Friday, March 26, 2010
Food in Singapore 2: Bak Chor Mee

Today I'll be blogging about another food delicacy in Singapore, Bak Chor Mee. Otherwise known as Minced Meat Noodles, but i prefer to call it in dialect.

So what is this Bak Chor Mee?

Bak Chor Mee is a popular noodle dish in Singpaore. It can be found almost everywhere - as long as you see a coffee shop or hawker centre, you should spot a stall that sells noodles/Bak Chor Mee.

Preparation of this bowl of noodle is also a rather tedious process. First desired outcome is to get springy noodles that have a firm bite and are not soggy. Hawkers would first loosen or toss the noodles to remove excess flour. Then, the cooking process of the noodles usually consists of blanching in hot and cold water multiple times, to increase the "springiness" of the noodle.

It is also important to eat the noodles immediately after it is served. It won't taste nice if the noodles gets too soggy.

What is in this Bak Chor Mee?
This dish is usually served with various other ingredients such as pork slices, sliced mushroom, meat balls, sliced pork liver, lettuce and off course minced meat. The noodles used to cook the dish is known as Mee Pok. Other condiments added to the dish to enhance the taste of the noodles are chilli and vinegar. Small amount of vinegar is added to give it an aroma. The chilli sauce is also a very important factor in deciding the taste of the dish. People who prefer spicy food will will request for more chilli sauce to be added.

A bowl of Bak Chor Mee is usually served with a bowl of hot soup.


Extra: Mee Pok is a type of Chinese noodles that is yellow, thin and fat in width. Together with other ingredents, it can be made into mainly two dishes: the above Bak Chor Mee and another local dish, Fishball Noodles. A very common food in Malaysia and Singapore.

Personal Opinion
I used to hate this dish when I was young. I thought that meat balls tasted weird. However, I don't feel that way now. I feel that this dish is awesome because of all the good taste of the food combined in one.
The softness of the sliced pork liver.
The aroma of the sauce.
The "springness" of the Mee Pok.
The taste of the chilli sauce.

I drool at the thought of it.

However, as nice as this dish may be, I feel that it is not easy to prepare at all. Experience is needed to come up with a really nice bowl of this dish. Take the pork liver for example. If it is overcooked, it will taste hard and it won't be nice. If it is undercooked, it will taste bloody and some people (like me) will be disgusted by it. A good bowl of Bak Chor Mee, in my opinion, should have a bit of sauce at the bottom of the bowl. It's what give the bowl of noodles flavour, it's the essence of the dish.
(Note that this sauce will "dry up" if the dish is left alone over a period of time, so eat the dish immediately after served!)

There are some stalls that sell horrible Bak Chor Mee.
I speak from experience :/
However, if cooked well, Bak Chor Mee will no doubt be a mouth watering dish.

Food For Thought

When I was young, I had always liked Fish Ball Noodles. However, as I grew up, (for some random reason) I grew to like Bak Chor Mee more then Fish Ball Noodles. How about you? What do you prefer, and why?

Kim Yao

Credits:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bak_chor_mee#Bak_chor_mee
http://lifestylewiki.com/Bak_Chor_Mee
http://www.grampianspyreneespcp.org.au/Image/Agency%20Logos/Food%20For%20Thought%20Logo%20Reversed.jpg
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e264/Cai17/Bak20Chor20Mee.jpg @ ieatishootipost.blogspot.com
http://www.makansutra.com/reviews/2009_0406/ah-ho-mee-pok-tah.jpg

Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Food in Singapore 1: Laksa

For the first blog post in this "Food Blog", I will be blogging about the dish Laksa.

What is Laksa?
Laksa is a spicy noodle dish that are of peranakan culture known as baba and nyonya. There are many variations to this dish, and it is a merger of Chinese and Malay food elements. It is a popular dish in Malaysia and Singapore, and to a lesser extend, Indonasia and Australia (in the Chinatown there). Now, I will be talk about the two most famous variations of Laksa in Singapore/Malaysia, and my personal opinions on the dish.

