The Daily Show: Irony and Assertions on Global Warming [Video]

This clip from The Daily Show starts as a funny sketch on the recent massive snow storm hitting the United States. Then, it turns its attention to Global Warming.

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, the assertions made by folks that Global Warming has to be false, as it snows in Texas, are clearly ridiculous.

By throwing baseless assertions and making wild claims, the sketch illustrates how people reach faulty conclusions. From the logical fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc (just because it happens after, does not mean it happens because of) to reaching general conclusions based on anecdotal evidence.

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Exaggeration and hyperbole in news titles and their psychological impact

This sketch on The Daily Show demonstrates how titles of news items can be misleading, while being funny. I wrote back in Novermber 2009 on this subject, in a post titled How news headlines frame the discussion: rhetoric subtleties, discussing the power of titles.

it's always nice to find a popular demonstration.

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Here is my original post:

In this blog post The Last Psychiatrist looks at news headlines following the Ft. Hood incident, and asks us to guess by publication, which headline goes with what publication.

Political inclinations aside, it is an interesting example of how language shapes us, and how it can be used to bias our opinion one way or the other, establishing the frame for the discussion. Or if you prefer, to underline what we should look at by what the publication believes matters.

The author finds this especially important, as he believes most people only skim the headlines to begin with unless they are specifically interested.

In my experience, headlines often have little to do with what's actually written in the content, and in fact, can instigate beliefs contrary to reality which will persist for years.

One such example from my own experience relating to the 2007 Internet attacks against Estonia, what is now often referred to as "The First Internet War". A story came out when Estonia arrested one student for participating, but the title was that the Estonian student was behind the attacks, which is ridiculous, but a lingering belief.

The Daily Show on Appeal to Tradition

In the last The Daily Show episode, there was a faux-report on return to tradition and The America That Used To Be. They show that things were never as golden as we remember them, illustrating this with some great fake interviews in what can be an interesting rebuttal to appeals to tradition. But wait, there more!

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While this is far from the best sketch from The Daily Show, it has inspired Lisa Wade at the Sociological Images blog to think about arguments of nostalgia and to speculate on which nostaliga it is we are talking about, with an example of "traditional marriage".

Sociologist Stephanie Coontz, in her acclaimed, fascinating, and fact-dense book, The Way We Never Were, illustrates the way that what is considered “traditional” must be socially constructed. For example, when people say “traditional marriage,” do they mean marriage between a man and his property? Between a man and more than one woman? Is the idea age for marriage 13, 20 or 27? Is it for love, political maneuvering, survival, babies, or kitchens? How you answer these questions depends on when, exactly, in history you’re talking about. (See here for some humorous takes.)

The point: Since all of history is potentially a source of tradition, identifying any given period of time as The Traditional, and therefore deserving of our nostalgia, is arbitrary.