"logic" news and stories

There are some restaurants that you just don't go to. Maybe you don't go to them because they're further than you'd like to drive, but – admit it – there are some in your neighborhood, like the restaurant a few blocks away that you have just never been to. It just isn't in your list of possibilities. You might not be able to say anything bad about it, but you don't want to go there, either.

I have a restaurant like this near me. Actually, it's one neighborhood over from mine, a branch of a chain of Mexican restaurants that I happen to like quite a lot. A big part of the reason I like the chain is that the one in my neighborhood had a great chef and was one of its original restaurants. The reason I'm saying "was" is that the restaurant's lease recently expired and, due to a huge spike in the rent, they opted not to renew it. Twenty plus years of good Mexican food and memories – gone.

When I discovered that the place had shut its doors, I was actually standing just outside of them. After I read the notice announcing their closure, as well as the notice announcing the grand opening of its replacement, I decided that I might as well head to the chain's other location. I still wanted Mexican food and my options were limited.

How bad could it be, I thought. I'm sure that the only reason I don't go there is because the parking is lousy.

A study was done recently that concluded that obesity might be contagious. This conclusion was extrapolated from data that showed an increase in the weight of chickens who had been exposed to the human adenovirus Ad-37. Adenoviruses can cause colds and other illnesses in humans. The reasoning seems to follow this line of thought: Chickens, when exposed to a particular, contagious human virus, got fat . Since it is a human virus, humans who catch this virus will get fat. Since the virus is contagious, it follows that obesity is contagious.

So is obesity only contagious when the carrier of the virus has a cold? Can you catch it from sitting next to someone on an airplane? To say that this line of reasoning is flawed is an understatement. It is simply incorrect.

Simply because a cold can cause a chicken (or a human, for that matter) to gain weight does not mean that all weight gain is caused by colds in general or this virus in particular. Nor does it mean that because colds are contagious, so is weight gain. Someone needs to retake their deductive reasoning courses.

 

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