BbJHXMyzaPB2I1CQeGmpLogical fallacies exposed!
Transcript:
https://app.podscribe.ai/episode/51487308Speaker 0 (0s): Ladies and gentlemen for the thousands in attendance and the millions watching around the world, <inaudible>
Speaker 1 (12s): Classic for you guys. Welcome to the podcast. So happy you're here. So there's these two members of a synagogue and they're having this terrible argument. And one of them says, do you stand for the repetition of the Amita? Or do you sit there arguing, screaming, just going at each other? No, you have to stand. No, you have to sit. Finally, they go and see the last surviving founder of the show. They say, mr. Burnbaum you have to solve this for us. Do you sit or do you stand?
And they say, well, do you sit? And he looks at him and scratches his head. And he says, no, that's not the tradition. So we stand then. No, no, that's not the tradition. And I say, listen, mr. Bernbach, we are ready to start killing each other. And he says, yeah, yeah, that's the tradition.
Speaker 0 (58s): <inaudible>
Speaker 1 (1m 2s): Argumentation. My friends. Do you like to argue? You like to have critical conversations. How about a civil discourse? What about a debate? Everyone loves a debate. I love a good debate. You know how to have a good debate. You have to utilize good language. It's also important to realize in any argument, especially in argument with someone you love the purpose of an argument. Do you know what that is? I'll tell you the purpose of an argument to solve a problem.
You know what I do? I forget that sometimes you ever do that, like right in the heat of an argument, instead of worrying about the issue, you decide that you must, when you decide you must have the last word, that song by Billy Joel, you had to be a big shot. Didn't you, you had to have the last word last night. You ever fall into that trap. You ever get goaded into that trap or someone slings and ad hominem attack at you and you fire back with one.
And then all of a sudden, you're no longer even talking about the issue. You're just trying to hurt the other person that happens way too much and it doesn't solve anything. It makes things worse. I learned that way too late in life. So this series a podcast is going to be about argumentation, logical, fallacies, and how to create a better discourse in your home environment and work environment. And with people you love one key point.
I want everyone to realize is that the way you speak to other people is usually the way you speak to yourself. Do you know what I mean by that, that voice in your head, that internal dialogue, all long we're thinking and what is thinking? Well, it's asking yourself questions. You may not talk to yourself and ask those questions out loud, but inside your mind's eye, inside your mind, your cognitive apparatus, you are asking, answering questions.
You are navigating your way through life by asking those questions. And a lot of times our inner dialogue shapes our view of the world. That's why I say so often that the world is made of language. The language we use describes who we are and it describes the world. We see it's important to also remember, we can't go anywhere without a linguistic pathway. So logical fallacies are not only something that we use in our argumentation or our discussion with other people.
They are the terms in which we define ourselves. One of the most important components of learning is academic discourse. It requires argumentation and debate, argumentation, and debate inevitably lend themselves to flawed reasoning and rhetorical errors. Many of these errors are considered logical. Fallacies, logical fallacies are common place in the classroom, in the workplace and in the home in formal televised debates and perhaps most rampantly on any number of internet forms, but what is a logical fallacy and just as important, how can you avoid making logical fallacies yourself regardless of where you are in life or what you're preparing for, whether you're on campus or in the workplace, it pays to know your logical fallacies.
Let's lay out some of the most common fallacies you might encounter and that you should be aware of in your own discourse and debate. What exactly is a logical fallacy? A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. Common enough to warrant a fancy name, knowing how to spot and identify fallacies is a priceless skill. It can save you time, money and personal dignity.
There are two major categories of logical fallacies, which in turn break down into a wide range of types of fallacies each with their own unique ways of trying to trick you into agreement. Number one is a formal fallacy is a breakdown in how you say something. The ideas are somehow sequenced incorrectly. Their form is wrong.
Rendering the argument as noise and nonsense and informal fallacy denotes an error in what you are saying. That is the content of your argument. The ideas might be arranged correctly, but something you said isn't quite right, the content is wrong or off kilter for this particular podcast, we will be working doctor dr. Wise, call your office with informal fallacies.
I am going to give you 10 different types of logical fallacies. You are most likely to encounter in discussion and debate ad homonym, straw, man argument appeal to ignorance, false dilemma, slippery slope, fallacy, circular argument, hasty generalization, red herring fallacy to CoQuora casual fallacy, fallacy of sunk costs, appeal to authority, equivocation appeal to pity bandwagon fallacy.
Let's start at the top with an ad hominem attack.
