Talk:Loaded question

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I don't understand the proposal to merge. Can somebody explain it? --KayEss 19:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ta bu shi da yu made a mistake. Please see this link for the difference between Plurium interrogationum and Trivial objections. --Viriditas 07:44, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't put this article on my watchlist. I thought the two were the same. I could have been wrong. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:48, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Title of Article

The title was recently changed to Loaded question, but a loaded question is really just the most common kind of complex question; I described that and some of the others in the section I just added to the entry. And logic books really do refer to all of the (illegitimate) examples as "The Fallacy of Complex Question". I will wait for some discussion here before making any big changes like this. DougHill (talk) 18:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Implied form

I don't tink this is really the same fallacy, but have given in to pressure to put it here. Suggestions for a better article name would be appreciated. (It was previously in an article named Asking the question.) StuRat 21:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Defense

Some discussion of how to properly respond to a loaded question belongs on this page, so I restored the "Defense" and added a citation. However, the later part of that section (after the citation) may not need to be there and probably could use some editing. DougHill (talk) 18:20, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

If the person answers no, then, according to logic, they are not admitting they have beaten their wife. If they never did it they can hardly have stopped. I call for a rephrasing of that sentence so that it does not state illogic as fact. (The actual content is fine though. Just rephrase the sentence.)

This has been corrected. Mrtea (talk) 22:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, we're still begging the question: There is an implication that one is married. I suppose I've always had an 'objection' to this [a classic example].

"Have you stopped beating" is by far a more common phrasing than "are you still beating" (+65K non-WP Ghits, vs barely 900). The AYS phrasing, it can be argued, suffers from the same weakness as the HYS phrasing - if I never beat my wife, then I can hardly still be beating her. That's the whole point: this is a fallacy. It doesn't have to obey strict logic. If it did, it wouldn't be a fallacy. DS 13:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
That change violates the official Wikipedia policy of no original research. It also makes the example more confusing, which you tacitly admit by adding an explanation to compensate for the complexity of the example. I'm reverting the change, and removing the uncited assertion that it's the standard example. -- Schapel 16:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
I've been asked to clarify why using Google hits to justify the claim that an example is "the standard example" is considered original research.
Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material placed into articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been previously published by a reliable source. It includes unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, or arguments that appears to advance a position or, in the words of Wikipedia's co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation."
The results of a Google search are not published data. They are the results of an experiment that someone thought of to determine which statement is found more on the Internet. Further, the number of Google hits is interpreted as meaning that the example with more hits is the standard example. Both using unpublished data, and making a new interpretation of data, are specifically listed as doing original research. If you find a reliable source that makes the direct statement "The standard example is..." and cite that source, that's not original research, but citing your sources. -- Schapel 11:43, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you still beating your wife? I have never been married. Let me rephrase that, are you still beating your girlfriend? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.70.246.228 (talk) 02:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Do your parents know that you're homosexual?

To use an earlier example, a good response to the question "Do your parents know that you're homosexual?" would be "I am not a homosexual".

Not sure about this sentence. I think it should be qualified somewhat that responder is indeed not homosexual, and perhaps also that the interrogator is indeed a prankster (although I do see that this is stated above). Otherwise this is a perfectly legitimate question to ask of a homosexual and the context in which is is used here could be construed as slightly derogatory. There is an implication that there is some shame in being homosexual. StraussianNeocon 13:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed you are correct, however I thought that would be qualified by referring to the earlier example. Would 'a good response to the prank question' be an acceptable alternative, or would it still be too open for misinterpretation? InvalidAntonym 03:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Both examples (about homosexuals and about wifebeaters) presuppose that the person being asked feels strongly about not confirming that he (she?) is in the designated group. Whether he is in the group or not is actually irrelevant. The word "homophobic" was removed from the homosexuality example recently, but I don't think we should write the article in such a way that it only makes sense if you take homophobia for granted; I think one can claim that is what we do now.--Niels Ø 16:18, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fairies in woods example - and the lead generally

I've deleted this material from the lead, but I place it here in case someone wants to work with it or restore it, or whatever: "For example, the statement that walking in the woods alone at night is unwise because fairies are likely to bewitch unsuspecting individuals presupposes that fairies exist — a dubious proposition."

I think this is a very confusing example - it is not a question, and it is not even (without a lot more context) an example of circular reasoning or begging the question. There are much better examples both here i the lead and later on in the article. IMHO, the article is clearer and stronger without this particular example in the lead. Metamagician3000 11:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I've now reworked the lead generally. I believe that the explanation is now more accurate and more correctly explains the relationship with the fallacy of begging the question. Metamagician3000 11:49, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Joe MacCarthy paragraph

I don't understand why this is given as an example of a loaded question. It has been prety much proven that Alger Hiss was at least a communist, and very likely a spy. Where is the loading? Dullfig 17:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The loading occurs more in the later parts. E.g.:
Frank Coe has been named under oath before Congressional committees seven times as a member of the Communist Party. Why?
Clearly, this question has been phrased to make any direct answer look bad, and herein lies the loading. (How this kind of thing should be countered is left as an exercise. (-: ) Bi 11:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Non-fallacies?

