This is a followup to my post on logical thinking. Here’s something I said :-
Over the next few weeks I’ll analyze some arguments commonly presented (and sadly, accepted) by people that are about as valid as 1+1=11. Just because it seems logical, it doesn’t mean it is.
I mentioned one of my pet peeves related to arguments in the previous post. Here are a few more that annoy me to no end. I am not just ranting about my pet peeves. I am mentioning these because it is my belief that many disagreements stem from people’s inability to think logically, rather than differences in their principles. We would all be more agreeable and happier if we all had the ability to correctly present and analyze arguments.
Before I start, I must mention that labeling an argument incorrect only implies that the conclusion does not follow premises presented. It does not make a judgement about the conclusion (eg: “Every time she snores, it’s night. She is snoring. Therefore, it must be nighttime“. It may well be night, but the above argument is still illogical).
- Inductive Logic:
I gave an example above already. Basically whenever one extrapolates a conclusion from known cases to an unknown case, one is drawing an inference that a future event will be similar to those already encountered. The thing is that people often confuse this reasoning with deductive arguments. Inductive arguments can not conclusively prove their conclusion to be true. A strong inductive argument merely makes the outcome probable.Nassim Taleb often complains about people not understanding probabilities. “All observed swans are white, therefore all swans are white“. The reasoning seems sound until one encounters a black swan. This is actually an example of strong inductive reasoning.
Many people often present weak inductive logic. “Many teenagers get into car accidents. Therefore, all teenagers are bad drivers”. Such reasoning is at the root of many stereotypes, bigotry, prejudices and discrimination. In order for the argument to be strong, all teengers must get into car accidents. Even then, it merely makes the conculsion probable, not a fact.
And I haven’t even talked about casual inference and analogy in my examples yet, those makes inductive arguments very, very weak (and often very illogical).
- Straw-man Fallcy:
In order to invalidate an argument, one must analyze the actual premise accurately. However, in this fallacy a person presents a distorted version of an argument in order to invalidate it. Here are some examples :-Mom: “Your room’s messy. Can you clean it please”
Child: “You want me to clean my room all day”Unless you are a teenager making the second statement, the absurdity of it is likely fairly clear to you. The mother is asking for the room to be cleaned because it is messy. The assertion that she is asking the child to clean his/her room all day is an example of the straw-man fallacy, since she never made this assertion. As clear as this fallacy seems now, it is actually most widely used and pretty hard to detect once you are on the defensive side of the argument. Consider this:“We no longer have the money to keep troops in Afghanistan. Therefore, we should pull out to save money”
“You would rather see terrorists go free. I don’t understand why you want our country to be defenseless”I hope people can see the fallacy here. The second statement may well be true, but it was not what the original statement implied at all. The correct response would be to either debate the actual premise “… no longer have the money to keep troops in Afghanistan”, or the conclusion “… to save money”. Or accept the premise but prove its irrelevance by showing that wars cost money and is more important then other expenditures that should be cut to pay for the war.
- Two wrongs make a right:
This is another one of my fovourite (I am being sarcastic). I saw it a lot in torture debates. “They would have tortured our soldiers if they captured them. Therefore, we should be allowed to torture them” or “It’s okay to bomb their cities because they would have / did / may bomb ours”. You actually see this a lot in internationl politics. I will not cite exact examples so I don’t offend anyone, but any intelligent person should be able to think of many examples (btw, this could be a fallacy if I was presenting this as an argument, which I am not).
- Red Herring:
This is another that annoys me to no end, especially since people often do it unintentionally (which really sometimes makes one question whether we really evolved all that much in the first place). Red Herring is basically one a completely irrelevant fact is presented to divert attention from the main argument. I am not joking, I actually saw this almost exact conversation:”I think Dion has a good plan for the country”
“Are you kidding me? He looks goofy and cannot even speak English”Perhaps, but what does that have to do with his plan for the country? This type of argument is very common in political conversations. - Slippery Slope:
Another one of my pet-peeves. This is when people assert that an event must follow without ever proving it. You hear this a lot with immigration debates. I actually heard this presented by prominant republicans during Obama’s bid for the Presidency. Here’s one I actually read not too long ago presented by a prominent US Politician (not exact quote): “They must not be able to ban pornography. Once you allow that soon they will be cencoring all media.”
- Middle Ground:
I find that people using this fallacy often mean well. In American politics (or when there is a minority government in Canada) governments often use this fallacy to implement compromises that are worse than either options. Consider this argument:”Your son damaged my car, you should pay the $1000 repair bill”
“My son is not old enough. I should have to pay nothing. Lets agree on a middle-ground and say I will pay $500″This may be an acceptable social solution, but it isn’t a valid argument. Either the person is responsible for the damages or he is not. - Personal Attack:
This isn’t just my pet-peeve, this actually pisses me off. Consider this argument:“Harper suggests cutting business taxes to make Canada more competitive. But Harper is a liar. Therefore, he is wrong”The assertion about Hapers truthfullness actually has absolutely nothing to do with the argument that cutting business taxes will make Canada more competitive.
- Appeal to Tradition:
Actual argument presented to me not too long ago: “Funding Catholic schools isn’t unfair because it’s our tradition”. I thought about making a statement that slavery then must be okay because it is an even older tradition but decided otherwise.
- Circular Arguments
God exists because the Bible says so. Bible is right because it is written by God
- Appeal to Popularity / Authority / Fear / Ridicule / Pity / Emotion
- Guilt-by-Association
These are self-explanatory and conclude my list of pet-peeves :).
I often lump all of the above together and complain that people go in tangents when arguing about something. Have you ever had a crucial conversation with someone that started on one topic and soon you were arguing about something totally different? Well, next time try to pick out some of these fallacies, you may be able to keep the argument on the topic. It doesn’t help though. In a non-emotional situation I just walk away from an argument when I see people present these fallacies.
In one of the future posts I will discuss probabilities, and why people have such a difficult time accurately analyzing risks.
