The problem with anecdotes

Years ago while weed-whacking, I mowed up a nest of yellow jackets. They were swarming all around me, but for some reason they didn't attack me, and I didn't get even a single sting. (I wrote about this on another post years ago to make a separate point.) It's a pretty incredible story, and it's even better to hear me tell it in person.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no evidence that this happened.

Wait...what...how can that be? I lived through it! I was there! I saw the damned things! How can I say that there is no evidence?

Because that's all I have. Now, had somebody been filming it, then maybe I could at least provide you with something that you could verify for yourself. Or if I was willing to go and try it with other yellow jacket nests (I'm not, by the way) and demonstrate my ability to wreak havoc on them sans stings, then you'd have something to evaluate.

But all I have is my story. It's a cool story, but it's not evidence. I'm not saying that you shouldn't believe me, but considering that it's hardly an everyday sort of occurrence, I don't suppose that I'd blame somebody if they didn't.

All I have is an anecdote.

The problem with anecdotes is that people will often submit them AS evidence for whatever phenomenon they're trying to advance as being fact. I was watching a video yesterday between a "psychic" and a professional debunker (I included it below) and the debunker pointed out that there was no evidence. The "psychic" kept saying that there IS evidence, and she cited all of her personal stories (in rather vague terms) as "evidence". What she didn't understand is that that isn't evidence at all because nobody else has any way of confirming what happened.

As a skeptic, I've been told that I "don't accept evidence" for the supernatural when people insist that they've had all kinds of personal experiences from miracles to psychic phenomena to encounters with ghosts and demons. When I try to explain that "anecdotes aren't evidence", I don't seem to get anywhere. I also don't get anywhere when I point to an example of an anecdote for something that they don't believe (My favorite? Sammy Hagar being kidnapped by aliens) and ask them if they count that as "evidence" or not.

Because if anecdotes are evidence then ALL anecdotes must be evidence, not just the ones that confirm what you already believe.

Honestly, I do understand though why people get really insistent when you doubt their personal stories. They take it as a personal attack, as though you're calling them liars. Nobody likes that, but calling somebody a liar and pointing out that they have no evidence for something is not the same thing. Back to my story with the yellow jackets, I suppose I would get a bit annoyed if my close friends called me a liar when told them the story. However, if they point out that I don't have evidence, then why should I get mad? They'd be right.

Try not to misunderstand me here. Just because an anecdote isn't evidence that doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and ultimately it's up to us as to what we believe. For me, I try to have the evidence determine how strong my belief is. My yellow jacket story is unlikely, but it doesn't necessarily break any of the known laws of the universe, and there are various unknown factors that could have contributed to what happened. If I told you that aliens probed my mind though, I would hope that your skepticism would increase as if that story was true, it would certainly change everything we know and understand about the universe in which we live.

Lately, I've tried a new tactic when confronted with people who give anecdotes as evidence. Sometimes they'll just keep giving me more and more, as if ten anecdotes suddenly equal evidence. I have one online friend who apparently lives in the equivalent of Smallville, but instead of visits from various superheroes from the DC Universe, there are miracle healings left and right. I think that he was starting to get frustrated as I was questioning the veracity of these statements.

The strategy that finally seemed to work was when I said that I didn't accept those stories as evidence because I had no way of confirming them one way or the other. All I had was his story and no way to check on it. Evidence is something that can be verified by anybody, and until he gave me something that I could actually check on, I was going to have to remain skeptical.

That seemed to work a bit better. If you're a skeptic like me, and you find that saying "anecdotes aren't evidence" gets you nowhere, try explaining it in those terms. At least then the other person might understand why their story isn't convincing you of anything.

Read these comics! - Part II

I read comic books. You should read comics. I've recommended some to you before. Here are some more recommendations:

Treaties, Trenches, Mud, and Blood - This is the latest in Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, and as you can maybe guess from the title, it's all about World War I. It probably sounds inappropriate, but I'm going to say it anyway, I've never associated The Great War with so much fun before, but this comic was a really compelling and entertaining read. It's the kind of thing you could hand to a kid who's showing some interest in that major historical event, or, in my case, it's a relatively quick refresher on all of the important events - while tossing in some facts that I had not known before. (I suppose it's also a handy lesson for anybody who wants to feel like he or she has some knowledge of the war but doesn't necessarily want to read any lengthy history books - which I've done in the past.)

