Almost everybody knows about the fallacies of logic, formal and informal, that are routinely used in arguments with denialists. While these fallacies aren’t perfect examples of logic that show when an argument is always wrong, they are good rules of thumb to tell when you’re listening to bunk, and if you listen to denialists you’ll hear plenty. I wish they’d teach these to high school students as a required part of their curriculum, but it probably would decrease the efficacy of advertisement on future consumers.
The problem comes when the denialists get a hold of the fallacies then accuse you, usually, of ad hominem! It goes like this.
Denialist says something wacky…
Commenter or blogger corrects their mistake…
Denialist says same thing, changes argument slightly…
Commenter or blogger again corrects their mistake…
Denialist says something even wackier, says it disproves all of a field of science…
Commenter or blogger, exasperated, corrects it and threatens disemvowelment…
Denialist restates original wacky argument…
Commenter or blogger’s head explodes, calls denialist an idiot.
Denialist says he won because commenter or blogger resorted to ad hominem.
The thing to remember about logical fallacies is that their violation isn’t proof or disproof of the validity of the opponent’s argument. Your opponent might just be an idiot, but ultimately right. Some people just don’t know how to argue or keep their temper. Logical fallacies are rules of thumb to identify when portions of arguments are poorly constructed or likely irrational. They are dependent on context, and aren’t really rigorous proofs of the validity or invalidity of any argument.
Further, some fallacies, like ad hominem are poorly understood, so when an opponent says you’re wrong because of this this and this therefor you’re an idiot, the poor victim of the ad hominem feels like they can claim victory over the argument. When in reality ad hominem refers to the dismissal of an argument by just insulting the person. Time and time again you see someone exasperated by the crank who won’t turn despite being shown again and again where their error is, and finally just call the guy an idiot. That’s actually not an ad hominem. That might be totally true and highly relevant to the argument at hand. Sometimes people are just too stupid or too ignorant to realize when they’ve been soundly thrashed, and true cranks will stubbornly go on, and on and on…
But that doesn’t mean the fallacies of logic aren’t useful as rules of thumb for detecting the BS. The ones you hear most are arguments from metaphor or analogy (prime creationist tactic), appeals to consequence (creationist and global warming denier), appeals to ignorance (all – see moving goalposts), appeals to authority (all), straw men and red herrings.
For instance, the classic creationist example of using the analogy of the mouse-trap to suggest “irreducible complexity” as a problem for biology. Fallacies let you dismiss this instantly by saying, analogies aren’t science pal, how about some data. Analogies are often helpful for getting concepts across, but you routinely see them used by denialists as evidence. And more frequently you see their analogies aren’t even apt. For instance the mouse-trap is perfectly functional as its constituent parts. It’s a platform, a spring and a hook, just because they’re not assembled doesn’t mean they’ve lost their function. They just can’t kill mice anymore unless you throw them with sufficient velocity at rodents. Similarly the watchmaker analogy, the jet airplane analogy, or when a few months ago I saw this endless silly analogy about arsonists and design. Uggh. Pointless. Don’t even bother, you see things like this being used to challenge actual honest to goodness data? You’re done. If you spend too much time piecing together looking for a method to the madness you’ll end up like our poor robot. He’s the mascot for logical fallacies.
Poor guy. One too many fallacies, now he’s broken.
Leave a Reply