11 ms·

Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

176 points by Leepic 13y ago

swombat 13y ago
News at 10: not all of human thinking and interaction can be analysed by logic. Logic is a limited tool (though powerful when applied properly).
- jerf 13y ago
  As one of the greatest logicians of the 20th century once said: Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad. Are you sure your circuits are registering correctly? Your ears are green.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I think the real lesson is that humans aren't always (or even often) rational. A logical argument that assumes humans are always rational is incorrect. But if you have a good model of human thought and interaction that includes all the irrational parts, using logic to analyze it can work great.
aethertap 13y ago
For me, fallacies are a great tool for recognizing bad reasoning, which then provides pointers about how to expose it as such using a real argument. The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. In a good debate, the fallacies themselves never come up but you can see how they have influenced the flow of argument. I really liked how it was put in the book Logical Self-Defense: To be valid, an argument has to be relevant, sufficient, and acceptable. All of the fallacies (that I know of) fail on at least one of those properties. Recognizing the fallacy tells you how to go about attacking or shoring-up the argument (depending on which side of it you're on).
- Alex3917 13y ago
  "The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument." Why not? It doesn't prove that what the other person believes is false, but it does show that their reasons/evidence for their view are wrong. (Assuming the logical fallacy isn't itself a straw man against some minor point in the other person's argument.) And it's usually it's not necessary (or even possible) to prove that x is false, only that there's no rational reason to believe x. E.g. even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim that it's impossible that there is a god.
  - wtallis 13y ago
    Perhaps its clearer to say that pointing out a fallacy is an argument against their argument, but not an argument against their claim. When you dismantle an argument as fallacious, you're just leveling the playing field; you can't actually refute a claim that way.
  - bengillies 13y ago
    > Why not? Because, while it's a perfectly valid argument to make, technically winning an argument is different to actually winning an argument. If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well. The sad fact is that people listen to emotions because they can relate to them and, however invalid such an argument is, it's often the argument that wins.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well. That's important, if your concern is convincing general-audience third parties. In a forum like Hacker News (and, in fact, most internet fora I participate in), I'm usually more interested in connecting to a fairly educated audience and, more than convincing third parties that I am right, eliciting the best possible arguments for a position I don't already agree with, as, even if it doesn't change my mind to the opposing position, that's the best way to grow my understanding of the subject area. As a result, I'm a lot less concerned about what might win accolades of "most people", and a lot more concerned with what will get someone who is interested in and capable of putting forth a strong argument to do so.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. It isn't a reason to believe that the position argued for is false, but it is a reason for rejecting the offered argument as a basis for believing that the positioned argued for is true. I've heard "counter-argument" used both to mean "argument for rejecting the offered argument" (which this satisfies) and "argument for the negation of the position the offered argument supports" (which this does not satisfy.)
- SilasX 13y ago
  Actually, in a good debate, the fallacies are taken as (Bayesian) evidence, even if obviously imperfect. Appeal to authority/experts: The fact that experts believe something is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Appeal to tradition: The fact that things have historically been done a certain way, in a highly immodular system with complex dependencies, without catastrophic failure is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Appeal/reduction to absurdity: Absurd ideas are usually false, even if the presumption can be overridden. Genetic fallacy: Actually, the reason a conclusion was reached is exactly how you should judge it. (The true fallacy is thinking that you can pick an arbitrary reason a conclusion was reached -- e.g. snake dreams and Benzene -- rather than the best reason -- the later empirical confirmation of the model's predictive power.) And so on. Generally, the "Fallacy fallacy" is to jump from "Hey, this piece of evidence isn't perfect (i.e. an infinite likelihood ratio, which is impossible anyway)" to "So I can ignore it."
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Actually, in a good debate, the fallacies are taken as (Bayesian) evidence, even if obviously imperfect. I don't believe there is any reasonable definition of "good" where this is true. I think this characterization must rest on a misunderstanding of what the fallacies actually are. > Appeal to authority/experts: The fact that experts believe something is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Yes, but where that's true its not the fallacy of appeal to authority; the fallacy of appeal to authority is making an appeal to an authority where: 1. The cited authority is not actually an authority in the appropriate domain, or 2. The cited position is not the consensus of experts in the appropriate domain, or 3. In the context of deductive, rather than inductive, argument. (Similar problems exist with your other arguments about fallacies as evidence). Finally, your description of the "fallacy fallacy" is incorrect; it is not the (non-)fallacy of rejecting an argument because it is fallacious, it is the formal fallacy of affirming the negation of a claim because an argument containing a fallacy is offered in support of the claim.
    - SilasX 13y ago
      >In the context of deductive, rather than inductive, argument. The very context that you should never use, in other words, which was exactly my point! If you're going to require all evidence deductively imply a conclusion (i.e. have an infinite likelihood ratio), then you're excluding all real-world evidence, and making the very fallacy I described (which I didn't realize was claimed for something else). So it seems you essentially agree with using the "appeal to authority" fallacy in exactly the way I warned against. And that you generally endorse (the genuine fallacy of) rejecting evidence simply because it doesn't guarantee a conclusion. Whatever it is, that's not good debate, I'm afraid.
JasonFruit 13y ago
Far too often, logical fallacies are invoked in order to run away from an argument. I think this is the core point: the fallacy-lobbers are often looking to dismiss the entire conversation rather than trying to participate in it. There's no counter-argument; instead, the message is, "You're too dumb to bother with." That may sometimes be true, but it's never conducive to enlightening discussion.
- Nursie 13y ago
  I totally agree with his assessment of the misuse of the term ad-hominem too. An ad-hom fallacy is "your argument is wrong because you're an immoral moron", not "your argument is wrong for these reasons, you immoral moron". The latter is not very nice and probably shouldn't be encouraged, but it's not an ad-hominem because the insult is not part of the argument, just an unpleasant aside.
  - samatman 13y ago
    Ad-hom is often invoked against arguments of the form "So-and-so advocated that position and look what happened". This is actually argument from consequence and is useful, Godwin be damned.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      While we are on the topic, the whole "Godwin" shit drives me batty. Yes, I get that "You won't let me go to the dance with Timmy? You are Hitler!" is not cool, but for the most part in mature discussion that is not what is happening right before somebody starts hysterically screaming "GODWIN!" If history is to be considered important, it is because we think we can learn from it. However our ability to do so is cut short if we reject any allusion to history in which magnitude and severity are mismatched. For example: If you kick a small village of several dozen in Africa out of their homes to make room for a pipeline, that is not equivalent to the 'Trail of Tears', but there sure as hell are valid comparisons to be made nevertheless. However the overly enthusiastic "Godwinists" would have us believe any comparison between the two would be uncalled for.
  - 13y ago
msg 13y ago
Arguments are about core issues, not peripheral issues. The only way to convict your opponent is on their ground, not your own. Taking an argument seriously, as if it were the best representation of itself, is the only way to defeat it. In order to truly disagree, you must discover how much you already agree. = I know these sound a little fatuous. Can I just lampshade by saying they're all very true? :/
- JasonFruit 13y ago
  Those aren't fatuous at all. I think Solomon put it well: Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
maeon3 13y ago
Picard Quote captures where we are headed with the acknowledgement that treating fallacies as very powerful often curtails Justice: "There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute."
taktix 13y ago
It's nice to see the word baloney in lieu of #@%! A nice change of pace.
mindcrime 13y ago