Perhaps the most clever bit is how Hale uses different animals to represent the various warring factions (see image). It definitely helps having that visual cue to keep track of who's who, as there's a lot of different countries that got involved - and he barely even gets into the Middle Eastern campaign. Of course, it leads to a bit of a problem as both Germany and America have eagles as their national birds, so the Americans get to be bunnies instead.

I should probably point out that it, admittedly, makes sure to get to the American involvement, not so much because of the significance of the doughboys entering the war, but because this work is aimed at an American audience, and Hale figures that the readers want to know about its involvement. Still, it's not a piece of American propaganda (your first hint being that we are turned into bunnies) so people of any nationality could probably enjoy this fun history lesson.

Thor: God of Thunder - I realize that right now the buzz is all about Marvel and the (trust me, it's temporary) decision to make Thor a woman. People have asked me what I thought, and I for one am willing to give it a chance. Why? Because it's going to be written by Jason Aaron, who has been consistently turning out some of not only my favorite Thor comics, but favorite comics in general. There are no doubt a few collected editions of this particular series by this point, but I've been getting it in the individual issues.

There have been some multi-issue storylines and some done-in-one issues as well, and I really have a hard time picking what my favorite ones are. The first lengthy story involved a god-killer, and one of the single issue stories dealt with a "day in the life of Thor" and I thoroughly enjoyed them both.

What really separates Aaron's run on Thor is how the main character is treated. There isn't any of this hemming and hawing about him not really being a god but just an alien who was worshipped in the past as a god. No, he's a god. He shows up on a planet to provide rain because the inhabitants prayed to him. I guess we live in an age where people feel less worried about offending religious sensibilities (and why should it offend if you're a believer? It's not pretending to be fact.) Check out the following quote from CBR interview:

Aaron admitted that there's an undercurrent of faith and belief in much of his work, and that despite him being an atheist for half his life Thor is the god he would want to believe in. "It's a book about gods and I wanted to lean into the fact from the get go that Thor is a god," Aaron said. "I don't like in the movies where the Asgardians are aliens."

I didn't know this about him when I started reading the book, but it made sense to me why this book held such an appeal after finding out about it.

Black Science - I just breezed through a re-reading of Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's series, and I found myself eagerly waiting for issue number seven. (The first five issues have been collected in a trade paperback.)

How to describe this series? Imagine a guy with a crack-addict's dedication to punching through the barriers of what can be done scientifically. He ignores the safety of himself, his family, his friends, and possibly the entire "Eververse", as it's called. Jumping through dimensions, things keep on getting crazier and crazier, and just when you think you've got a grip on where it's all going, another monkeywrench is thrown into the works.

Remender is doing some great work as well over on Marvel's Uncanny Avengers and some hit-and-miss stuff on Captain America. With this creator-owned project, he's really letting loose, and Scalera is the perfect pairing. His art style reminds me of the sort of thing you'd see in some old EC sci-fi comics, which I think is deliberate, without looking like a conscious attempt to mimic the style. I'm not sure how much instruction Remender gives him when it comes to rendering the different dimensions and aliens, but it all looks like it's come from some bizarre nightmare. Perhaps if I had done psychotropic drugs, I could have some point of reference with which to compare (or, you know, traveled to other dimensions) but this is what's great about comics - there's no limit to the imagination as a page filled with giant tortoises carrying pyramids on their backs costs just as much as a couple of people sitting down to talk.

Chicacabra - I greatly enjoyed writer/artist Tom Beland's True Story: Swear to God, so I was an easy sell on this particular graphic novel. Unlike his other work, which was pretty much autobiographical, this one delves into science fiction. However, just like True Story, the characters are complex and likeable, and there's a real sweetness to it all. Also, the art is lively and expressive.

Summarizing the plot doesn't do it justice, but the gist of it is that a Isabella, a teenager in Puerto Rico, gets "joined" with what's likely the last of the chupacabras, a strange species that was nearly wiped out by humanity long ago when settlers arrived in Puerto Rico, where this all takes place. That's all good and fun, and it's reminiscent of the early Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Spider-Man comics, although it takes its time to really explore the characters and is equally concerned with realistic human drama as it is sci-fi hijinks.

I've written recently about the growing influence of a female fanbase in comics and how I think that it's a positive thing. I don't know if that influenced Beland one way or the other when it came to creating this particular series, but if it did, then it's another sign that comics can only get better when they become more diverse. If you're looking for a fun comic that mixes superhero tropes with sci-fi, strong characterization, and a believable female protagonist, then this is a good one to get.

Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me - I've been reading comics a long time, and although I watched and enjoyed the movie American Splendor, I've yet to read anything by Harvey Pekar. This actually came out a couple of years ago in hardcover, but it's in paperback right now, and I just finished reading it a few days ago. Considering that Israel is in the news right now (hard to remember a time when it isn't) I was compelled to pick it up, and I breezed through it.

I'm not Jewish, and I don't know what it's like to be Jewish. I do try to listen and empathize with people though, and I imagine that few things must be more frustrating than to be Jewish and have criticisms of Israel. Even if the criticisms are legitimate, there are people (not just Jews) who are eager to label such a person as a "self-loathing Jew" because that's a lot easier than dealing with the content of their arguments. No doubt Pekar took some flack for this particular book.

If you're looking for some kind of hatchet-job on Israel, you're not going to find it here. If anything, the man is jaded, as he was raised to think that the formation of Israel was the right thing to do and that they were the good guys. As he got older, he discovered that things are not quite so black and white.

What's great about this is that it gives an overview of the history of the Jewish people, and there is no denying that they're a people who have endured a ridiculous amount of hardship and prejudice. What also becomes clear is that they're as human as any other group of people. They don't all think with a hive mind, and their actions should be as open to critique as any other.

I guess the one thing that surprised me is that I was almost expecting to find a really harsh indictment of Israel. That simply wasn't there, although I'm sure that those who have more of a black-or-white view of the world will find it anyway.

Cal Shakes - The Comedy of Errors

I had resigned myself to the fact that the reading that I would do this summer would consist primarily of comic books and audio books, and I wasn't going to feel guilty about it. (I like to do a lot of reading over the summer.) I realized that I should probably read William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors though before I went to see it at Cal Shakes since I was completely unfamiliar with it, and I don't like to watch Shakespeare without having at least a decent understanding of the story beforehand.

Lucky for me, it's an awfully short play. I didn't even bother picking up a version of the play with a plain English translation this time, figuring that since comedies tend to be easier to comprehend, I'd get along just fine without it. I turned out to be correct, although I read summaries of the first two acts just to get everybody squared away in my head first, and then I was able to pretty much just breeze through the rest of it, using my Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

Obviously, it's one of Shakespeare's comedies, and one of his earlier ones at that. It doesn't delve into any deeper subject matter like The Merchant of Venice, and it doesn't have as much sincere heartfelt joy as Much Ado About Nothing. It's basically just a big ridiculous situation involving two sets of twins and a lot of cases of mistaken identity. From what I read, Shakespeare lifted the plot from an Ancient Greek comedy and added a few extra layers to it (as he pretty much always does when he adapts something) and, of course, his own clever wordplay.

I was worried that it might be a bit confusing, as the plot involves not only two sets of twins, but each set shares the same first name. In other words, there's Antipholus from Ephesus and his twin brother, Antipholus from Syracuse. Neither one of them knows of the existence of the other, and when the one from Syracuse visits Ephesus, many people confuse him for his brother (including his brother's wife). On top of that, Antipholus of Syracuse has a servant named Dromio, who has a twin brother with the same first name who serves Antipholus of Ephesus. Confused yet? Well, it was harder to keep track of who's who when I was reading it than when I was watching it. (Which confirms that Shakespeare's works are meant to be seen in a performance, not necessarily read as a book.) This is especially impressive considering that one actor played the Antipholus from Syracuse and the one from Ephesus. Same situation for the Dromio of Syracuse and the one from Ephesus.

All in all, it was a fun show, and the actors all did a nice job of breathing life into the text. My wife and I have seen a few of these actors before, like Danny Scheie, Nemuna Ceesay, and Liam Vincent (the latter two were both in this summer's excellent production of A Raisin in the Sun). I'm fairly certain that I've seen Ron Campbell before in past productions as well, and I'll be darned if he wasn't channeling a little bit of the Marx Brothers in his performance as Angelo, the merchant. It was also pretty cool how the actors would go out into the audience and sometimes even interact with the crowd a bit. Comedies tend to lend themselves to that kind of silliness.

If all you know of Shakespeare are his tragedies that you likely learned in school, then you ought to check out his comedies. It wasn't all deep introspection followed by doom for the man. He knew how to write stuff that was silly and fun, and sometimes that's just what we need. I especially recommend checking out this particular play if you're familiar with a lot of his others, as you can see that while this probably wouldn't have survived the centuries had it been the only play the man wrote, it's interesting to see some of his more interesting ideas begin their germination in this early work.