Curry Laksa: Katong Laksa

It is a type of Laksa which got it's name from the Katong area in Singapore. As a Curry Laksa, it has a coconut-based curry soup. The main ingredients, other then the noodles and the soup, should usually have cockles, shrimps (prawns), fish sticks and tofu puff. It's flavour is usually enhanced by adding a spoonful of sambal chilli and with a green garnish called Vietnamese coriander, otherwise known as the laksa leaf.

Asam Laksa: Penang Laksa

The Penang Laksa is a sour fish-based soup from the Malaysian island of Penang. It is famous for it's distinct sour taste. It's main ingredients are shredded fish, normally mackerel, and finely sliced vegetables including cucumber, onions, red chillis, pineapple. Other ingredients or garnish that adds on to the flavour of the dish are mint, pineapple slices, thinly sliced onion, lemongrass and a thick sweet prawn/shrimp paste.

Extra: Asam is the name of the stock that makes the soup sour. It is made of the herb tamarind. Dried fruits of tamarind is also added to enhance the sour flavour of the dish.

Personal Opinion (of the dish)
I feel that Laksa is one of the dishes that tourist must try when they come to Singapore. Personally, prefer curry laksa. I dislike asam laksa because of the sour taste, which I think that screws up the dish. Another reason to why I like curry laksa is because it is coconut based, so the soup will be fresh everyday, otherwise the consumer will have stomach ache.

I like my curry laksa to be hot and spicy, full of soup, cockles and tofu puffs. I would also add in alot of the green garnish to enhance the fragrance of the dish. However, I do not add any sambal chilli because I feel that it will be too spicy and I will not beable to enjoy the taste of the dish fully.

For the noodles, I prefer thick vermicelli to the thin one because it taste nicer - however, this means that I have to be more careful because the thick vermicelli has a higher tendency of squirting the soup onto your clothings.

Food For Thought (pun?)

I personally think that in Singapore, the Laksa in normal coffee shops or hawker centres taste nicer then those in restaurants/food courts. Do you agree with this statement, and why?

Kim Yao

Credits:
http://touringmalaysia.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/penang-laksa-01.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katong_Laksa.jpg
http://www.grampianspyreneespcp.org.au/Image/Agency%20Logos/Food%20For%20Thought%20Logo%20Reversed.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa

End of all the previous crap

This will be the seperation between my previous post and future post.
I have decided on a new theme for this blog, and it shall be on Food in Singapore
So all further blog post on this blog will be on Food in Singapore.

In each blog post, I will either talk about a dish in general or a dish from a stall which i went to.

Thanks.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Love Is a Fallacy

This is a story on fallacy. I found it on the internet.

Love is a Fallacy by Max Shulman

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.

It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it—this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.

One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”

“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.

“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.

“I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.

I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”

“I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”

“Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”

“All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”

“In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.

He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”

“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much. They’re unsightly. They—”

“You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”

“No,” I said truthfully.

“Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”

My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.

“Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.

I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.

I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.

I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.

Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the makings.

Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut—without even getting her fingers moist.

Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an ugly smart girl beautiful.

“Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”

“I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”

“Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”

“No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”

“Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”

“Not that I know of. Why?”

I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”

“I guess so. What are you getting at?”

“Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.

“Where are you going?” asked Petey.

“Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.

“Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”

“I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.

“Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy, gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.

“Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.

“Would you like it?” I asked.

“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”

“Your girl.” I said, mincing no words.

“Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”

“That’s right.”

He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.

I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”

I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.

“It isn’t as though I was in love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”

“That’s right,” I murmured.

“What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?”

“Not a thing,” said I.

“It’s just been a casual kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”

“Try on the coat,” said I.

He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.

I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand.

He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand.

I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,” she said as we left the theatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.

I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s lack of information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.

I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”

“Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.

We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.

“Logic.”

She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.

“Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”

“Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.

I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”

“By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.

“Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise.”

“I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”

“Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”

“No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”

“It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t speak French. Petey Bellows can’t speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”

“Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?”

I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to support such a conclusion.”

“Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”

I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take him out with us, it rains.”

“I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every single time we take her on a picnic—”

“Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”

“I’ll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are you mad at me?”