Humans typically communicate in a way that resists shallow logical analysis. In a real conversation, people use words rather than terms, make utterances rather than sentences, and employ a wider variety of inference methods than modus ponens. A great deal of what is communicated and inferred in a conversation depends on context; the speakers and audience, their history, their shared knowledge and confidences, the feelers they lay out to establish mutual trust and rapport. Poking into this with your ad hominem stick betrays an ignorance of the way people actually communicate, and ignorance in general. Well said. And it's a lack of awareness of this point that often frustrates me about discussions here on HN. I understand that most of us try to be mostly rational, most of the time, and that we want a high level of discourse here. But too often, you see people acting like every discussion is high-school debate-club practice, and they start slinging "ad hominem" and "fallacy of the excluded middle" around like a high-school kid with a brand new super-soaker, eager to spray anyone in range. But not everything that is said here needs to be treated like it was uttered as part of a debate. Sometimes opinions are just opinions, sometimes anecdotes are enlightening, and sometimes generalizations, metaphors, analogies and other abstractions come into play.
- pestaa 13y ago
  I've rarely seen well articulated, highly subjective opinions teared into pieces, at least on HN. Usually the provocative, flaming comments get the predictable "you're wrong by definition" responses.
- cpleppert 13y ago
  >>But not everything that is said here needs to be treated like it was uttered as part of a debate. Sometimes opinions are just opinions, sometimes anecdotes are enlightening, and sometimes generalizations, metaphors, analogies and other abstractions come into play. True! But I also think that the intent to immediately jump to logical fallacies is a sign of weakness. If you can't dispute the premises (or even understand them) you can jump right to an area that allows a) total victory, he used a fallacy somehow somewhere! or b) the argument breaks down into a subjective analysis of whether someone committed a fallacy thus allowing the argument to continue without having to face the other persons argument. Maybe it is just me, but I find that even the (few) people without any critical thinking skills don't really commit classical logical fallacies. The problem isn't the surface argument but rather the evidence or the premises that is usually the issue.
rayiner 13y ago
People often fail to make the distinction between a logical argument and a persuasive one. The qualifications of the speaker, for example, are irrelevant when analyzing a logical argument, but are quite relevant when analyzing a persuasive one (why should I trust this doctor's opinion?) I've always felt that a better set of rules for internet arguments would be the Federal Rules of Evidence, which are explicitly rooted in the mechanics of persuasion.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth. That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel. Yet when people invoke "logical fallacies" they are almost always fallacies in deductive logic. Hey Internet--how about catching up to the 19th century and employing some inductive reasoning in your arguments? The problem with that, though, is that the starting point is facts. The arguer actually needs to possess domain knowledge/experience. It's so much more convenient to mock an inferred deductive structure...no real facts required!
- Jach 13y ago
  Furthermore, many deductive fallacies can turn into inductive, probabilistic theorems simply by moving to evidence-backed arguments instead of proof-backed arguments. (Authoritative claims can be evidence for a shift in probability, correlation is evidence of causation, absence of evidence is evidence of absence... How much that evidence is worth, of course, depends on the context.)
- GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
  > Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth. Don't you mean inductive. > That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel. A lesson which hasn't permeated the "scientific revolution" perhaps with good reason.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    Prior to the scientific revolution, philosophers attempted to deduce truth from first principles. Their record was mixed to say the least. The revolution of science was to say we don't need Truth, we just need to look systematically at real facts, and come up with provisional theories that provide testable predictions about them. It has pulled humanity's collective head out of the clouds and created useful, practical, actionable knowledge.
    - GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
gottasayit 13y ago
I really like this author's writing style. The prose flows and is fairly tight yet colorful. That said, his angst seems to be misplaced. When younger, he seized upon Sagan's rules as though they were The Way(tm)... and now he's disillusioned that they haven't made him invincible. Then he tries to use mostly logical argumentation to explain how the Baloney Detector Kit is flawed. That's ironic. Looking at his other blog posts, you can see similar angst at a lack of comfort being completely absorbed in a specific ideology: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#jump http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#jump I guess he has a brain that wants really badly to see everything in black and white - but at least he's smart enough to reason past that. I would argue that the baloney detector kit, his skepticism, and similar logical mechanisms are all that has kept this individual from going over the ideological cliff into unshakable belief syndrome.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
saosebastiao 13y ago
> The Baloney Detection Kit is a cache of offensive weapons, and for many discussions it's better to leave it behind and go in unarmed. Not every discussion is an argument, and arguments aren't always about winning. This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially for strutting alpha male types like myself. But if we want to live in a more just and inclusive world, it's a concept that's got to sink in. I think of the Baloney Detection Kit as a shield, rather than a sword, and it has worked nicely for me. I always approach an argument by allowing someone to persuade me. I use the BDK as a way of knowing how someone is trying to trick me. If my goal is to persuade rather than be persuaded, I am better off targeting the Logos-Ethos-Pathos (any combination of the three, preferably all three) than I am trying to use Logos alone. And if my goal is to attack, I should feel ashamed.
criley 13y ago
>Logical fallacies are only relevant in certain narrow rhetorical modes and contexts. Specifically, logical fallacies are only relevant in rational arguments. The only quote that matters. People who use logical fallacies generally consider themselves rational and try their hardest to maintain logical integrity with their positions. When debating with theists, paranormalists, and others who have faith-based views that are inherently (and intentionally) irrational, you can't use rational arguments and expect anything to happen. This is why I stopped having all of these arguments in general. You start with an evidence requirement and end at the exact same point, because for many "a voice/book told me so" is the highest form of evidence that can be offered, and such evidence is considered to "trump" all other sources, regardless of what they are. Without a common foundation from which to communicate, nothing constructive is possible.
realtalker 13y ago
This seems to have been prompted by the criticism he recieved for this appalling piece of work: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  That link clears a lot up. I can stop wasting my time. yawn
- papsosouid 13y ago
  Wow. Apart from how terrible that is, I am pretty impressed at the hypocrisy. "Stop using logic to try to shut down discussion. On an unrelated note, stop talking because misogyny/islamophobia/SJW nonsense."
Arguggi 13y ago
Am I the only one troubled by the last example? And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Receiving insults from men that identify as skeptics does not mean that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Telling her she just committed a fallacy doesn't seem so wrong to me.
- msg 13y ago
  She may have just committed a fallacy in truth. That doesn't mean telling her so is the right choice. If you don't address her experience, you're missing the point. You can "believe" all kinds of things without feeling them and living them out. In her case, skeptics may believe they are not fundamentally sexist. But her observation would then be that this belief is only skin deep. It should trouble the skeptic that an observer finds their community sexist, and trigger a crisis in the belief.
  - Arguggi 13y ago
    I agree that only answering "You just committed a fallacy, goodbye" would not be the right choice, but at least mentioning it and then try to explain why I think it's relevant doesn't seem so wrong.
  - vacri 13y ago
    In that example, the author makes his own fallacy. Apparently the speaker's experiences are the only valid ones, and the responder has no right to share his experience - which some of his "I hope it should be clear that none of these are appropriate responses" are doing. Some of his examples are condescending, which is the basis of what he's trying to get at, others are only condescending if you wilfully choose to take them that way. The problem isn't in pointing out the fallacy, it's with the tone of the commentary. The simple fact that you name a fallacy while exposing it does not mean you're a lazy debater.
- Avshalom 13y ago
  Did ya miss the whole thing about figurative language?
khyryk 13y ago
> And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. (Emphasis mine.) And later: > This woman has confided her experiences and concerns; in these responses, you are insultingly and condescendingly attempting to diminish them, by portraying her experiences as irrelevant and her concerns as illogical. There are better ways to confide experiences and concerns, and assuming intellectual immunity after calling an entire movement sexist isn't one of them. Both "sides" should be held to the same standards.
- MDCore 13y ago
  You've fallen into the trap the article talks about, in expecting the woman in the story to be talking logically and therefore held to a high standard of discourse. People say over-the-top, outrageous things out of emotionality, when they may mean something far less or completely different. Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are, and try to engage in talk that connects to the emotions and experiences underneath.
  - hacker789 13y ago
    > Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are, and try to engage in talk that connects to the emotions and experiences underneath. Why not afford to the men and women who respond to her that same privilege?
  - khyryk 13y ago
    Sorry, I don't think I'm going to be afforded the same courtesy if I start ranting about how all Valley girls are sluts because of my few experiences, for instance, even if it happens to be my genuine expression of emotion. Hoping that everyone's interpretation of certain emotions converges on something similar (and civil) is just asking for a clusterfuck.
    - 13y ago
Symmetry 13y ago
And given the topic, there's neccesarily a relevant Less Wrong link: http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo... Once upon a time I tried to tell my mother about the problem of expert calibration, saying: "So when an expert says they're 99% confident, it only happens about 70% of the time." Then there was a pause as, suddenly, I realized I was talking to my mother, and I hastily added: "Of course, you've got to make sure to apply that skepticism evenhandedly, including to yourself, rather than just using it to argue against anything you disagree with—" And my mother said: "Are you kidding? This is great! I'm going to use it all the time!"
- arsen1k 13y ago
  the author of TFA also has bad things to say about less wrong: http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
  - Symmetry 13y ago
    Wow, he certainly does. There were some bits in there I'll have to think about, but mostly it was pretty hilarious. Accusations of sexual deviancy? Tarring by association with Skype? Really?
leoc 13y ago
The impression I keep getting is that (with due respect to "the power of the context" http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf) teaching someone about fallacies automatically makes them about 15 IQ stupider.
nileshtrivedi 13y ago
I'm surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the "principle of charity". I read about this early in my study of logic and philosophy. It basically says that, if your objective is to discover truth rather than to win a debate, you ought to grant the best possible interpretation of the speaker's statement instead of focusing on narrow and literal interpretations which contain obvious logical fallacies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
- MetaCosm 13y ago
  Of course, charity only goes so far, if the ROOT of their argument is a logical fallacy, no amount of charitable thinking will repair the hole.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  The principle of charity is important but also can be dangerous if taken too far, particularly, it can avoid productive discussion by what amounts to a version of the strawman fallacy where instead of inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to argue against, you are inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to agree with, which is clearly an impediment, rather than a boon, to the productive interchange of ideas. Beyond deciding how to resolve obvious ambiguities where it can readily provide a best interpretation which it is most likely was actually intended by the speaker (the Caesar example in the Wikipedia article is a good one for this), the principle of charity is best applied cautiously to form a hypothesis of what the other speaker may have intended that can be verified through a clarification request.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  Most people start from the (ostensibly reasonable) assumption that you can't win an argument on the internet. It doesn't matter how cogent, how thought-provoking, how thoroughly researched and meticulously cited your position may be. You're not convincing the other side of anything. At best you can "win the crowd" in the Gladiator sense of the term. And this is what encourages most of the fallacy-citing, semantics nitpicking, and prosaic grandstanding seen in pseudo-sophisticated internet arguments. People aren't trying to convince the other side of anything in particular; they're trying to convince the audience -- oftentimes, more imagined than actual -- of their intellectual superiority. People these days join conversations, by default, in fight-or-flight mode. They presume hostility is lurking in every response, or, conversely, that responding to a post necessitates correcting it in some way. If more of them assumed good intent until proven otherwise, they wouldn't rush headlong into internet arguments.
ionforce 13y ago
Why does the victim in the article have to be a woman? Why can't it just be a random, genderless Internet denizen?
- guizzy 13y ago
  Because the whole article (and most of his site) is about defending poor defenseless women against hordes of oppressing logic wielding monsters.
petercooper 13y ago
No true citation would be incorrect.
- ionforce 13y ago
  I'm sure there's a Scotsman somewhere that would like to speak to you.
kmm 13y ago
First, I just knew this was going to be about sexism. It's not because your feelings are hurt, that you receive intellectual immunity. If you are making a generalisation about an entire community, consisting of thousands to millions of people, you're going to need to justify that! You're free to say you've encountered some sexist people and I sympathise with that, sexism is terrible. But do not accuse me of being sexist. Secondly, although I believe logic is the only way to have a real argument, we're all human beings and thus my judgement will be influenced by the colour of your argument. If you have a perfectly logical argument, yet call me a slur, unconsciously you're going to have a way harder time convincing me.
- zorpner 13y ago
  > But do not accuse me of being sexist. But you are. So am I -- we all are. Our culture and society are so riddled with pervasive sexism that we all exhibit sexist behavior at baseline, and the responsible thing to do is try and identify it within ourselves so that we can determine how best to negate it. If someone were truly lacking sexism, that would be an extraordinary claim, and would require extraordinary evidence to demonstrate. And if you'll forgive me for saying so -- that's not about to come from someone who says things like "I just knew this was going to be about sexism."
  - obviouslygreen 13y ago
    Really? Because you perceive "our" culture and society to be "riddled with pervasive sexism," it follows that we all "exhibit sexist behavior at baseline?" And if the GP believes contrary to your claim, it'll "require extraordinary evidence to demonstrate?" Ridiculous. Call yourself sexist if you'd like. And if the day comes when the Singularity puts us all closely in touch with each other's psyches, then you're free to tell us how sexist we've all been and we'll cry about it over a collective mug of chai. Until then, perhaps you should go apologize to some women on behalf of the detriment all of us that have had on their lives today. I'll go let my girlfriend know what a pig I am (after I'm done cooking her dinner).
  - kmm 13y ago
    There's a big difference between acknowledging the sexist baseline that exists in society, something which we should all strive to improve, and saying a certain subset is fundamentally (more) sexist, which is quite discriminatory and unfair towards that subset. > And if you'll forgive me for saying so -- that's not about to come from someone who says things like "I just knew this was going to be about sexism." No, I don't forgive you. This is a completely uncalled for.
ianstallings 13y ago
I don't care if it falls under a logical fallacy or not. If you insult me, the conversation is over.
- Torgo 13y ago
  Try saying that on any of the "freethought" or skeptic blogs and you will be mocked, banned, comments deleted, in that order as a "tone troll." On the other hand, if you insult (or insult back!) one of them, you are deemed a regular "troll". Leave without further comment and you are a "drive-by troll."
  - Tangaroa 13y ago
    If he gets banned, the conversation is indeed over so his point stands, eh? A funny thing about this "tone troll" business is that PZ bans people for asking for more civility in discussions, and he banned Thunderf00t for being incivil. Go figure.
hawleyal 13y ago
A little off on the ad hominem thing.
Tangaroa 13y ago
This is wrong on so many levels that it's difficult to keep track of them all. Let's start with the introduction: <blockquote>Why did people who deployed these [critical thinking] terms always look so rigid, so predictable, so feeble? Why did people who avoided them look so confident in comparison, so much more in command of their resources, so much more mature? Their arguments seemed to possess an inner strength; the baloney detectors, by contrast, only had strength in numbers.</blockquote> Translation: Some people never shut up after they have been proven wrong, and the author values this assertiveness over whether their arguments are logically sound. He concludes that the most assertive arguer is automatically correct. He calls for the total abandonment of logic and reason and to respect force and effect in their stead. His justification is the presumption that any person would quit an argument after being proved wrong; this is a false premise, as evidenced by the existence of liars, fanatics, and human choice. He applies this false premise to the whole of reason in order to condemn it; this is a strawman argument, a form of false premise, as reason has never presumed that its methods would lead to this result, but holds that its methods enable a witness to more accurately judge whose arguments are more likely to be correct. From there he reaches the conclusion that critical analysis is worthless. In an irony, he is himself attempting to use critical analysis to debunk critical analysis itself, but his foundation is so rotten that his argument is easily shown to be unjustified. Next the author tries to declare certain forms of arguments as being off-limits to critical analysis, like emotional appeals. An emotional appeal is irrelevant to whether the stated facts are likely to be true or false. The dismissal of an argument for its emotional appeal is shorthand for saying that the argument has not justified its claims, but is trying to trick witnesses into believing its claims by appealing to their emotions instead of reason. If an argument truly has nothing behind it other than its appeal to emotion, then its dismissal as an appeal to the emotions is fully justified. He also applies the same protection to the Rush Limbaugh defense of people saying their lies, initially presented as serious factual claims, were meant to be taken as "comedy" when disproven, or as "irony, hyperbole, understatement, whimsy, counterfactual conjecture, or any other of the wonders of figurative language that defy semantic nit-picking". Contrary to having "nothing to contribute", "semantic nit-picking" tears these turns of phrase apart and exposes the argument being made. Next he says that the correct identification of a logical error does not imply incorrectness of the argument. No comment is needed. Finally, we get to the root cause. The author has constructed this framework of deliberate mental incompetence to justify supporting Rebecca Watson's claim that all Atheist men are sexist, with the implication being that Atheist men are sexist to such a degree that all of them are rapists-in-waiting. A supporting argument is laid out in a similar manner to the classic form, simplified as such: Thesis: All Atheist men are sexist. 1. Z is an atheist man. 2. Z is not sexist. (Points 1 and 2 are repeated for a dozen more Zs) It takes the complete abandonment of logic to conclude, as the author does, that the thesis is upheld and indeed strengthened by these arguments. As we have seen, the complete abandonment of logic is the author's goal. He wants you to believe that you should stop thinking logically because he writes so strongly and forcefully for it.