Next up? Pygmalion, followed by A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Talking to evolution deniers

Conversations with evolution deniers are often frustrating but can sometimes be interesting in a psychological sense. The one thing that never fails in my experience is that eventually the denier will reveal a lack of understanding of what evolution is. I certainly know that when I didn't accept evolution, much of that was due to the fact that I didn't have a clue as to what it actually was.

With some deniers, you can catch this right away when they say something like, "Why are there still monkeys?" These are usually the people who haven't even bothered to do the most basic Google search on the topic and don't care to learn.

There are the smarter deniers though, and it often takes a while until they reveal some sort of gap in their understanding. One time I had somebody bring up "Junk DNA" and how biologists believed that we had a lot of info in our genetic structure that didn't do anything, and it turned out that they were wrong. The person was right on this point, but how does that affect the theory of evolution one way or the other? (Hint: it doesn't.)

The thing is, you can give a denier a comprehensive overview, using the most basic non-technical language, of what evolution is, and if they have a motivation (usually religious) to not believe in it, then it'll be like trying to convince the ocean to hold still. I'm not really bothering with that anymore, and instead I've changed my tactic. Oftentimes, it's best just to ask questions. You won't get immediate results, but if you can get them to start thinking a bit, then if there is any chance that they'll come around, that's the way it'll happen.

I like to ask the following questions:

What is it that you understand better about biology than the overwhelming majority of the world's biologists? Ultimately, that is what the denier is saying. A typical response will go along the lines of how scientists have been wrong in the past (often with examples from more than a hundred years ago). That's true, of course, and consensus doesn't equal truth. But I'm not going to drink pond water because scientists have been wrong in the past, so, you know, they could be wrong about the bacteria and parasites that are in it. In other words, that answer is a non-answer, and I point that out. Ultimately, they cannot give a reason as to why they understand things better than those whose life's work revolves around a basic understanding of evolution (which is what modern biology is).

What part of evolution don't you believe? You might get answers, but they'll only prompt more questions. It might also be good to break it down a bit and ask them which point is the one where they just don't accept:

• Do you not believe that genetic information is passed down from parent to offspring?
• Do you not believe in mutations? (If not, then what about blue eyes or people born with extra fingers? (I had a cat once who had two extra toes on each foot and an extra toe-less claw on each of her front paws.)
• Do you not believe that some mutations can be advantageous and enable a species to better survive?
• Do you not believe that these mutations would be more likely to be passed on?
• Do you not believe that these advantageous traits would alter a population over time?
• Do you not believe that these altered populations would bring forth a new species given enough time? (Because we have direct, observable evidence of this happening, so you'd have to show these to be hoaxes.)

With your more-informed deniers, they will often give you all of the above. However, they will often stop and say, 'Yeah, you get new species of lizards, but they're still lizards!"

From there, you can ask the following:

• Do you not believe that, given enough time and enough changes, you'd expect to see some radical changes? (Like reptiles bringing forth mammals? You'd expect to see things like the platypus if evolution were true, wouldn't you?)
• Do you not believe that domesticated cats and tigers share a common ancestor? (They share 95.6% of their DNA, and they're both cats.)
• Do you not believe that human beings and chimpanzees and bonobos share a common ancestor? (We share almost 99% of our DNA - more than house cats and lions.) 

If they have no trouble accepting all of these, then proceed to stop the conversation and talk about the weather, as this person accepts evolution. If they accept the first two but not the third one, then ask them how that can be when we have more in common with our ape cousins than cats and tigers? (And the difference between lions and tigers is about the same as tigers and house cats.)

And while we're discussing DNA, why do they reject the consensus that the field of genetics proves evolution? And what about transitional fossils? (Some of them will flat out tell you that there are no transitional fossils, which is a bold-faced lie. If faced with this, suggest that they look up horse or whale evolution and then try saying that again.) And why the heck do I have a tail bone but no tail?

The best that you can really hope for is to get the person thinking. If you point out enough stuff, and they're genuinely intellectually curious, then you'll at least give them something to think about and you'll be pointing them in the right direction. The unfortunate thing with this issue though is that people don't approach it the same way as they would other issues. For some people, accepting evolution would mean tossing away an important part of their identity. This does not need to be the case though, as plenty of religious people accept evolution. 

It's too bad, because the more I learn about it, the more amazing I think that the world is.

