Danger Of Bad Analogies Essay

The interrogator would also ask the tortured witch to declare other people witches, often reading a list of names and possibly forcing them to say that suspected people were witches (Gibbons, Stage #7). After the confession the court would sentence the witch. The witches were not always executed; sometimes the inquisition’s courts would only punish a witch with banishment or imprisonment. However, the secular courts were much more likely to execute witches that they found guilty. The level of punishment varied a lot depending on the location and who was believed to have been bewitched by the witch. For example, a witch in England accused of bewitching the queen was punished by being dragged to the execution site before getting the private parts cut off and intestines taken out and burnt, only to then have the head removed and body split into four pieces. and it was a very rare occurrence except for in Italy and Spain. The executions also often occurred publicly and could attract large crowds of people. These executions were meant to be used to show what the witches did wrong and to deter witches, but they led to an increased hysteria of the witch hunts (Gibbons, Stage #9). Comparatively, the
An article titled “The Danger of Bad analogies” declares that analogies are used to create a fear factor of the events. This is especially prevalent with politics. The article also claims that it is best to assume that a poor analogy is made because the speaker does not know better. But, when it is involved in education. Furthermore, it claims that poor analogies are created from making comparisons with complex issues. This is definitely the case when comparing the witch hunts and McCarthyism, as they both consist of multiple aspects (Pippenger). This shows that the analogy was used as an attack against McCarthyism and the Republicans, but after a while it stuck as what we know of the