Fomite 13y ago
"You're confusing correlation and causation" & "You're drawing conclusions from an insufficient sample size." Those are the two that drive me nuts. They're statistical arguments, not ones you can just toss out. All causal relationships are also correlated relationships - if you're asserting a correlation isn't the result of causation, it would behoove you to at least have some notion of what might be confounding it. The same thing with sample size. "Well, their sample size is small..." gets trotted out. How do you know that? If you want to bring statistical power into an argument, come prepared to show your work.
tokenadult 13y ago
Rayiner mentions the Federal Rules of Evidence in his comment. Also writing from a lawyer's perspective, I'll mention the elaboration of rules of evidence that has developed both in formal rules like the federal rules and in centuries of common-law tradition in deciding cases. Presentation of evidence at trial is about letting the fact-finder (sometimes a jury, sometimes a judge) hear from both sides in an adversary proceeding about what happened, and why what happened matters. Some forms of evidence are "prejudicial"--that is, they are excluded from even being mentioned at trial because they trigger known human cognitive biases. Other forms of evidence are "irrelevant"--even if they are completely truthful, they bear no legal or logical relationship to how the case will be decided based on the other evidence at trial. Unlike Internet arguments, court trials also exclude some forms of highly relevant evidence to protect other social goals, for example by reducing incentives to police misconduct or violations of privacy. In law, there is a well developed body of precedent and rule on evaluating the credibility of witnesses. To show evidence that a witness has reason to lie (not just that the witness is directly contradicted by someone else's testimony) is highly relevant in most trials. If you are a lawyer who has ever read a case transcript, you will have no trouble believing that some witnesses testify in court under oath and penalty of perjury, with cross-examination by the other side, and yet still lie. This happens every day. To put some balance into a system in which any witness might have an incentive to lie, the rules of evidence at trial allow introduction of evidence that the witness is, for example, someone who has been convicted of "crimes involving dishonesty," or has a financial interest in a factual issue under dispute, or so on. Some statements about a witness are plainly irrelevant, even under that principle. It will not do to say "The witness was convicted of jaywalking," because jaywalking is not regarded as a crime that shows a tendency to be untruthful. Another aspect of the law of evidence that has heavily influenced my thinking about what people know and how they know it, and thus influenced my behavior in online discussion, is "basis of knowledge" considerations. (I sometimes explicitly mention my basis of knowledge when commenting in some threads. Here my basis of knowledge is having studied the law of evidence with a professor who literally wrote the book on the subject http://www.evidencecasebook.com/author2.asp http://www.evidencecasebook.com/author2.asp when I was in law school.) If a witness testifies, "I saw him shoot the victim," and you can show that it was dark on that occasion, and the witness has bad myopia and wasn't wearing his eyeglasses, you are a long way toward undermining the witness's testimony on completely legitimate grounds. I am often puzzled why many Hacker News readers are so credulous about stories when it is plain that the person writing the story has no basis of knowledge adequate for making the extraordinary claims submitted with the story. (University press office hype about the future implications of preliminary research findings frequently has this weakness, http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 as is well known in the scientific community but still too little known here on HN, much less Reddit.) When a Hacker News commenter suggests that someone has either bias (perhaps as an investor in a company) or insufficient basis of knowledge (perhaps as a rookie investigator before peer review and replication has happened), altogether too many HN replies will accuse the commenter of an "ad hominem" argument. They don't notice that arguments about bias and about lack of sufficient knowledge are even completely legitimate aids to truth-finding on controversial issues. Yes, don't rely on a list of fallacies (at least, not on the list alone) to guide your thinking, but also on deep thinking about the structure of the argument and adequacy and impartiality of the data. (All of the above said, I like the late Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit on the whole, and think applying it to more Hacker News threads would raise the level of discussion here. See also Paul Graham's essay "How to Disagree" http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html for more suggestions about how to disagree thoughtfully and productively.)
6d0debc071 13y ago
It seems to me that the logical fallacies aren't really at fault here. If you're the one who wants to change someone's mind, then you're the one who has to engage on grounds they're going to find persuasive. The buyer; the person who wants something; pays - in discussion as much as in any other area of life. What are you shared objectives? What do you stand to lose if you don't change your mind? What do you stand to gain if you do? Complaining about the standard of dialogue seems likely to be unproductive. Sceptics have been doing that with regard to Christians for years and it doesn't really seem to have gotten them anywhere - there's little incentive. So, that in mind, it seems that you'd do better working the argument in the author's piece in reverse: Someone tries to appeal to emotion, gets a logical fallacy claim back in return. If you assume that there are many different types of speech, and that you're not really in a logical argument, then what does that tell you about them? Well, the first thing it tells you is that that person cares very strongly about a consistency principle - or at least the outward appearance of one - that they probably want to appear reasonable. What can you think of that's likely to be in their personal life that they're going to feel the same way as you do that a consistency principle is going to work in favour of? What's the obvious pickup with a lot of sexism? 'Would you want someone talking like that to your mother or sister?' Of course, that sort of pattern - consistency response to an emotional appeal - is going to come up in areas where people just don't care about very much other than appearing reasonable fairly frequently. I seem to recall one description of debating with Christians that went something along the line of 'Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy-cows with high-powered sniper rifles.' We all get a cheap laugh from it, probably, but is hunting dairy cows really a productive activity for a smart person? IME people with stuff to do don't spend a lot of time on such things - it seems unlikely that scepticism would be a large part of their identity. # However, If you're getting that response a lot wherever you go, maybe the problem's you. # A good example of this is, in fact, that piece above. What's the actual prevalence of people being unreasonably called out on logical fallacies? I've not seen it a lot. That may just be because I'm one of the people who does it and most of us seem to tend to appear reasonable from the inside. But equally it may be because the prevalence is actually low. So, the basic premise on which the author is attempting to appeal, the supposed shared experience? I'm not going to find that convincing on an emotional level or a consistency based one.
inopinatus 13y ago
The most constructive use of logical fallacies is in finding weaknesses in your own argument, not those of others.
bbanyc 13y ago
The only point I get from this post is that too much self-congratulatory navel-gazing harms one's ability to engage in any sort of discussion. This goes for both the logic-in-all-things capital-S Skepticism the post argues against and the post itself. What we've got here is...failure to communicate.
Kudzu_Bob 13y ago
“Most fallacies are like that - they're heuristics which work most of the time. For example, if you see people running in terror in one direction, and you join them, you've committed the bandwagon fallacy, but you're probably right. If you refuse to invest in someone's business because they've been convicted of fraud, that's ad hominem, but you're probably right.” http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/11/slippery-slope-logical-fallacy-but.html?showComment=1354462371905#c3584621246281099294 http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/11/slippery-slope...