I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not mad.”

“Then tell me some more fallacies.”

“All right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.”

“Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.

I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?”

“Of course,” she replied promptly.

“But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.”

“But He can do anything,” I reminded her.

She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted.

“Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no irresistible force. Get it?”

“Tell me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.

I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the things you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”

I deposited her at the girls’ dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.

But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.

Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”

She quivered with delight.

“Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”

A tear rolled down each of Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.

“Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”

“Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.

I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then, shouldn’t students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?”

“There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.”

“Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren’t taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you can’t make an analogy between them.”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly.

“Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”

“Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s reaction.

“Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium.”

“True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”

“If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw any supportable conclusions from it.”

“They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”

One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next fallacy is called Poisoning the Well.”

“How cute!” she gurgled.

“Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t believe a word that he is going to say.’ ... Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What’s wrong?”

I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first I had seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”

“Right!” I cried exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start ... Polly, I’m proud of you.”

“Pshaws,” she murmured, blushing with pleasure.

“You see, my dear, these things aren’t so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think—examine—evaluate. Come now, let’s review everything we have learned.”

“Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.

Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without letup. It was like digging a tunnel. At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.

Five grueling nights with this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled children.

It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with my feelings at our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.

“Polly,” I said when next we sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”

“Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed.

“My dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”

“Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.

“I beg your pardon,” said I.

“Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?”

I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”

“False Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.”

I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:

“Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space. Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.”

There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.

“Ad Misericordiam,” said Polly.

I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought back the tide of panic surging through me; at all costs I had to keep cool.

“Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.”

“You’re darn right,” she said with a vigorous nod.

“And who taught them to you, Polly?”

“You did.”

“That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t come along you never would have learned about fallacies.”

“Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she said instantly.

I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all these things so literally. I mean this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”

“Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.

That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”

“I will not,” she replied.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Because this afternoon I promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.”

I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! “The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. “You can’t go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”

“Poisoning the Well ,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”

With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician. Let’s look at this thing logically. How could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look at me—a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?”

“I certainly can,” declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”
---------------The End----------------

Sabbatical Week Day 2 Reflections

A picture on fallacy, something that I will talk about in this post


Essence of Today's sabbatical

-Rebuttals
Start with the very fundamental assumption made in the opponent's premises (on the criteria)
Go on to question on the analysis of the opponent:
>Questioning it's relavance
>Pointing out inconsistency throughout the speech of the entire team
>disprove to the analysis

Try to use the words EVEN IF to show the many flaws in an argument.
"Your argument is flawed as you say that x will happen if v happens. Even if x happens, it not necessarily will lead to y. Even if y happens, it might not necessarily lead to z"
---------
Scattergun rebuttal: make your rebuttal more effective by making the opponent sound silly and ridiculous

-Fallacy/Fallacies
A fallacy is a flaw in the logic of an incorrect argument. (These arguments might seem to be valid or convincing)

Interesting fallacies:

Argumentum ad misericordiam/appeal to pity
Example:
Interviewer: Why should I hire you?
Interviewee: I have a wife, 2 sons and 2 daughters at home and they are starving. I need the money to buy food for them.

In this example, the interviewee is appealing to the pity of the interviewer, instead of answering the interviewer's question.

Hasty Generalization
Example:
"Richard Nixon was a dishonest president and therefore all presidents are dishonest"

This fallacy is made when a person forms a general rule only by examining a few specific (out of the norm.) cases.

Slippery slope argument
Example:
"If we legalize marijuana, then we would have to legalize heroin and we'll have a nation full of drug-addicts. Therefore we cannot legalize marijuana"

There is no reason to say that after legalizing marijuana they will have to legalize heroin.
Even if they did, there is no reason to say that the entire nation will be drug addicts.

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Reflections
I feel that today's session was more interesting and engaging then yesterday's class. I think that it is partly due us dealing with rebuttals. To me, rebuttals feel as if I am scolding a person in return for scolding me. I found out that rebutting takes skill and there is structure to it too - it is not randomly shooting off at a person.