Jesus and the Mythicists

When it comes to the story of Jesus Christ, the one thing that pretty much everybody agrees on is that he was, in fact, a historical figure just like Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, and Captain America. Not everybody believes that he walked on water, rose from the dead, cursed a fig tree that was out of season, etc., but the one thing that we can all count on is that he really was a real guy who was crucified under the authority of Pontius Pilate. Everybody from Christians to Muslims to agnostics to atheists will agree on that. After all, there were people who wrote about him during the time in which he lived. We have some first-hand accounts of his existence and teachings.

Okay, no we don't exactly have that. Tacitus wrote about him, but he was born about twenty years Jesus was supposedly killed. As for the Gospels, we don't know who wrote them, (the naming of them after the apostles is church tradition, as the Gospels themselves don't identify the authors) and they were all written down in another language and in another part of the world at least a generation after the death of Jesus.

Yeah...BUT STILL. Most historians agree that Jesus was a real guy. That's undisputed.

Actually, it is disputed.

I recently read David Fitzgerald's Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show That Jesus Never Existed. Another prominent "mythicist" (the word used to describe scholars who insist that Jesus was purely mythological) is Richard Carrier, and he has a book that's coming out soon on the issue, but I've heard some of his speeches and debates.

What do I think? I think that these guys sound pretty convincing.

However, and this is a big however, a lot of things can sound convincing and yet turn out to be total bullcrap. Before I did some more reading on climate change, the "skeptics" ("deniers" is a better term) sounded pretty convincing to me as well. Now, I didn't just fall off the Historical Jesus Turnip Truck. I've done a fair amount of reading on this subject, from several books by John Dominic Crossan to Reza Aslan's recent book, Zealot. These guys are honest enough to say that there's no evidence to take the Gospels literally, but they're both pretty adamant that there's no question that Jesus existed as a human being.

It's also important to point out the burden of proof issue. It's really hard to prove that something or somebody didn't exist. No matter what guys like Fitzgerald and Carrier might be able to present, at best they can show that it was extremely unlikely that Jesus ever existed. Personally, I've always been of the mind that Jesus could very well have existed in the same sense that Achilles existed. It started with an actual guy (or maybe even an amalgam of a few different guys) and then grew in the telling. But hey, I've only read a few books. I'm definitely not a qualified Bible scholar.

Still, I find this fascinating, and I'll probably check out Carrier's new book once it's on Audible. I can't really summarize what Fitzgerald's points were, aside from the bits about how we have no eyewitness testimony to Jesus's existence despite the fact that it all took place in a part of the world where there were enough literate people writing stuff down to make it strange that nobody wrote about it. (But again, that doesn't prove it didn't happen.) A lot of it has to do with what Paul wrote and what he curiously leaves out that shows up in the Gospels. Don't go picking that apart as an argument though - read his book if you care enough and pick that apart.

I haven't spent a lot of time looking into this, but I did check out some counter-arguments to the mythicist idea. From what I've seen, I'm not getting a lot of substance. The main argument seems to be: "The majority of scholars agree that Jesus was a real person." Yeah, sure, that should make you at least seriously consider the idea, but if that's the ONLY rebuttal you have, it's not a very good one - in fact, it's essentially a combination of the Argument from Authority coupled with the Argument from Popularity fallacies.

So, I have no definite take. Seems to me that the mythicists have a tall order on their hands, and they're going to have to bring a lot to the table to make their point. As of right now, I don't feel smart enough on the issue to give any definitive statement as to whether Jesus was a real person or not. The best that I can give you as to my opinion is as follows:

It certainly seems possible that Jesus never existed.

So, I guess I'm Hispanic

Great-grandfather Julio Castro

I was filling out some sort of questionnaire not too long ago, and it asked me my ethnic group. When I was younger, I'd take a stand on this and check the "decline to comment" box. After all, isn't there just one race? The human race? Why must they tear us apart with these race-obsessed questions?

Nowadays, I just kinda shrug my shoulders and think, "Yeah, I'll fill it out."

The box that I check is the one marked "Hispanic". Why do I do this? Well, 'cause I'm Hispanic. My great-grandparents, Julio and Teodora Castro, came to America from Spain. Their daughter, my grandmother, was 100% Spanish, which makes me 25% Spanish. That's Spanish enough to be Hispanic.

Still, I feel kinda funny checking off that box. I look like Joe White Guy. Isn't Hispanic something else? When I hear the word, I think of folks from Mexico, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, etc. While I realize that those are different cultures, and you always run into trouble when you go grouping large numbers of people into categories, they seem to have some commonalities which I do not. I mean, Benicio del Toro is Puerto Rican, but he played a Mexican cop in Traffic. Nobody would believe it if they hired me to play a Mexican cop. (And yes, I know that there are plenty of fair-skinned Mexicans out there. You know what kind of crap they often have to hear? "You don't LOOK Mexican!")