176 points by Leepic 13y ago

News at 10: not all of human thinking and interaction can be analysed by logic. Logic is a limited tool (though powerful when applied properly).

jerf 13y ago
As one of the greatest logicians of the 20th century once said: Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad. Are you sure your circuits are registering correctly? Your ears are green.
mikeash 13y ago
I think the real lesson is that humans aren't always (or even often) rational. A logical argument that assumes humans are always rational is incorrect. But if you have a good model of human thought and interaction that includes all the irrational parts, using logic to analyze it can work great.

aethertap 13y ago

For me, fallacies are a great tool for recognizing bad reasoning, which then provides pointers about how to expose it as such using a real argument. The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. In a good debate, the fallacies themselves never come up but you can see how they have influenced the flow of argument. I really liked how it was put in the book Logical Self-Defense: To be valid, an argument has to be relevant, sufficient, and acceptable. All of the fallacies (that I know of) fail on at least one of those properties. Recognizing the fallacy tells you how to go about attacking or shoring-up the argument (depending on which side of it you're on).

Alex3917 13y ago
"The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument." Why not? It doesn't prove that what the other person believes is false, but it does show that their reasons/evidence for their view are wrong. (Assuming the logical fallacy isn't itself a straw man against some minor point in the other person's argument.) And it's usually it's not necessary (or even possible) to prove that x is false, only that there's no rational reason to believe x. E.g. even Richard Dawkins doesn't claim that it's impossible that there is a god.
- wtallis 13y ago
  Perhaps its clearer to say that pointing out a fallacy is an argument against their argument, but not an argument against their claim. When you dismantle an argument as fallacious, you're just leveling the playing field; you can't actually refute a claim that way.
- bengillies 13y ago
  > Why not? Because, while it's a perfectly valid argument to make, technically winning an argument is different to actually winning an argument. If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well. The sad fact is that people listen to emotions because they can relate to them and, however invalid such an argument is, it's often the argument that wins.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well. That's important, if your concern is convincing general-audience third parties. In a forum like Hacker News (and, in fact, most internet fora I participate in), I'm usually more interested in connecting to a fairly educated audience and, more than convincing third parties that I am right, eliciting the best possible arguments for a position I don't already agree with, as, even if it doesn't change my mind to the opposing position, that's the best way to grow my understanding of the subject area. As a result, I'm a lot less concerned about what might win accolades of "most people", and a lot more concerned with what will get someone who is interested in and capable of putting forth a strong argument to do so.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. It isn't a reason to believe that the position argued for is false, but it is a reason for rejecting the offered argument as a basis for believing that the positioned argued for is true. I've heard "counter-argument" used both to mean "argument for rejecting the offered argument" (which this satisfies) and "argument for the negation of the position the offered argument supports" (which this does not satisfy.)
SilasX 13y ago
Actually, in a good debate, the fallacies are taken as (Bayesian) evidence, even if obviously imperfect. Appeal to authority/experts: The fact that experts believe something is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Appeal to tradition: The fact that things have historically been done a certain way, in a highly immodular system with complex dependencies, without catastrophic failure is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Appeal/reduction to absurdity: Absurd ideas are usually false, even if the presumption can be overridden. Genetic fallacy: Actually, the reason a conclusion was reached is exactly how you should judge it. (The true fallacy is thinking that you can pick an arbitrary reason a conclusion was reached -- e.g. snake dreams and Benzene -- rather than the best reason -- the later empirical confirmation of the model's predictive power.) And so on. Generally, the "Fallacy fallacy" is to jump from "Hey, this piece of evidence isn't perfect (i.e. an infinite likelihood ratio, which is impossible anyway)" to "So I can ignore it."
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > Actually, in a good debate, the fallacies are taken as (Bayesian) evidence, even if obviously imperfect. I don't believe there is any reasonable definition of "good" where this is true. I think this characterization must rest on a misunderstanding of what the fallacies actually are. > Appeal to authority/experts: The fact that experts believe something is evidence in favor of it (albeit imperfect and overridable). Yes, but where that's true its not the fallacy of appeal to authority; the fallacy of appeal to authority is making an appeal to an authority where: 1. The cited authority is not actually an authority in the appropriate domain, or 2. The cited position is not the consensus of experts in the appropriate domain, or 3. In the context of deductive, rather than inductive, argument. (Similar problems exist with your other arguments about fallacies as evidence). Finally, your description of the "fallacy fallacy" is incorrect; it is not the (non-)fallacy of rejecting an argument because it is fallacious, it is the formal fallacy of affirming the negation of a claim because an argument containing a fallacy is offered in support of the claim.
  - SilasX 13y ago
    >In the context of deductive, rather than inductive, argument. The very context that you should never use, in other words, which was exactly my point! If you're going to require all evidence deductively imply a conclusion (i.e. have an infinite likelihood ratio), then you're excluding all real-world evidence, and making the very fallacy I described (which I didn't realize was claimed for something else). So it seems you essentially agree with using the "appeal to authority" fallacy in exactly the way I warned against. And that you generally endorse (the genuine fallacy of) rejecting evidence simply because it doesn't guarantee a conclusion. Whatever it is, that's not good debate, I'm afraid.

JasonFruit 13y ago

Far too often, logical fallacies are invoked in order to run away from an argument. I think this is the core point: the fallacy-lobbers are often looking to dismiss the entire conversation rather than trying to participate in it. There's no counter-argument; instead, the message is, "You're too dumb to bother with." That may sometimes be true, but it's never conducive to enlightening discussion.

Nursie 13y ago
I totally agree with his assessment of the misuse of the term ad-hominem too. An ad-hom fallacy is "your argument is wrong because you're an immoral moron", not "your argument is wrong for these reasons, you immoral moron". The latter is not very nice and probably shouldn't be encouraged, but it's not an ad-hominem because the insult is not part of the argument, just an unpleasant aside.
- samatman 13y ago
  Ad-hom is often invoked against arguments of the form "So-and-so advocated that position and look what happened". This is actually argument from consequence and is useful, Godwin be damned.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    While we are on the topic, the whole "Godwin" shit drives me batty. Yes, I get that "You won't let me go to the dance with Timmy? You are Hitler!" is not cool, but for the most part in mature discussion that is not what is happening right before somebody starts hysterically screaming "GODWIN!" If history is to be considered important, it is because we think we can learn from it. However our ability to do so is cut short if we reject any allusion to history in which magnitude and severity are mismatched. For example: If you kick a small village of several dozen in Africa out of their homes to make room for a pipeline, that is not equivalent to the 'Trail of Tears', but there sure as hell are valid comparisons to be made nevertheless. However the overly enthusiastic "Godwinists" would have us believe any comparison between the two would be uncalled for.
- 13y ago

msg 13y ago

Arguments are about core issues, not peripheral issues. The only way to convict your opponent is on their ground, not your own. Taking an argument seriously, as if it were the best representation of itself, is the only way to defeat it. In order to truly disagree, you must discover how much you already agree. = I know these sound a little fatuous. Can I just lampshade by saying they're all very true? :/

JasonFruit 13y ago
Those aren't fatuous at all. I think Solomon put it well: Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

maeon3 13y ago

Picard Quote captures where we are headed with the acknowledgement that treating fallacies as very powerful often curtails Justice: "There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute."

taktix 13y ago

It's nice to see the word baloney in lieu of #@%! A nice change of pace.

mindcrime 13y ago

Humans typically communicate in a way that resists shallow logical analysis. In a real conversation, people use words rather than terms, make utterances rather than sentences, and employ a wider variety of inference methods than modus ponens. A great deal of what is communicated and inferred in a conversation depends on context; the speakers and audience, their history, their shared knowledge and confidences, the feelers they lay out to establish mutual trust and rapport. Poking into this with your ad hominem stick betrays an ignorance of the way people actually communicate, and ignorance in general. Well said. And it's a lack of awareness of this point that often frustrates me about discussions here on HN. I understand that most of us try to be mostly rational, most of the time, and that we want a high level of discourse here. But too often, you see people acting like every discussion is high-school debate-club practice, and they start slinging "ad hominem" and "fallacy of the excluded middle" around like a high-school kid with a brand new super-soaker, eager to spray anyone in range. But not everything that is said here needs to be treated like it was uttered as part of a debate. Sometimes opinions are just opinions, sometimes anecdotes are enlightening, and sometimes generalizations, metaphors, analogies and other abstractions come into play.