Speaker 2 (7m 23s): Are you familiar with this,
Speaker 1 (7m 24s): For those of you that are, I hope that you'll find this particular set. We go through as a refresher for those of you that are not pay attention so that you can not only understand
Speaker 2 (7m 38s): What does is okay,
Speaker 1 (7m 41s): But you can also understand when you use it. And even more importantly, you'll be able to point it out to the person whom tries to use it upon you. Ad hominem fallacy. When people think of arguments, often their first thought is have shouting matches riddled with personal attacks. Ironically, personal attacks run contrary to rational arguments in logic and rhetoric. A personal attack is called an ad hominem ad hominem is Latin for against the man instead of advancing good sound reasoning and ad Hom and replaces logical argumentation with attack language unrelated to the truth of the matter more specifically, the ad hominin is a fallacy of relevance where someone rejects or criticizes another person's view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue.
An ad hominem is more than just an insult. It's an insult used as if it were an argument of evidence in support of a conclusion, verbally attacking people proves nothing about the truth or falsity of their claims. Use of an ad. Hominem is commonly known in politics as mudslinging, instead of addressing the candidate stance on the issues or addressing his or her effectiveness as a statesman or States woman in ad hominem focuses on personality issues, speech patterns, wardrobe, style, and other things that affect popularity, but have no bearing on their competence in this way in ad hominem can be unethical seeking to manipulate voters by appealing to irrelevant foibles and name calling instead of addressing core issues in this last election cycle, personal attacks were volleyed freely from all sides of the political aisle with both Clinton and Trump facing their fair share of ad hominem fallacies.
So to be clear and ad hominem is an insult used as if it were an argument or evidence in support of conclusion. I'm gonna give you a couple examples from the last election between Trump and Hillary. Some of the Trumpisms used against Hillary or killery Clinton crooked Hillary Hill or the hun Schullery Hillary Hilda beast defender of child rapists, corporate w***e, mr.
President hail Hillary wicked witch of the West wing Robert <inaudible> Hill, ham Clinton, mrs. Carpet bagger, and the decidedly subtle the devil. There were an equally amount of ad hominem tax against Trump, short fingered vulgarian angry cream, sickle fascist, carnival Barker, f******e Von clown stick decomposing.
Jack-o-lantern chairman of the Saddam Hussein fan club, racist Clementine Cheeto, Jesus Tangerine, tornado. The use of ad hominem often signals the point at which a civil disagreement has descended into a fight. Whether it's siblings, friends, or lovers, most everyone has had a verbal disagreement crumble into a disjointed shouting match of angry insults and accusations aimed at discrediting the other person.
When these insults crowd out a substantial argument, they become ad hominems
Speaker 4 (12m 11s): Peterson trending. Number one on Twitter, Jordan Peterson, international bestseller, Jordan Peterson, right? This is what I'm saying to you. Why the rage bruh, you you're doing well, but you're a mean mad white man.
Speaker 1 (12m 29s): This is the straw man argument. It's much easier to defeat your opponents argument. When it's made of straw, kind of reminds me of the three little pigs. Remember that there was a housemate out of bricks. One made out of sticks and one made out of straw easily. The Wolf could blow down the house made of straw. The straw man argument is aptly named after a harmless lifeless scarecrow in the straw man argument, someone attacks a position.
The opponent doesn't really hold instead of contending with the actual argument, he or she attacks the equivalent of a lifeless bundle of straw and easily defeated effigy, which the opponent never intended upon defending. Anyway, the straw man argument is a cheap and easy way to make one's position look stronger than it is using this fallacy. Opposing views are characterized as nonstarters, lifeless, truthfulness and wholly unreliable by comparison one's own position will look better for it.
You can imagine how strawman arguments and ad hominem fallacies can occur together, demonizing opponents and discrediting their views. This fallacy can be unethical if it's done on purpose deliberately mischaracterizing the opponent's position for the sake of deceiving others. But often the straw man argument is accidental because the offender doesn't realize they are oversimplifying a nuance position or misrepresenting a narrow cautious claim as if it were broadened.
Full-heartedly
Speaker 4 (14m 25s): Why do you spend your whole life trying to convince people that there isn't why don't you just stay home? It's not my, it isn't my whole career. It's become a major preoccupation of my life though. Especially since September 11th, 2001, to try and help generate an opposition to theocracy
Speaker 1 (14m 49s): Next up appeal to ignorance. Anytime ignorance is used as a major premise in support of an argument. It's liable to be a fallacious appeal to ignorance. Naturally, we are all ignorant of many things, but it is cheap and manipulative to allow this unfortunate aspect of the human condition to do most of our heavy lifting in an argument. Interestingly, appeal to ignorance is often used to bolster multiple contradictory conclusions at once.
