Some people make a rock look like a genius but wear the armour of anonymity to avoid exceeding their quota of real-world ridicule. I see one such numpty on an online forum calling me a crackpot and a looney! He/she has decided to critique one of my articles to give to the online world the benefit of their massive intellect. They point out that the claims made by me are of a crackpot variety. Yes, indeed they are, in that article, and deliberately so.
“Satire often reveals the absurdity of the world, but when people miss the joke, they become part of the comedy.” – G.K. Chesterton
Writing that article, I used a rhetorical technique where an argument or a proposition is intentionally taken to an extreme and absurd conclusion to highlight the flaws, contradictions, or absurdities within the argument or proposition. It’s often used to demonstrate the illogical or undesirable consequences of a particular line of reasoning, making a point by showing how impractical or absurd the argument becomes when taken to its logical extreme.
Our intrepid forum poster, called Jank, took aim at my various absurdities and presented them as quotes to impress his audience with his vast intellectual abilities, blowing all my flapdoodles out of the water.
In the real-world, statistics are notoriously hard to interpret, and bad statistical interpretation dominates our world, particularly in the media, causing people to be misled. That is the purpose of the article, to put a crackpot analysis on such information to highlight the problem.
Accordingly, the mortality statistics for Rahoon Parish in Galway were much higher than the national average for over a century. Why? Because there is a major hospital in the parish. It is an acute hospital, a place where lots of people die! The mortality statistics for the parish are therefore biased/skewed, but if we interpret high mortality rates in the manner of most journalists, we get crackpot conclusions.
Knock, knock… who’s there? ’Tis a crackpot who mistakes a satirical crackpot interpretation for a genuine factual reportage!
Jank, in his genius, quotes the article’s conclusion…
The moral of the story! It is easy to draw excitable conclusions from statistics, but the scurrilous misinformation emitted by bluffers and fluffers dominates due to poor educational standards in Ireland. Evident throughout the system, from its universities right down to its kindergarten schools.
His/her comments on my final paragraph demonstrate beyond all doubt that the real person behind the Jank was born during low tide in the gene pool.
In an act of spectacular stupidity, Jank writes, “whatever that report was about. (I am still not sure)”. Yet the name of the report by the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes is clearly stated in black and white!
All the signs of reductio ad absurdum are there, and it is clearly stated the article is about the “hospital effect” in statistics. All the simple clues were missed by poor auld Jank!
Yep, the online world is full of halfwits like Jank.
“The moment you take satire at face value, you’re in danger of losing your own.” – Jon Oliver
You can read Jank’s deranged critique here…
EJ