Great-grandmother Teodora Castro

Before I go any further, let me just make it clear: I have no problem being Hispanic. It's not that I'm saying that I don't want anything to do with the people I've mentioned before. I'm just saying that I feel as connected to them as I do Chinese people. They're not any better or worse than any other group; I'm just not in that group.

I'm pretty sure that for the longest time, whenever I would actually identify what ethnic group I'm in, I'd never check "Hispanic" even though my dad had told me that's what I was. It's not that I doubted him, but see my reasons above for why I didn't feel right about identifying myself this way. I finally started doing it consistently when filling out the last U.S. Census form, where it clearly stated that "of Spanish descent" was part of the description for Hispanic.

Great-great-grandmother
Maria Sanchez Romero

While I'd be a fool to say that I know what it's like to have darker skin and "look Hispanic", I do try my best to pay attention to people. I've heard many of my students, for instance, tell me stories about how people will ask them if they're "legal" or assume that they're all Mexican even when they explain that they're Salvadoran. (My favorite story involves somebody asking "What part of Mexico is El Salvador?") Also, there's often an assumption that they weren't born in this country. I've also heard complaints of people speaking to them in Spanish, assuming that they know the language even when they don't! (Mainly because their family has been in the United States for generations.)

I realize that there's a lot more to Hispanic/Latino culture than how some white people treat them like crap, but I feel like a bit of a phony by telling people I'm Hispanic. It's not like I know what any of those things are like.

But hey, maybe some Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, Panamanians, etc. are reading this blog and thinking to themselves, "What's the big deal? You're Hispanic. Who cares if you look like you could be the spokesman for Gringos United?"

Your logic is useless!

If you've just learned about logical fallacies, you're probably feeling pretty confident that you know how to deconstruct an argument and demonstrate when somebody's reasoning is faulty. Whether it's the post hoc ergo propter hoc, the no true Scotsman, the argument from ignorance, or any of the various other common fallacies that people make on a daily basis, you're ready to get to the truth of the matter.

There's a bit of a problem though.

You're assuming that everybody either knows about logical fallacies or, more importantly, cares about them.

When I first started getting really into skepticism, I would read various debates on usenet, and the skeptics would often point out the fallacies that were being committed by the paranormal advocates. I'm not some rube who's impressed by somebody simply naming off a fallacy, mind you. What convinced me was that they'd not only name them, but they'd explain them and show how the supposed reasoning that the other person was using didn't work by applying it to another example. In other words, my opinions started to change because I was already a pretty logical person, and even more significant, I valued logic.

Obviously, not everybody knows all the logical fallacies by heart, so simply saying to somebody: "You're making a strawman!" isn't going to get you anywhere if they don't know what that means. If the person is reasonable though, then you can correct this by explaining what that means and exactly how they're using it. This might get you somewhere, especially if you're clear that just because a person makes a fallacy, that doesn't mean that he or she is wrong. After all, you can have bad reasons for believing things that are true. If I said that the sun was going to rise tomorrow because it was the will of the monster who lives in my closet, I'd be right about the sun coming up, but I'd be wrong about the reason why.

Still, you might find yourself a bit annoyed, as even this isn't a sure-fire way to go about things. Some of the problems you might encounter include:

1. The other person thinks you're playing some kind of clever word game. I've been accused of  using "rhetoric" instead of making a point, and another person said that I was using words that are impressive in a debate class but don't mean anything in the "real world". Another person once referred to this as being my own personal method of analyzing things. That's very flattering, but I can't take credit for logic.

2. The other person will think that multiple examples of the same fallacy will eventually equal a truth. I get this a lot with "God of the Gaps" style arguments and anecdotes. You can point out that they're making a fallacy, but then they'll give you ten more of the same fallacy. When you take the time to point out that each one on the list is making the same bad bit of reasoning, they act like you're just being stubborn and "nothing will convince you".

3. They think that logic is subjective. I once had a guy tell me that he was using his own logic to reach his conclusions. I can't even...

4. Sometimes the most frustrating of all is a person who knows just enough to be dangerous. They'll throw out the terms without being able to explain how the argument fits the fallacy, or they'll just say, "No, I'm not doing that".

So, you know logic? Good for you. Before you go throwing it around, it's probably best to see if you and the person with an opposite point of view can agree to the rules before you start playing the game though.