Consider the following two claims. No one has ever been able to prove definitively that extra terrestrials exist. So they must not be real. No one has ever been able to prove definitively that extra terrestrials do not exist. So they must be real. If the same argument strategy can support mutually exclusive claims, then it's not a good argument and appeal to ignorance.
Isn't proof of anything except that you don't know something. If no one has proven the nonexistence of ghosts or flying saucers, that's hardly proved that those things either exist or don't. If we do not know whether they exist, then we do not know that they do exist or that they don't exist. Appeal to ignorance. Doesn't prove any claim to knowledge.
Speaker 5 (16m 25s): We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated next up
Speaker 1 (16m 33s): False dilemma, false dichotomy. This fallacy has a few other names, black and white fallacy either or fallacy false dichotomy and bifurcation fallacy. This line of reasoning fails by limiting the options to two. When there are in fact more options to choose from, sometimes the choices are between one thing, the other thing, or both things together, they don't exclude each other.
Sometimes there is a whole range of options, three, four, or five or 145. However, it may happen. The false dichotomy fallacy airs by oversimplifying the range of options. Dilemma based arguments are only fallacious. When in fact there are more than the stated options. It's not a fallacy. However, if there really are only two options, for example, either led Zepplin is the greatest band of all times, or they're not.
That's a true dilemma since there really are only two options there, a or non a, it would be fallacious. However, to say, there are only two kinds of people in the world. People who love Zepplin and people who hate music, some people are different about that music, some sort of like it, or sort of dislike it, but don't have a strong feeling either way. The false dilemma fallacy is often a manipulative tool designed to polarize the audience, her ROAS sizing one side and demonizing the other.
It's common in political discourse as a way of strong arming, the public into supporting controversial legislation or policies.
Speaker 6 (18m 28s): Our demands are simple, a small cost of living increase and some better equipment and supplies for your children.
Speaker 7 (18m 37s): Yeah. In a dream world, we have a very tight budget to do what he's asking. We'd have to raise taxes.
Speaker 6 (18m 42s): <inaudible>
Speaker 1 (18m 47s): Next up is the slippery slope. You may have used this fallacy on your parents as a teenager, but you have to let me go to the party. If I don't go to the party, all be all, be a loser with all my friends. Next thing you know, I'll end up alone and jobless living in your basement. When I'm 30, the slippery slope fallacy works by moving from a seemingly benign premise or starting point.
And working through a number of small steps to an improbable extreme. This fallacy is not just a long series of causes. Some causal chains are perfectly reasonable. There could be a complicated series of causes that are all related, and we have good reason for expecting the first cost to generate the last outcome. The slippery slope fallacy, however, suggests that unlikely or ridiculous outcomes are likely when there is just not enough evidence to think.
So it's hard enough to prove one thing is happening or has happened. It's even harder to prove a whole series of events will happen. That's a claim about the future and we haven't arrived there yet. We generally don't know the future with that kind of certainty. The slippery slope fallacy slides right over the difficulty by assuming that chain of future events without really proving their likelihood.
A good example of this might be if America doesn't send weapons to the Syrian rebels, they won't be able to defend themselves against their warring dictator to lose their civil war. And that dictator will oppress them. And the Soviets will consequently carve out a sphere of influence that spreads across the entire middle East. Pretty ridiculous. Right? Next up circular argument when he person's argument is just repeating what they already assume beforehand.
It's not a riving at any new conclusion. We call this a circular argument or circular reasoning. If someone says the Bible is true, it says so in the Bible, that's a circular argument. They are assuming that the Bible only speaks truth. And so they trust it to truthfully report that it speaks the truth because it says that it does, it is a claim using its own conclusion as its premise and vice versa in the form of if a is true, because B is true.
B is true because a is true. Another example of circular reasoning is according to my brain, my brain is reliable. Well, yes, of course we would think our brains are in fact reliable. If our brains are the ones telling us that our brains are reliable, circular arguments are also called potato principii meaning assuming the initial thing, commonly mistranslated as begging the question. This fallacy is a kind of presumptuous argument where it only appears to be an argument.
It really just is restating one's assumptions in a way that looks like an argument. You can recognize a circular argument. When the conclusion also appears as one of the premises in your argument,
Speaker 8 (22m 27s): The politics of the failure have failed. We need to make them work again. I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a filing bloodbath. Next up
Speaker 1 (22m 42s): Hasty generalization. This is a general statement without sufficient evidence to support it. A hasty generalization is made out of a rush to have a conclusion leading the argue or to commit some sort of elicit assumption, stereotyping, unwarranted, conclusion, overstatement, or exaggeration. Normally we generalize without any problem is a necessary regular part of language.
