Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Reply: "But my uncle Angus likes sugar with his porridge."
Rebuttal: "Ah yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
In disputation, the No True Scotsman fallacy is most often used to try to discredit an expert opinion, or to silence an opponent. Remember, all a Fallacy is is a flawed premise, or a conclusion which is not supported by the premise(s). Otherwise known as tricks.
The reason politicians are the least-respected job category in America is because verbal tricks and rhetorical disingenuousness are their stock in trade. In other words, they are manipulators. It's a flaw of democracy, and a worse flaw of the alternatives.
Example: If an atmospheric scientist doubts that Global Warming is caused by man, then he must be a shill for Big Oil.
Example: If an atmospheric scientist believes that warming is caused by man, then he must be pursuing grant money by saying the PC thing to ingratiate himself with the grant committee.
It is a close relative of the Consensus Fallacy, ie, "if most people think it, then it must be so." Which is patently baloney, even though journalists often use polls as if they provided a guide to reality: more often, they serve as a reminder of human ignorance.
Science never has settled truths: it tries to find facts with which to build theories, which are subject to endless disputation until replaced, or until the arguments run out for a while. Pretty much all theories die, eventually, and enter history as quaint ideas of the past. It was only ten years ago that the NYT was warning about the coming Ice Age (which probably is coming, but not tomorrow). And not all that long ago when everyone believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Our theories are our illusions, constructed for our comfort, and to keep science guys off the unemployment lines.
Capital "T" Truth is a matter of religion, not science.
Joe over at Evangelical Outpost applies the No True Scotsman critique to the Warming issue and the embryonic stem cell issue, along with some good comments on how scientists work.
No true Scot wears anything under his kilt. That is a fact.