pestaa 13y ago
I've rarely seen well articulated, highly subjective opinions teared into pieces, at least on HN. Usually the provocative, flaming comments get the predictable "you're wrong by definition" responses.
cpleppert 13y ago
>>But not everything that is said here needs to be treated like it was uttered as part of a debate. Sometimes opinions are just opinions, sometimes anecdotes are enlightening, and sometimes generalizations, metaphors, analogies and other abstractions come into play. True! But I also think that the intent to immediately jump to logical fallacies is a sign of weakness. If you can't dispute the premises (or even understand them) you can jump right to an area that allows a) total victory, he used a fallacy somehow somewhere! or b) the argument breaks down into a subjective analysis of whether someone committed a fallacy thus allowing the argument to continue without having to face the other persons argument. Maybe it is just me, but I find that even the (few) people without any critical thinking skills don't really commit classical logical fallacies. The problem isn't the surface argument but rather the evidence or the premises that is usually the issue.

rayiner 13y ago

People often fail to make the distinction between a logical argument and a persuasive one. The qualifications of the speaker, for example, are irrelevant when analyzing a logical argument, but are quite relevant when analyzing a persuasive one (why should I trust this doctor's opinion?) I've always felt that a better set of rules for internet arguments would be the Federal Rules of Evidence, which are explicitly rooted in the mechanics of persuasion.

snowwrestler 13y ago

Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth. That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel. Yet when people invoke "logical fallacies" they are almost always fallacies in deductive logic. Hey Internet--how about catching up to the 19th century and employing some inductive reasoning in your arguments? The problem with that, though, is that the starting point is facts. The arguer actually needs to possess domain knowledge/experience. It's so much more convenient to mock an inferred deductive structure...no real facts required!

Jach 13y ago
Furthermore, many deductive fallacies can turn into inductive, probabilistic theorems simply by moving to evidence-backed arguments instead of proof-backed arguments. (Authoritative claims can be evidence for a shift in probability, correlation is evidence of causation, absence of evidence is evidence of absence... How much that evidence is worth, of course, depends on the context.)
GalacticDomin8r 13y ago
> Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth. Don't you mean inductive. > That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel. A lesson which hasn't permeated the "scientific revolution" perhaps with good reason.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  Prior to the scientific revolution, philosophers attempted to deduce truth from first principles. Their record was mixed to say the least. The revolution of science was to say we don't need Truth, we just need to look systematically at real facts, and come up with provisional theories that provide testable predictions about them. It has pulled humanity's collective head out of the clouds and created useful, practical, actionable knowledge.
  - GalacticDomin8r 13y ago

gottasayit 13y ago

I really like this author's writing style. The prose flows and is fairly tight yet colorful. That said, his angst seems to be misplaced. When younger, he seized upon Sagan's rules as though they were The Way(tm)... and now he's disillusioned that they haven't made him invincible. Then he tries to use mostly logical argumentation to explain how the Baloney Detector Kit is flawed. That's ironic. Looking at his other blog posts, you can see similar angst at a lack of comfort being completely absorbed in a specific ideology: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#jump http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#jump I guess he has a brain that wants really badly to see everything in black and white - but at least he's smart enough to reason past that. I would argue that the baloney detector kit, his skepticism, and similar logical mechanisms are all that has kept this individual from going over the ideological cliff into unshakable belief syndrome.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

saosebastiao 13y ago

> The Baloney Detection Kit is a cache of offensive weapons, and for many discussions it's better to leave it behind and go in unarmed. Not every discussion is an argument, and arguments aren't always about winning. This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially for strutting alpha male types like myself. But if we want to live in a more just and inclusive world, it's a concept that's got to sink in. I think of the Baloney Detection Kit as a shield, rather than a sword, and it has worked nicely for me. I always approach an argument by allowing someone to persuade me. I use the BDK as a way of knowing how someone is trying to trick me. If my goal is to persuade rather than be persuaded, I am better off targeting the Logos-Ethos-Pathos (any combination of the three, preferably all three) than I am trying to use Logos alone. And if my goal is to attack, I should feel ashamed.

criley 13y ago

>Logical fallacies are only relevant in certain narrow rhetorical modes and contexts. Specifically, logical fallacies are only relevant in rational arguments. The only quote that matters. People who use logical fallacies generally consider themselves rational and try their hardest to maintain logical integrity with their positions. When debating with theists, paranormalists, and others who have faith-based views that are inherently (and intentionally) irrational, you can't use rational arguments and expect anything to happen. This is why I stopped having all of these arguments in general. You start with an evidence requirement and end at the exact same point, because for many "a voice/book told me so" is the highest form of evidence that can be offered, and such evidence is considered to "trump" all other sources, regardless of what they are. Without a common foundation from which to communicate, nothing constructive is possible.

realtalker 13y ago

This seems to have been prompted by the criticism he recieved for this appalling piece of work: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia

MetaCosm 13y ago
That link clears a lot up. I can stop wasting my time. yawn
papsosouid 13y ago
Wow. Apart from how terrible that is, I am pretty impressed at the hypocrisy. "Stop using logic to try to shut down discussion. On an unrelated note, stop talking because misogyny/islamophobia/SJW nonsense."

Arguggi 13y ago

Am I the only one troubled by the last example? And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Receiving insults from men that identify as skeptics does not mean that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Telling her she just committed a fallacy doesn't seem so wrong to me.

msg 13y ago
She may have just committed a fallacy in truth. That doesn't mean telling her so is the right choice. If you don't address her experience, you're missing the point. You can "believe" all kinds of things without feeling them and living them out. In her case, skeptics may believe they are not fundamentally sexist. But her observation would then be that this belief is only skin deep. It should trouble the skeptic that an observer finds their community sexist, and trigger a crisis in the belief.
- Arguggi 13y ago
  I agree that only answering "You just committed a fallacy, goodbye" would not be the right choice, but at least mentioning it and then try to explain why I think it's relevant doesn't seem so wrong.
- vacri 13y ago
  In that example, the author makes his own fallacy. Apparently the speaker's experiences are the only valid ones, and the responder has no right to share his experience - which some of his "I hope it should be clear that none of these are appropriate responses" are doing. Some of his examples are condescending, which is the basis of what he's trying to get at, others are only condescending if you wilfully choose to take them that way. The problem isn't in pointing out the fallacy, it's with the tone of the commentary. The simple fact that you name a fallacy while exposing it does not mean you're a lazy debater.
Avshalom 13y ago
Did ya miss the whole thing about figurative language?

khyryk 13y ago

> And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. (Emphasis mine.) And later: > This woman has confided her experiences and concerns; in these responses, you are insultingly and condescendingly attempting to diminish them, by portraying her experiences as irrelevant and her concerns as illogical. There are better ways to confide experiences and concerns, and assuming intellectual immunity after calling an entire movement sexist isn't one of them. Both "sides" should be held to the same standards.