Fallacy was also an interesting subject. Although i had trouble with remembering the names of all the fallacy and had to constantly refer to the handout, I feel that finding flaws in a seemingly valid argument very exciting. I am also quite amused after this class - I realise that there are too many fallacies in our daily conversation. To think that we have been talking all our lives without knowing there's so much flaw in our logic!


“I'm not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called ''scientific'' mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.”
Cynthia Ozick

Monday, March 8, 2010
Sabbatical Week Day 1 Reflection

This blog post will be concerning my sabbatical, Basic Skills in Debating.

Essence of Today's sabbatical

-What is debating
Debating is a formal arguement which follows a logical flow of ideas.

-Applications of debating in our life
Debating is applicable in many jobs and situations in our life e.g. lawyers and politicians

-Familiarising ourselves with debating jargons e.g. Point of Information (POI)
Debating jargons and terms are important and we must know them in order to proceed in the sabbatical

-Role of each speaker
Speaker 1: Provides an introduction about the topic, Explains their stand on the motion, telling what the rest of the speakers will be talking on
Speaker 2: Analysis on at least 2 point of the debate, Rebutting/destroying the speech of opposition speaker 1
Speaker 3: Summarising the team's points and rebutting the speech of opposition speaker 2.

-Struture of a debate
1. Introduction
2. Analysis
3. Rebuttals
4. Summary/Conclusion

-Dealing with the motion(topic) of the debate
->Debate motion will have a criteria. The team is suppose to choose 2 aspects of the criteria to elaborate on. The points will be mentioned in the speaker 1's speech.
->The 2 points must be independent in proving the criteria. This means that the logic of the 1st point must not affect the 2nd point.

Example:
This house believes that sushi is better then hamburgers.
The criteria is "better".
1st aspect: Sushi is tastier and thus better then hamburgers. (taste)
2nd aspect: Sushi cost less then hamburgers. (economy)
In this case, the 2 independent aspects do not affect each other.

Defining the motion:
1. Look at the key words in the motion e.g. better
2. Look at the entire motion and explain the meaning it conveys

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Reflection
In the beginning, before the sabbatical I thought that the sabbatical would be held in a lecture theatre and we will take down notes as the instructors present. However, the real sabbatical was not like this. We were first given a thick stack of booklet containing alot of information.

Next, the instructors presented alot of power points presentations and we took down notes along the way. However, I feel that there was lack of interaction and the students will feel very bored. Most of the information were also found in the booklet and people might tend to not pay attention. I myself almost dozed off in the middle of the presentation. I saw a few other people struggling to keep awake also.

Nevertheless, it was a good sabbatical and I absorbed alot during the presentation. I look forward to becoming more proficient in debating in the next few days.
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"Debate is masculine, conversation is feminine.”
Amos Bronson (American reformer, Philosopher and Teacher, 1799-1888)

Sunday, March 7, 2010
LA Interview II

Because there was nothing to do for "Logical Smart", I decided to ask another friend of my with a different set of questions.
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Person I Interviewed: Friend from NYGH (Sec 2) -- Done over MSN
Me:What Is Prejudice?
Her: Not equal rights. not fair.

Me:What Is Discrimination?
Her: Maybe some actions taken by a party due to prejudice reasons.

Me:Are there any differences between them? If so, what are they?
Her: Prejudice is injustice. discrimination is biased against a particular race, religion or belief

Me: Do you think that Prejudice and Discrimination is present in Singapore?
Her: Homosexual people are discriminated against in Singapore

Me: Why do people have prejudice?
Her: People have prejudice because we think that "it is only right for us to do this to them" when clearly it isn't. they tend to think whatever they do is right. therefore, resulting in unequal rights and treatments.

Me: Why do you think people discriminate?
Her: People discriminate against because they think whatever that party is doing is different from they think should have happened. they wanna exert social pressure to show their disapproval of the case.

Me:What are the consequences of their actions?
Her: racial discrimination, riots, inequality and etc

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Interview for LA

Interpersonal:
Conduct an interview with a friend (not from HCI) or family member. Find out from their point of view on prejudice and discrimination. Either record the interview or write out the interview transcript.