And a bad one:As critics have noted, it seems gratuitous to provide someone incentive to do what they already enjoy; in the parlance of behavioral studies, it's a case of "overjustification". Rewarding children who draw with markers, after all, is like rewarding kids with ice cream sundaes for watching television.
Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield seems to enjoy making public comments about social media without really engaging the organ she studies (Social networking sites "changing children's brains". The Telegraph. 24 February 2009):To judge the necessarily variegated skills of students and teachers with an endless series of tests is as absurd as it is unfair-like putting huge scoreboards in classrooms and expecting adults and children to teach and learn under their imposing glare.
I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf.
Shifting sands; raising the bar; running for cover; red herring.
The advocate changes the nature of the discussion by seeking to make the opponent tackle a more difficult version of the topic. The topic that was originally under discussion is recast and the new version favours the advocate. This tactic is often used when the backpedalling advocate feels that he or she is about to lose the argument. With the "goalposts" in their original position, the opponent would "score". But with the posts moved, the opponent's "shot" is now "off target".
1. Bella Donna claims that Sybil Antwhisper, her room-mate, is not sharing the housework equitably. Sybil tells Bella to go away and itemise and record who does what household tasks. If Bella can show that she does more housework than Sybil, then Sybil will mend her ways. A week passes and Bella shows Sybil clear evidence that Sybil does not "pull her weight" around the house.
Sybil (the advocate) responds: "That's all very well, but I have more work and study commitments than you do – you should do more housework than me... it's the total work of all kinds that matters, not just housework."
2. Three weeks out from the State Election, the Premier and Leader of the opposition are taking part in a televised debate. The issue in contention is the running of Public Hospitals under the current government. The Leader of the Opposition, Ken Oath, is making his point: "Under your government, the average waiting times in emergency rooms is four hours. Now that's just not good enough."
The Premier, Phillip Ingheck, replies: "I agree, four hours is clearly not good enough. That's what it was before we came into office. Under my government the waiting time has actually been reduced from four to two hours." Ken responds: "Well that's not the real issue anyway, it's waiting times for operations."
In the first example the implied agreement between Bella and Sybil at the outset was that the amount of housework done by both parties should be approximately the same. When Sybil was confronted by the evidence however, she quickly and unilaterally "changed the terms of the debate". She did this because the evidence was against her version of events and she was about to lose the argument on the issue as originally defined.
Whether or not it is morally right to count all forms of work when assessing household contributions is not the issue here. The issue here is that the ducking and weaving advocate (Sybil) is seeking to change the terms of the dispute to avoid a defeat on the original issue in contention.
In this situation, and if Bella is a skeptic and critical thinker, she would point out that Sybil was attempting to move the goalposts. She would insist that they resolve the original question as agreed, and that any further discussion or extension of the issue would have to be considered separately. If the issue had originally been defined as "total work" rather than "housework", then Sybil would have a point. As it is, her argument is weak and ethically suspect.
In the second example Ken realizes that he had initially used out of date information which did not support his case. Instead of acknowledging this, he attempts to change the focus of their discussion on Public Hospitals from emergency room waiting times to waiting times for operations. Phillip would be well advised to point this shift in focus out, and say that he is more than happy to discuss this new issue (waiting times for operations) once the first issue has been resolved.
Moving the goalposts can be avoided if both parties agree at the outset to clearly define the parameters of the discussion. Time spent doing this is time well spent. Otherwise discussions can become misdirected, frustrating and pointless.
Misuse or misunderstanding of statistics; misuse or misunderstanding of facts and/or theories.
The advocate misinterprets information (and the misinterpretation supports his or her position); or the advocate deliberately misuses information (a statistic, fact or theory) in order to support his or her position.
1. Misuse of statistics
Scott Armani raises a delicate issue with his boss Phil Greenspan: "What am I going to do about the average wage of the employees in our third world factory for this report? We need to make it look like we pay decent wages."
Phil responds:e "Easy to fix. Just include the factory manager's pay rate and the average should come out nicely."
Following Phil's advice, Scott works out the average wage as follows. He uses data based on ten employees from the factory, including the manager. Their rates per hour are: $1.00, $1.00, $1.00, $1.00, $2.00, $2.00, $2.00, $3.00 , $3.00, $50.00. Thus the average wage for the factory as stated in the Annual Report will be $6.60 per hour.
2. Misuse of facts/theories
Karl Vladimir Eyemnotrite is the editor of the monthly Stalinist newsletter, We've Still (sort of) Got China, Cuba and North Korea. Writing in his usual opinionated style, he editorialises against the recent attempt to introduce laws to ban gay marriage.