MDCore 13y ago
You've fallen into the trap the article talks about, in expecting the woman in the story to be talking logically and therefore held to a high standard of discourse. People say over-the-top, outrageous things out of emotionality, when they may mean something far less or completely different. Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are, and try to engage in talk that connects to the emotions and experiences underneath.
- hacker789 13y ago
  > Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are, and try to engage in talk that connects to the emotions and experiences underneath. Why not afford to the men and women who respond to her that same privilege?
- khyryk 13y ago
  Sorry, I don't think I'm going to be afforded the same courtesy if I start ranting about how all Valley girls are sluts because of my few experiences, for instance, even if it happens to be my genuine expression of emotion. Hoping that everyone's interpretation of certain emotions converges on something similar (and civil) is just asking for a clusterfuck.
  - 13y ago

Symmetry 13y ago

And given the topic, there's neccesarily a relevant Less Wrong link: http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_people/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/he/knowing_about_biases_can_hurt_peo... Once upon a time I tried to tell my mother about the problem of expert calibration, saying: "So when an expert says they're 99% confident, it only happens about 70% of the time." Then there was a pause as, suddenly, I realized I was talking to my mother, and I hastily added: "Of course, you've got to make sure to apply that skepticism evenhandedly, including to yourself, rather than just using it to argue against anything you disagree with—" And my mother said: "Are you kidding? This is great! I'm going to use it all the time!"

arsen1k 13y ago
the author of TFA also has bad things to say about less wrong: http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html http://plover.net/~bonds/cultofbayes.html
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Wow, he certainly does. There were some bits in there I'll have to think about, but mostly it was pretty hilarious. Accusations of sexual deviancy? Tarring by association with Skype? Really?

leoc 13y ago

The impression I keep getting is that (with due respect to "the power of the context" http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004001_power.pdf) teaching someone about fallacies automatically makes them about 15 IQ stupider.

nileshtrivedi 13y ago

I'm surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the "principle of charity". I read about this early in my study of logic and philosophy. It basically says that, if your objective is to discover truth rather than to win a debate, you ought to grant the best possible interpretation of the speaker's statement instead of focusing on narrow and literal interpretations which contain obvious logical fallacies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

MetaCosm 13y ago
Of course, charity only goes so far, if the ROOT of their argument is a logical fallacy, no amount of charitable thinking will repair the hole.
dragonwriter 13y ago
The principle of charity is important but also can be dangerous if taken too far, particularly, it can avoid productive discussion by what amounts to a version of the strawman fallacy where instead of inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to argue against, you are inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to agree with, which is clearly an impediment, rather than a boon, to the productive interchange of ideas. Beyond deciding how to resolve obvious ambiguities where it can readily provide a best interpretation which it is most likely was actually intended by the speaker (the Caesar example in the Wikipedia article is a good one for this), the principle of charity is best applied cautiously to form a hypothesis of what the other speaker may have intended that can be verified through a clarification request.
jonnathanson 13y ago
Most people start from the (ostensibly reasonable) assumption that you can't win an argument on the internet. It doesn't matter how cogent, how thought-provoking, how thoroughly researched and meticulously cited your position may be. You're not convincing the other side of anything. At best you can "win the crowd" in the Gladiator sense of the term. And this is what encourages most of the fallacy-citing, semantics nitpicking, and prosaic grandstanding seen in pseudo-sophisticated internet arguments. People aren't trying to convince the other side of anything in particular; they're trying to convince the audience -- oftentimes, more imagined than actual -- of their intellectual superiority. People these days join conversations, by default, in fight-or-flight mode. They presume hostility is lurking in every response, or, conversely, that responding to a post necessitates correcting it in some way. If more of them assumed good intent until proven otherwise, they wouldn't rush headlong into internet arguments.

ionforce 13y ago

Why does the victim in the article have to be a woman? Why can't it just be a random, genderless Internet denizen?

guizzy 13y ago
Because the whole article (and most of his site) is about defending poor defenseless women against hordes of oppressing logic wielding monsters.

petercooper 13y ago

No true citation would be incorrect.

ionforce 13y ago
I'm sure there's a Scotsman somewhere that would like to speak to you.

kmm 13y ago

First, I just knew this was going to be about sexism. It's not because your feelings are hurt, that you receive intellectual immunity. If you are making a generalisation about an entire community, consisting of thousands to millions of people, you're going to need to justify that! You're free to say you've encountered some sexist people and I sympathise with that, sexism is terrible. But do not accuse me of being sexist. Secondly, although I believe logic is the only way to have a real argument, we're all human beings and thus my judgement will be influenced by the colour of your argument. If you have a perfectly logical argument, yet call me a slur, unconsciously you're going to have a way harder time convincing me.

zorpner 13y ago
> But do not accuse me of being sexist. But you are. So am I -- we all are. Our culture and society are so riddled with pervasive sexism that we all exhibit sexist behavior at baseline, and the responsible thing to do is try and identify it within ourselves so that we can determine how best to negate it. If someone were truly lacking sexism, that would be an extraordinary claim, and would require extraordinary evidence to demonstrate. And if you'll forgive me for saying so -- that's not about to come from someone who says things like "I just knew this was going to be about sexism."
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  Really? Because you perceive "our" culture and society to be "riddled with pervasive sexism," it follows that we all "exhibit sexist behavior at baseline?" And if the GP believes contrary to your claim, it'll "require extraordinary evidence to demonstrate?" Ridiculous. Call yourself sexist if you'd like. And if the day comes when the Singularity puts us all closely in touch with each other's psyches, then you're free to tell us how sexist we've all been and we'll cry about it over a collective mug of chai. Until then, perhaps you should go apologize to some women on behalf of the detriment all of us that have had on their lives today. I'll go let my girlfriend know what a pig I am (after I'm done cooking her dinner).
- kmm 13y ago
  There's a big difference between acknowledging the sexist baseline that exists in society, something which we should all strive to improve, and saying a certain subset is fundamentally (more) sexist, which is quite discriminatory and unfair towards that subset. > And if you'll forgive me for saying so -- that's not about to come from someone who says things like "I just knew this was going to be about sexism." No, I don't forgive you. This is a completely uncalled for.

ianstallings 13y ago

I don't care if it falls under a logical fallacy or not. If you insult me, the conversation is over.

Torgo 13y ago
Try saying that on any of the "freethought" or skeptic blogs and you will be mocked, banned, comments deleted, in that order as a "tone troll." On the other hand, if you insult (or insult back!) one of them, you are deemed a regular "troll". Leave without further comment and you are a "drive-by troll."
- Tangaroa 13y ago
  If he gets banned, the conversation is indeed over so his point stands, eh? A funny thing about this "tone troll" business is that PZ bans people for asking for more civility in discussions, and he banned Thunderf00t for being incivil. Go figure.

hawleyal 13y ago

A little off on the ad hominem thing.

Tangaroa 13y ago

This is wrong on so many levels that it's difficult to keep track of them all. Let's start with the introduction: <blockquote>Why did people who deployed these [critical thinking] terms always look so rigid, so predictable, so feeble? Why did people who avoided them look so confident in comparison, so much more in command of their resources, so much more mature? Their arguments seemed to possess an inner strength; the baloney detectors, by contrast, only had strength in numbers.</blockquote> Translation: Some people never shut up after they have been proven wrong, and the author values this assertiveness over whether their arguments are logically sound. He concludes that the most assertive arguer is automatically correct. He calls for the total abandonment of logic and reason and to respect force and effect in their stead. His justification is the presumption that any person would quit an argument after being proved wrong; this is a false premise, as evidenced by the existence of liars, fanatics, and human choice. He applies this false premise to the whole of reason in order to condemn it; this is a strawman argument, a form of false premise, as reason has never presumed that its methods would lead to this result, but holds that its methods enable a witness to more accurately judge whose arguments are more likely to be correct. From there he reaches the conclusion that critical analysis is worthless. In an irony, he is himself attempting to use critical analysis to debunk critical analysis itself, but his foundation is so rotten that his argument is easily shown to be unjustified. Next the author tries to declare certain forms of arguments as being off-limits to critical analysis, like emotional appeals. An emotional appeal is irrelevant to whether the stated facts are likely to be true or false. The dismissal of an argument for its emotional appeal is shorthand for saying that the argument has not justified its claims, but is trying to trick witnesses into believing its claims by appealing to their emotions instead of reason. If an argument truly has nothing behind it other than its appeal to emotion, then its dismissal as an appeal to the emotions is fully justified. He also applies the same protection to the Rush Limbaugh defense of people saying their lies, initially presented as serious factual claims, were meant to be taken as "comedy" when disproven, or as "irony, hyperbole, understatement, whimsy, counterfactual conjecture, or any other of the wonders of figurative language that defy semantic nit-picking". Contrary to having "nothing to contribute", "semantic nit-picking" tears these turns of phrase apart and exposes the argument being made. Next he says that the correct identification of a logical error does not imply incorrectness of the argument. No comment is needed. Finally, we get to the root cause. The author has constructed this framework of deliberate mental incompetence to justify supporting Rebecca Watson's claim that all Atheist men are sexist, with the implication being that Atheist men are sexist to such a degree that all of them are rapists-in-waiting. A supporting argument is laid out in a similar manner to the classic form, simplified as such: Thesis: All Atheist men are sexist. 1. Z is an atheist man. 2. Z is not sexist. (Points 1 and 2 are repeated for a dozen more Zs) It takes the complete abandonment of logic to conclude, as the author does, that the thesis is upheld and indeed strengthened by these arguments. As we have seen, the complete abandonment of logic is the author's goal. He wants you to believe that you should stop thinking logically because he writes so strongly and forcefully for it.