We make general statements all the time. I like going to the park. Democrats disagree with Republicans. It's faster to drive to work than to walk or everyone mourn the loss of Harambie the gorilla. Indeed. The above phrase. All the time is a generalization. We aren't literally making these statements all the time. We take breaks to do other things like eat, sleep and inhale. These general statements. Aren't addressing every case. Every time they are speaking generally.
And generally speaking,
Speaker 9 (23m 46s): They are true. Sometimes you don't enjoy going to the park. Sometimes Democrats and Republicans agree, sometimes driving to work can be slower than walking. If the roads are all shut down for the Harambie procession, hasty generalization may be the most common logical fallacy because there's no single agreed upon measure for sufficient evidence is one example enough to prove the claim that Apple computers are the most expensive computer brand.
What about 12 examples? What about if 37 out of 50 Apple computers were more expensive than comparable models from other brands? There's no set rule for what constitutes enough evidence in this case, it might be possible to find reasonable comparison and prove that claim is true or false. But in other cases, there's no clear way to support the claim without resorting to guesswork. The means of measuring evidence can change according to the kind of claim you are making, whether it's in philosophy or in the sciences or in political debate or in discussing house rules for using the kitchen, a much safer claim is that Apple computers are more expensive than many other brands of computers.
Meanwhile, we do well to avoid treating general statements. Like they are anything more than simple standard generalizations instead of true across the board. Even if it is true that many Apple computers are more expensive than other computers, there are plenty of cases in which Apple computers are more affordable than other computers. This is implied in the above generalization, but glossed over in the first hasty generalization, a simple way to avoid hasty generalizations is to add qualifiers like sometimes, maybe often, or it seems to be the case that when we don't guard against hasty generalizations, we risk stereotyping sexism, racism, or simple incorrectness.
But with the right qualifiers, we can often make a hasty generalization into a responsible and credible claim.
Speaker 10 (26m 9s): This place is great. Cute guys here. Do you smell bacon? Oh yeah. It's a bacon club. Chalupa guys love bacon. That's really gonna work. Come on. Hi. Hi. What is that? You're wearing it. Intoxicated bacon lovers, rejoice
Speaker 9 (26m 33s): Number eight, the red herring fallacy, a red herring fallacy is a distraction from the argument. Typically with some sentiment that seems to be relevant, but isn't really on topic. This tactic is common when someone doesn't like the current topic and wants to detour into something else, instead, something easier or safer to address a red herring fallacy is typically related to the issue in question, but isn't quite relevant enough to be helpful instead of clarifying and focusing it confuses and distracts the phrase.
Red herring refers to a Kipper herring salted herring fish, which was reddish Brown in color and quite pungent. According to legend, this aroma was so strong and delectable to dogs that it served as a good training device for testing how well a hunting dog could track a scent without getting distracted dogs. Aren't generally used for hunting fish. So red herring is a distraction from what he is supposed to be hunting. A red herring fallacy can be difficult to identify because it's not always clear how different topics relate.
A side topic may be used in a relevant way or in an irrelevant way in the big meaty disagreements of our day. There are usually a lot of layers with different subtopics weaving into them. We can guard against the red herring fallacy by clarifying how our part of the conversation is relevant to the core topic. Let's listen in on this old debate right here. Also, it's important to remember how many of these logical fallacies are used by politicians.
If you watch the debate style of any politician, you are guaranteed to see multiple examples of different kinds of fallacies. If you're paying attention, it's really fun to watch
Speaker 11 (28m 35s): 11 o'clock that same day two Mondays ago, John McCain said that we have an economic crisis that doesn't make John McCain a bad guy, but it does point out he's out of touch. Those folks on the sidelines knew that two months ago, governor Palin,
Speaker 12 (28m 49s): I may respond John McKean and referring to the fundamental of our economy being strong. He was talking to and he was talking about the American workforce and the American workforce is the greatest in this world with the ingenuity and the work ethic that is just entrenched in our workforce. That's a positive that's encouragement. And that's what John McCain meant
Speaker 9 (29m 12s): Next on deck. The two Colquitt fallacy, the two <inaudible> Latin for you too, is also called the appeal to hypocrisy because it distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This tactic doesn't solve the problem or prove one's point because even hypocrites can tell the truth. Focusing on the other person's hypocrisy is a diversionary tactic in this way, using the two Colquitt, typically deflects criticism away from yourself by accusing the other person of the same problem or something comparable.
If Jack says maybe I committed a little adultery, but so did you, Jason, Jack is trying to diminish his responsibility or defend his actions by distributing blame to another person. But no one else has guilt excuses, his own guilt, no matter who else is guilty. Jack is still an adulterer. The two quo fallacy is an attempt to divert blame, but it really only distracts from the initial problem to be clear.