"The problem with laws like this, is that they are judgmental. They tell us how to live. But we are in no position to judge anyone else. In order to judge, we must first be able to observe. Einstein showed us, with his theory of relativity, there are no privileged observers. Everything is relative. Quantum physics adds to this. The act of observing (or rather judging) changes the properties of things. So given these two fundamentals of physics – everything is relative, nothing absolute, and observations change what we are observing – how can we judge something like gay marriage if it does not harm us directly? The answer? We can't."
In the first example, Scott has not technically lied in his report, but he has used a statistical technique to create the impression the company prefers. The average chosen for the report is the mean. It is one of the three most common measures of central tendency – the others are the median and the mode. The mode of Scott's data range (that is, what most of their employees are paid per hour) is $1.00. The median pay, (the middle number when the data is arranged in ascending order) is $2.00 per hour. Through the selective use of statistics Scott (on the advice of Phil) has painted the picture he wants for the report.
In the second example, Karl Vladimir has cited two concepts of modern physics to back up his claim. These are theories of the physical world and say nothing about ethics or law. Thus they are being misused. In this book we do not take issue with gay marriage (what two or more consenting adults get up to and label it is entirely up to them), but we do take issue with fallacious reasoning, such as Karl's argument raised in his editorial, which misuses a theory and is therefore flawed.
The best defence for seekers after truth – against being deceived by the misuse of information – is to do their "homework" on the topic under consideration. This is only really possible if the general topic of discussion is known beforehand (in the case of verbal discussion), or if time is available for follow-up reading (when the misleading material is in a publication). If the misleading material is offered during a spontaneous discussion, in the age of internet enabled smartphones, a quick query on a search engine could be enough to call a sciolist's bluff.
That being said, the best recourse for the skeptic is to question advocates closely on the details of their claim, and to be alert for circular arguments, weak premises, unwarranted inferences and weak or unconvincing anecdotes. Close questioning often reveals that ill-informed advocates know far less about the topic than they claim to know. We have certainly found that at least 100% of those few people who routinely disagree with us know five eighths of three fifths of nothing at all about anything.
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Unwarranted inference, false generalisation, over-generalisation, stereotyping.
There are two fairly distinct forms of unfounded generalisation which may nevertheless "blend" into each other. They are false generalisation and over-generalisation.
A false generalisation may involve drawing a conclusion about an issue based on too small a sample or on atypical cases. It involves making a claim about a group which is untrue or unsubstantiated. An example would be a statement such as: "Both my grandfathers were heavy smokers and died of old age in their 90s. So I don't think smoking causes lung cancer."
An over-generalisation, on the other hand, is a blanket statement which asserts that a whole group has certain characteristics when the characteristics in question may only be widespread or typical of the group rather than universal.ExampleCecily Backspace has just completed a study of gender and leadership based on open-ended interviews with bosses and workers. She has written an article for Financial World Weekly purporting to be based on her work. In the introduction to the article she states: "It is commonly accepted that women in leadership positions build consensus in work teams, whereas men seek to dominate through competition. My research project seeks to identify the impact of such leadership styles on subordinates..."
It may or may not be true that on average women in leadership positions seek to build consensus, but Cecily's blanket statement above suggests that this is her á priori belief. Even if it is true that on average, women seek to build consensus (when compared to men), her assertion that "women in leadership positions build consensus" is much too unequivocal. If what she asserts were literally true, then there would be no autocratic female politicians and no consensus-building male leaders.
Two more examples: (a) "Men are smarter than women" is a false generalisation because it is untrue; (b) "men are taller than women" is a true generalisation given the unstated assumption that it only applies "on average" and not to particular individuals. Unfounded generalisations are often the core of racial or gender stereotypes. For example, a person may assume all members, or almost all members of a racial or cultural group are violent because the two individuals from the group that they met in a dark alley last week were violent.
It is generally the case that enlightened people living in contemporary cosmopolitan cultures are sensitised to issues such as racism and sexism. They know that they shouldn't hold negative stereotypes about vulnerable groups in society, even if a member of such a group assaulted them with a broken beer bottle last night in the hotel carpark. Negative stereotypes are readily recognised as unfounded generalisations. Right-thinking people tend to avoid them because they understand they should not pre-judge an individual because of their group associations or characteristics.
However, people are less likely to recognise the flawed reasoning in positive stereotypes. Consider the following statement: "Indigenous peoples are more spiritual than people living in industrialised societies." Few would take offence at such a statement, but it is nevertheless a blanket assertion offered without evidence. As stated, it is clearly an unfounded generalisation and just as logically flawed as a negative stereotype.
This book primarily deals with spotting humbug. However, it is important to be able to put forward rational reasons for believing or not believing a particular claim. There are numerous techniques a one can keep in the "intellectual toolbox" which can help in this debunking process. This section of the book outlines some of these techniques and rules of thumb.
If there are two (or more) equally valid, but conflicting hypotheses for an observed phenomenon, one should choose the hypothesis that requires the least number of steps to explain it. If you have different explanations for something, all of which can explain it equally well, then you have no reason to choose a complex reason over a simple one.
