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A comment on Strep A kills half a million per year; why don't we have a vaccine?. Parent comment

Re:Strep A kills half a million per year; why don't we have ... by pdonis on Saturday October 19, 2024 @01:16AM (#41885799)
Huh? A tautology is a statement that is automatically true by the laws of logic.
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Re:Strep A kills half a million per year; why don't we have ... by maxbond on Saturday October 19, 2024 @01:40AM (#41885867)
GP is correct that the argument contains an informal fallacy[1], and people often express this criticism by saying "your argument is tautological," and you are correct that a tautology is a statement which is always true [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic)

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Re:Strep A kills half a million per year; why don't we have ... by pdonis on Saturday October 19, 2024 @07:37PM (#41891683)
> GP is correct that the argument contains an informal fallacy

The GP didn't say that.

As for which informal fallacy the GGP's argument contained, I would say it was more like a false dilemma. And the GGP did say "almost tautological", which implicitly recognizes that there might be other possibilities.

> people often express this criticism by saying "your argument is tautological,"

I have never seen this (nonsensical) way of expressing the criticism that an argument is false by saying that it is tautological (and therefore true).

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Re:Strep A kills half a million per year; why don't we have ... by maxbond on Saturday October 19, 2024 @08:23PM (#41891910)
The point is that it's an overloaded term, which makes it easy to talk past each other.

If you wish to see usages like I described, have a look here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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