However, it isn't a fallacy to simply point out hypocrisy where it occurs. For example, Jack May say, yes, I committed adultery. Jill committed adultery. Lots of us did, but I'm still responsible for my mistakes. And this example, Jack isn't defending himself or excusing his behavior. He's admitting his part within a larger problem. The hypocrisy claim becomes a two Coco fallacy only when the argue or uses some apparent hypocrisy to neutralize criticism and distract from the issue.
Let's take another listen from one of our favorite politicians
Speaker 13 (31m 4s): Did go on to say, this is a, this is not the gospel. As far as what you have said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote. I'm not going to get involved with that. I say only that this man is not Christian. If he has said things like that, we must see if he said things in that way. And I will give him the benefit of the doubt. And you also talked about having a wall is not Christian, and he's got an awfully big wall at the Vatican. I will tell you. So
Speaker 9 (31m 25s): Next up number 10, the causal fallacy, the causal fallacy is any logical breakdown when identifying a cause you can think of the causal fallacy as a parent category for several different fallacies about unproven causes. One causal fallacy is the false cause or non causal pro Causa, not the cause for a cause fallacy, which is when you conclude about a cause without enough evidence to do so.
Consider for example, since your parents named you harvest, they must be farmers. It's, it's possible that the parents are farmers, but the name alone is not enough evidence to draw that conclusion. That name doesn't tell us much of anything about the parents. This claim commits the false cause. Fallacy another causal fallacy is the post-hoc fallacy. Post-talk is short for post hoc ergo propter hoc.
After this, therefore, because of this, this fallacy happens when you mistake something for the cause just because came first. The key words here are post and prompter, meaning after or because of just because this came before, that does not mean this caused that post does not prove prompter. A lot of superstitions are susceptible to this fallacy.
For example, yesterday, I walked under a ladder with an open umbrella indoors while spilling salt in front of a black cat. And I forgot to knock on wood with my lucky dice. That must be why I'm having such a bad day today. It's bad luck now it's theoretically possible that those things cause bad luck, but since those superstitions have no known or demonstrated causal power and luck, isn't exactly the most scientifically reliable category.
It's more reasonable to assume that those events by themselves did not cause bad luck, perhaps that person's bad luck is just their own interpretation because they were expecting to have bad luck. They might be having a genuinely bad day, but we cannot assume some non-natural relation between those events because today to go bad, that's a post hoc fallacy. Now, if you fell off a ladder onto an angry black cat and got tangled in an umbrella that will guarantee you have a bad day.
Another kind of causal fallacy is the correlational fallacy also known as c*m hoc, ergo, propter hoc. That's Latin with this. Therefore, because of this, this fallacy happens when you mistakenly interpret two things found together as being casually related to things may correlate without a casual relation, or they may have some third factor causing both of them to a core or perhaps both things just coincidence only happened together.
Correlation doesn't prove causation consider. For example, every time Joe goes swimming, he is wearing his Speedos. Something about wearing Speedos makes him want to go swimming. That statement is a correlation fallacy. Sure. It's possible that he spontaneously sports, his, his tidy Whitey swim trunks with no thoughts of where they, that might lead. And surprisingly, he's now motivated to dive and swim in cold wet nature it's possible, but it makes more sense that he puts on his swimsuit because he's planning to go to the beach, listen to this classic Christopher Hitchen destroying rabbi Cushner.
Speaker 4 (35m 27s): I can't find the, the compulsory mutilation of the genitals of children or subject for humor in that way. We'll flip and see in that way, my monitor is says very plainly that it's designed to repress sexual pleasure to deprive as a male child, as far as possible of the opportunity of that. Christopher I've got to call you down on reference. Referring to circumcision is genital mutilation. My son cried more at his first haircut than he did at his bris.
Statistically. The only longterm effect that it seems to have on people is it increases their chances of winning a Nobel prize. <inaudible> shame on you for saying what you just said. Shame on you for saying it about your own son, my God, but if one of them Muslim, who was to say to you just now my little girl cried more at her first haircut. Then when I cut her off with <inaudible>, what would you think of me? If I was to say such a disgusting thing,
Speaker 14 (36m 31s): There you have it. My friends, there are 10 different logical fallacy to check out. Hopefully you can incorporate those into your daily use and you can also identify all 10 of those when they are being used against you. Remember the purpose of an argument is to solve a problem. I hope you choose to use these tools to solve the problems in your life and help the lives of the people around you.
It's all I got for today. I love you guys be taken out here with a few more seconds of this lovely song, drums of war until tomorrow. Remember? Hello?