Let's have more logical thinking

It's terribly wrong. The child couldn't think logically. His granny must have been a housewife before and as an old woman certainly couldn't “grow up.”

Well, that's a very common mistake schoolchildren make. They are a little too young to understand logic. But our schools at the next higher levels, including colleges and universities, have failed to teach students to think logically. Many adults are also prone to similar illogical errors, as a result.

Take a look at newspapers where stories about the celebration of traditional festivals are published. When it's time to mark the Chinese New Year Festival, all reporters invariably start their stories with: “Today is New Year's Day, which arrives once a year.”

When they refer to Taiwan, they often describe it as “an island, basically or fundamentally.” I have to restrain myself from asking them whether New Year's Day comes twice or three times a year or what Taiwan is, if it is not basically or fundamentally.

One student majoring in English wrote a composition in which she declared, “It is Sunday; so it rained.” Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between Sunday and raining? It rains on any day of the week.

President Ma Ying-jeou isn't totally free either of making similar mistakes. In a recent interview with CommonWealth magazine, he stressed he would reform the Kuomintang after he doubles as its chairman. Then he said he would make sure candidates nominated for the year-end local elections must be acceptable to the electorate and “they should not fall into corruption after they are elected.”

It's an admonition uncalled for and redundantly illogical like in the description of Taiwan as an island, basically or fundamentally, or New Year's Day, which arrives once a year. Does it ever occur to the president that each and every public office holder, be he a member of the Kuomintang or any other party, is forbidden by law to be be involved with corruption and graft after his or her election or even before, if he or she is a public servant?

In the interview, Ma also pointed out his policy of “no unification” with China does not rule out the option of unification.

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