Fomite 13y ago

"You're confusing correlation and causation" & "You're drawing conclusions from an insufficient sample size." Those are the two that drive me nuts. They're statistical arguments, not ones you can just toss out. All causal relationships are also correlated relationships - if you're asserting a correlation isn't the result of causation, it would behoove you to at least have some notion of what might be confounding it. The same thing with sample size. "Well, their sample size is small..." gets trotted out. How do you know that? If you want to bring statistical power into an argument, come prepared to show your work.

tokenadult 13y ago

Rayiner mentions the Federal Rules of Evidence in his comment. Also writing from a lawyer's perspective, I'll mention the elaboration of rules of evidence that has developed both in formal rules like the federal rules and in centuries of common-law tradition in deciding cases. Presentation of evidence at trial is about letting the fact-finder (sometimes a jury, sometimes a judge) hear from both sides in an adversary proceeding about what happened, and why what happened matters. Some forms of evidence are "prejudicial"--that is, they are excluded from even being mentioned at trial because they trigger known human cognitive biases. Other forms of evidence are "irrelevant"--even if they are completely truthful, they bear no legal or logical relationship to how the case will be decided based on the other evidence at trial. Unlike Internet arguments, court trials also exclude some forms of highly relevant evidence to protect other social goals, for example by reducing incentives to police misconduct or violations of privacy. In law, there is a well developed body of precedent and rule on evaluating the credibility of witnesses. To show evidence that a witness has reason to lie (not just that the witness is directly contradicted by someone else's testimony) is highly relevant in most trials. If you are a lawyer who has ever read a case transcript, you will have no trouble believing that some witnesses testify in court under oath and penalty of perjury, with cross-examination by the other side, and yet still lie. This happens every day. To put some balance into a system in which any witness might have an incentive to lie, the rules of evidence at trial allow introduction of evidence that the witness is, for example, someone who has been convicted of "crimes involving dishonesty," or has a financial interest in a factual issue under dispute, or so on. Some statements about a witness are plainly irrelevant, even under that principle. It will not do to say "The witness was convicted of jaywalking," because jaywalking is not regarded as a crime that shows a tendency to be untruthful. Another aspect of the law of evidence that has heavily influenced my thinking about what people know and how they know it, and thus influenced my behavior in online discussion, is "basis of knowledge" considerations. (I sometimes explicitly mention my basis of knowledge when commenting in some threads. Here my basis of knowledge is having studied the law of evidence with a professor who literally wrote the book on the subject http://www.evidencecasebook.com/author2.asp http://www.evidencecasebook.com/author2.asp when I was in law school.) If a witness testifies, "I saw him shoot the victim," and you can show that it was dark on that occasion, and the witness has bad myopia and wasn't wearing his eyeglasses, you are a long way toward undermining the witness's testimony on completely legitimate grounds. I am often puzzled why many Hacker News readers are so credulous about stories when it is plain that the person writing the story has no basis of knowledge adequate for making the extraordinary claims submitted with the story. (University press office hype about the future implications of preliminary research findings frequently has this weakness, http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 as is well known in the scientific community but still too little known here on HN, much less Reddit.) When a Hacker News commenter suggests that someone has either bias (perhaps as an investor in a company) or insufficient basis of knowledge (perhaps as a rookie investigator before peer review and replication has happened), altogether too many HN replies will accuse the commenter of an "ad hominem" argument. They don't notice that arguments about bias and about lack of sufficient knowledge are even completely legitimate aids to truth-finding on controversial issues. Yes, don't rely on a list of fallacies (at least, not on the list alone) to guide your thinking, but also on deep thinking about the structure of the argument and adequacy and impartiality of the data. (All of the above said, I like the late Carl Sagan's baloney detection kit on the whole, and think applying it to more Hacker News threads would raise the level of discussion here. See also Paul Graham's essay "How to Disagree" http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html for more suggestions about how to disagree thoughtfully and productively.)

6d0debc071 13y ago

It seems to me that the logical fallacies aren't really at fault here. If you're the one who wants to change someone's mind, then you're the one who has to engage on grounds they're going to find persuasive. The buyer; the person who wants something; pays - in discussion as much as in any other area of life. What are you shared objectives? What do you stand to lose if you don't change your mind? What do you stand to gain if you do? Complaining about the standard of dialogue seems likely to be unproductive. Sceptics have been doing that with regard to Christians for years and it doesn't really seem to have gotten them anywhere - there's little incentive. So, that in mind, it seems that you'd do better working the argument in the author's piece in reverse: Someone tries to appeal to emotion, gets a logical fallacy claim back in return. If you assume that there are many different types of speech, and that you're not really in a logical argument, then what does that tell you about them? Well, the first thing it tells you is that that person cares very strongly about a consistency principle - or at least the outward appearance of one - that they probably want to appear reasonable. What can you think of that's likely to be in their personal life that they're going to feel the same way as you do that a consistency principle is going to work in favour of? What's the obvious pickup with a lot of sexism? 'Would you want someone talking like that to your mother or sister?' Of course, that sort of pattern - consistency response to an emotional appeal - is going to come up in areas where people just don't care about very much other than appearing reasonable fairly frequently. I seem to recall one description of debating with Christians that went something along the line of 'Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy-cows with high-powered sniper rifles.' We all get a cheap laugh from it, probably, but is hunting dairy cows really a productive activity for a smart person? IME people with stuff to do don't spend a lot of time on such things - it seems unlikely that scepticism would be a large part of their identity. # However, If you're getting that response a lot wherever you go, maybe the problem's you. # A good example of this is, in fact, that piece above. What's the actual prevalence of people being unreasonably called out on logical fallacies? I've not seen it a lot. That may just be because I'm one of the people who does it and most of us seem to tend to appear reasonable from the inside. But equally it may be because the prevalence is actually low. So, the basic premise on which the author is attempting to appeal, the supposed shared experience? I'm not going to find that convincing on an emotional level or a consistency based one.

inopinatus 13y ago

The most constructive use of logical fallacies is in finding weaknesses in your own argument, not those of others.

bbanyc 13y ago

The only point I get from this post is that too much self-congratulatory navel-gazing harms one's ability to engage in any sort of discussion. This goes for both the logic-in-all-things capital-S Skepticism the post argues against and the post itself. What we've got here is...failure to communicate.

Kudzu_Bob 13y ago

“Most fallacies are like that - they're heuristics which work most of the time. For example, if you see people running in terror in one direction, and you join them, you've committed the bandwagon fallacy, but you're probably right. If you refuse to invest in someone's business because they've been convicted of fraud, that's ad hominem, but you're probably right.” http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/11/slippery-slope-logical-fallacy-but.html?showComment=1354462371905#c3584621246281099294 http://chariotofreaction.blogspot.com/2012/11/slippery-slope...