone gave you one?"
Him: "Yeah, if someone gave me one."
Me: "That's what I thought."

Stupid.

I had a giggle at his expense and I hoped that he learned how silly his argument was.  He probably didn't.

It reminds me of people who are Intelligent Design advocates.  They're knocking a theory, that does everything that it needs to, simply because the theory they don't have but wish they had would be better than evolution.  Intelligent Design advocates have yet to postulate a theory to replace the theory they vehemently oppose. 

Stupid squared.

4 comments:

HappyEvilSlosh said...

Tu quoque. His willingness to use a Chevy for a vehicle doesn't indicate it's not still a shit option compared to others, merely that it's better than nothing. And sure, ID proponents do fall into the trap of thinking a disproof of evolution is supporting of ID but regardless of their justification for doing so it doesn't mean their criticism shouldn't be responded to. It would just be nice to see a criticism that hadn't been responded to brought up every now and then. :/

Call me Paul said...

But, but, they do have a theory. God diddit!

Gerard said...

HappyEvilSlosh.
He said "I wouldn't drive a Chevy if someone gave it to me" and then later said "Yeah (he'd drive one), if someone gave (him) one".

That's stupid - whether or not it is hypocritical. His claim that Chevy makes a horrible truck is one thing but to follow that up with "wouldn't drive a Chevy if someone gave it to me" is likely false given his later statements.

The argument that faitheists make is that evolution is false, therefore intelligent design is true and that's a logical fallacy.

The bloggers article doesn't suggest that the auction attendee was making the exact same claim but that he/she was reminded of ID claims because of some similarity that he/she saw.

Gerard said...

I apologise to the blog author as I had not read any other of his articles and wanted to make no assumptions from simply looking at his profile. ("He/she" references should simply be "he" as he has identified as male in the posting regarding pregnancy/abortion.)

HappyEvilSlosh: We do need to be keeping each other in check so I applaud you for calling out what you saw. And I'm not holding my breath when it comes to your last sentence.