Corrected entry: Professor Crawley states he discovered a new species of dung beetle (named after him) in a rain forest in Borneo. That is impossible - dung beetles do not live in damp climates as the fecal matter upon which they live degrades too quickly when moist. You can find dung beetles in Savannah grassland, semi-arid desert, some lightly wooded areas, but a rain forest? Never.
Guy
29th Jun 2013
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
19th Feb 2013
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
Corrected entry: Sheldon's battery runs low during Leonard's date with Leslie so he gets an extension cord but leaves the door open. As he goes down the stairs the extension cord unwinds until he can't go any further and attempts to pull it. When Leonard gets up to shut the door there is no extension cord plugged into the outlet or leading out of the apartment.
28th May 2012
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
Corrected entry: Sheldon states that reductio ad absurdum is "the logical fallacy of extending an argument to a ridiculous extreme and then challenging it". This is incorrect; this is the straw man fallacy. Reductio ad absurdum is the entirely valid inferential technique of demonstrating that the consequences of an argument being true result in a contradiction.
Correction: Sheldon is correct. "Reductio ad absurdum" (Latin: "reduction to the absurd") is a form of argument in which a proposition is disproven by following its implications logically to an absurd consequence. Proof by contradiction is a specific form of Reductio ad absurdum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum A strawman argument is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html The major difference between the two is that an Reductio ad absurdum argument presents the opponent's claim correctly but carries it to an extreme. The Strawman argument presents the opponent's claim incorrectly.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Correction: Never is a big word. Deltochilum valgum and Oxysternon pteroderum are two examples of dung beetles that live in rainforests.
Guy
I'm from Borneo and yes we do have dung beetles here. My family is in the adventure business and we take coleopterists to do research on the dung beetles species found here.