Reductio Ad Conspiratorium
Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies) is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: ‘As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.’
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum, or reductio (or argumentum) ad Nazium – dog Latin for “reduction (or argument) to Adolf Hitler (or the Nazis)” – is an ad hominem argument, or modern formal fallacy in logic. The name is a pun on reductio ad absurdum, or especially its related argumentum ad misericordiam. It is a variety of both questionable cause and association fallacy and has the effect of an appeal to emotion. The phrase reductio ad Hitlerum was coined by an academic ethicist, Leo Strauss, in 1953. Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as playing the Nazi card.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
Taking inspiration from the above items, I have now coined the following:
Reductio Ad Conspiratorium is a rhetorical device used to abruptly end a discussion that relies on facts that are measurable and reproducible (in the scientific sense) and that does not relie on emotion or anecdotal data. Thus, the probability of the discussion being characterized as a conspiracy led by [insert name of your favorite enemy here] increases as the probability of the truthfulness of the argument increases. Using this rhetorical device to end any rational discussion is sometimes known as “playing the conspiracy card.”
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I assumed I was original when I created the phrase “reductio ad conspiratorium.” It turns out that phrase appeared in 2006 in The American Prospect.
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