Q. Why can't men wrap Christmas presents?
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The pile of gifts that look like they've been mauled by a deranged gorilla are testimony to the difficulty wrapping them.
Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594) would agree. It was he who figured out how to portray a spherical world onto a flat map. The map format we're familiar with is called the "Mercator projection" in his honour. To achieve this, he had to distort a three-dimensional object into the two-dimensional piece of paper.
We accept this as a good representation, but generally ignore the fact that it's misleading because horizontal distances are stretched towards the poles. If you didn't make a correction, you'd think that a line going east-west through Townsville would be the same distance as the one going through Hobart.
Wrapping gifts has a similar challenge because, a 2-D piece of paper doesn't easily conform to an irregular 3-D shape.
Another great scholar who can help is Aristotle, but his response was brusk. We should learn some basic rules of logic, in particular, those called the "sophistic refutations". He adds that there is a school of thought – that thought should be taught in schools.
Aristotle's sophistic refutations are a catalogue of false logic, and the premise of this column is a one example. He would say it's a case of "begging the question". Did I enjoy my trip to Athens? I've never been to Athens, and there's no evidence that men are bad at wrapping presents.
This leads to the fallacy of arguing from the particular to the general. I can't wrap presents, therefore men can't. One example doesn't prove the case.
If we excuse those flaws, there's also the implication that because men can't, women can. This is a non-sequitur because the truth of one statement does not prove or disprove another. The wrapping ability of women does not depend on that of men.
The next fallacy might be "ad hominem", against the man. Strictly, this refers to attacking the opponent instead of the argument, such as when someone says "what would you know?".
In modern times we're now more aware of the logical trap, the confirmation bias. Any question that divides people based on gender is prone to falling into preconceived notions. There might be gender differences, but we should use evidence before making such a claim, and then the hazard becomes, is it innate, or learned?
Response by: Rod Taylor, Fuzzy Logic
Next week: The passenger pigeon
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