Another example of the Genetic Fallacy is, I was brought up to believe in God, and my parents told me God exists, so He must.First, when applied to ideas, the genetic fallacy is the mistaken belief that the origin of an idea has some bearing on the truth of falsity of it. Those origins can tell us why something is believed, or where that belief comes from, but those facts cannot always be used to determine the truth or belief. This alludes to the previous comment of, I was brought up to believe in God, and my parents told me God exists, so therefore He must exist. If we believe something because it was taught to us when we were children, we know why we believe it, but we do not know if what we believe is true or false.The Genetic Fallacy is the most general fallacy of irrelevancy involving the origins or history of an idea. It is untrue to either support or condemn an idea based on its past, rather than on its present, unless its past in some way affects its present value.
For instance, the origin of evidence can be quite relevant to its evaluation, especially in historical investigations. The origin of testimony, whether it is first hand, hearsay, or rumor, carries weight in evaluating it.
October 31, 2010
Unless Its Past In
Louis Tesh Discovered A
Louis Tesh discovered a way to transmit electrical current economically over a distance using alternating current. Now factories did not have to pay for expensive plots of land near power sources. His backers deserted him; the remaining land was auctioned in 1910.The only remain of Loves dream Model City was a partially built canal. Several decades afterwards, it served as a swimming hole for the children of the LaSalle district. (6, Love Canal Report) In the 1920s it became a dumping and municipal disposal site, Page 3chemicals of an unknown kind and quantity were buried at the site for 25-30 year period until 1953 (3, Love Canal Report) Within fifty years, love canal went from being a charismatic entrepreneurs dream to a toxic human and environmental disaster and the fingers and legislation point directly at the dumpers. It is estimated that love canal received 22000 tones of chemical waste. (44, Zweig) The four main dumpers was the city of Niagara, Hooker Electrochemical Co, Niagara Power and Development Corp.
, and the Army, under the cover of a ceramics plant.The Army owned the Niagara Falls Chemical Warfare Plant, which used the cover of a ceramics plant at the time. Production only of one single product that was a substance called impregnite. Once sprayed on clothes, the material was impermeable from chemical warfare emissions.