What is the non-fallacies section? It is not explained. The section contains the question "have you stopped beating your wife?", yet the intro to the article states that "are you still beating your wife?" is a loaded question - unless I'm wrong to not see the difference between the phrasings, I don't see what the non-fallacy section is trying to prove and I still don't see how "does your mom know that you're gay?" is not just as loaded as any question listed in the fallacy section TheHYPO 10:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can God create a rock so big that he can not lift it?

I think this is a bad example, because the question is not unanswerable nor truly loaded. Presupposing for the sake of answering this question that God is an omnipotent being:

Being omnipotent, there is no limit to the amount of force he has available to lift any rock.

Any rock, in order to exist, must be created of a finite mass.

If God has an infinite amount of force available to apply to any finite amount of mass, then he can lift it.

So then the answer is "no." Any rock of finite mass that God creates could not possibly be beyond his ability to lift if he has an infinite amount of force to exert upon it. Even being omnipotent, God would be limited to create a rock of a finite mass. Ironically the reason why he can't create a rock so big that he can not lift it is because his power is NOT limited, not because it IS. (Conversely the answer would actually be "yes" for any non-omnipotent being!)

I decided to remove this as an example of this fallacy, because it isn't really.75.70.125.3 07:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion on whether your explaination is correct or not - yours is based on physics... some other religious person might argue that God could change the laws of physics, or that God could create a rock of infinite mass. Who knows. Either way, if you remove the beginning part about "If there is a god" and just have "Could God create...", it would again be a fallacious question - in that answering either 'yes' or 'no' would still admit the existance of God. TheHYPO 19:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Yep, it's a loaded question because it implies God exists.--Steven X 10:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad examples

The first two examples are bad. The first example is a false dilemma, and the second is guilt by association and ad hominem. Also, they are both too long. --Apoc2400 11:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the third example myself - I think the news crawl thing is vague and isn't clear on how those questions fit into this type TheHYPO 12:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree and have removed them. Is there any good example except for the wife-beating one? Tocharianne 00:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It's not hard to invent one. Any question that starts with "Do you still...?" or "Have you stopped...?". Questions can generally be categorized as one of these by it's opening. Let's see. If you wanted to make one up, you might start with "Can I borrow your...?" which presumes that the askee has something like that to borrow - and a "No" answer does not necessarily clear that up. How bout "Did you enjoy Survivor last night?" The question implies that the askee WATCHED Survivor last night, whichever answer they give (generalized to any TV show, or even any activity - did you enjoy the opera last night? did you enjoy amusement park yesterday?). Those are just two off the top of my head TheHYPO 17:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Historical Example(s)

Madeleine Albright's later regrets regarding her infamous response shows that she regards herself as answering a loaded question. And her response was treated as confirming a number that had previously been very speculative, when actually, the fact that she answered a loaded question should not prove anything (one way or another). And since she famously did answer a loaded question, it belongs on this pages and has been restored while we discuss it here. DougHill (talk) 22:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Let me elaborate: a previous editor wrote: "Historical Example: Removing POV example. It implied that Albright was tricked into agreeing that many children died in Iraq, which in turn implies that they didn't." No, a loaded question is often used as an interogation trick to get someone admit something that is true or believed to be true. But like many interogation tricks it is unreliable. So the fact that Albright answered a loaded question doesn't imply anything. The editor continued "They did." That is beyond the scope of this page.

Also, another historical example would be nice. There are some examples at: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/loadques.html but these are more examples of bad writing than historically consequestial loaded questions.DougHill (talk) 18:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Even better would be two more examples of loaded questions: one which admits to something that is undisputably true, and another that admits to something undisputably false. This would demonstrate that one should not conclude anything from a loaded question. DougHill (talk) 18:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mu and the Discordians

Does this very short, unexplained line at the bottom of the page have any place here? It makes you go to the articles for both Mu and Discordians to find out what the point of the sentence is. And then it just winds up telling you what has already been stated in the article, that an appropriate response is to indicate that the question is loaded. This just seems like viral advertisement for a religion. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 11:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fox news, CNN, MSNBC, Mainstream Media

I wonder if we can start another heading analyzing the overwhelming use of the "loaded question" in today's media? Karnarazdan (talk) 21:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)