Note that the essential criterion - explain it equally well - must be met before applying Occam’s razor. (Obviously it is always preferable to accept the hypothesis that explains "the something" best.) Occam’s razor is no guarantee of truth or even of likelihood, but it is not invoked as such. It is a "rule of thumb" that is used to give provisional acceptance to a hypothesis. The provision is that until evidence comes along to give greater weight to an alternative hypothesis, it is best to stick with the simplest one. As Occam once said: "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer."
In order to use Occam’s razor it is, of course, necessary to have more than one hypothesis. The technique spinning another hypothesis is very useful in combination with Occam’s razor. When commentators propose reasons for a claim, are their reasons the only ones possible? If you are able to think of another reason, then the answer is "obviously not", and even if you can’t think of another reason it doesn’t mean there isn’t one - you might not be that smart (although given the book you're reading this is likely not the case). When thinking of alternative reasons you are, in the words of Carl Sagan, spinning another hypothesis.
Once other possible explanations have been proposed, the next step is to eliminate (if we can) each hypothesis until there is only one. Consider all the possible tests that could be done to demonstrate that all the alternative explanations are false. If it isn’t possible to whittle all the possible explanations down to one, then apply Occam’s razor. Spinning another hypothesis is essential if one wants to remain open-minded and undogmatic. People tend to make up their minds about things very early on and ignore evidence that doesn’t fit their "worldview" (as Francis Bacon called it - counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
In his work Of Miracles, David Hume nominated a principle which has since been called Hume’s razor:
No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless that testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.
If we are asked to believe X, in deciding whether to believe it (give provisional assent) or not we should ask: "Is it more likely that X is true, or that the evidence for X is mistaken (or can be interpreted in a different or more realistic way)?" If it seems that it’s more likely that the evidence is wrong, then we don’t believe X.
This is a tool which can be used to promote open-minded skepticism. It involves strong advocacy of negations to the proposition in question. Like a good debater, the devil’s advocate employs reason to examine a position or argument in order to test its validity; bringing up facts or points that are unfavourable to the position or argument in order to test it. In this sense it is similar to spinning another hypothesis.
The role of the devil’s advocate is to be skeptical and to find flaws in the proponent’s argument despite the fact that this person often also believes the argument. Whether the devil’s advocate ultimately believes any of the points being made is irrelevant. This is a process to go through in order to ensure an argument is as flawless as possible - through the proponent’s systematic rebuttal of the points made by the devil’s advocate. (For those with an etymological bent, the expression "devil’s advocate" comes from Catholicism. It was an argumentative position taken up in order to challenge claims of advocates putting forward individuals of saintly reputation for beatification and canonisation.)
Let's consider an example that demonstrates a few of these things.
We are not going to entertain any specific claims of 9-11 conspiracy theorists. This has been done elsewhere with far greater knowledge and skill than we could hope to muster. Moreover, it's not really possible to reason with such people, even with a point-by-point take down. However, here are four points about such beliefs in general.
Playing the devil's advocate, and spinning another (or rather, the official) hypothesis, if it's a choice between a conspiracy or a "stuff up", then go with the stuff up every time. 9-11 was a stuff up by intelligence agencies. (To be fair to conspiracy theorists - there was a conspiracy - by al-Qaeda.)
The White House was incapable of covering up something as small as (known to only a few people) Bill Clinton's "extra-curricular" activities with an intern and a cigar. Yet, conspiracy theorists would have us believe they were capable of covering up a conspiracy that would require the perfect compliance and secrecy of hundreds of people?
To both these points let us apply Occam's razor. To be justified in applying Occam's razor, the conspiracy needs to have equal explanatory power as the standard explanation. For the sake of argument, we will grant the 9-11 conspiracy equal explanatory validity as the official version. We can apply Occam's razor and still refute it. By definition, conspiracies are always more complex than the standard explanation - conspiracies involve steps to cover them up. More steps, more complex. To rationally believe a conspiracy, it must have better explanatory power than the standard explanation. But, of course, they never do (which, presumably, is why they're not the standard version!).
Following from this we can now see a place for Hume's razor. We are asked to believe a 9-11 conspiracy theory. In deciding whether to believe it (give provisional consent) or not we should ask: "Is it more likely that the conspiracy is true or that the evidence of the conspiracy (as outlined by the conspiracy theorists) is mistaken or can be interpreted in a different or more realistic way?" Putting it simply - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Conspiracies such as 9-11 certainly fall under the category of an "extraordinary claim", yet their evidence is completely unconvincing (and at times, quite laughable).
The official version - al Qaeda (who have claimed 9-11 of course) hijacked and crashed four planes - is far more convincing. It's not that extraordinary - Muslim terrorists exist, have been and continue to be suicidal, and state their hatred of America and the West on a regular basis. However, it would be extraordinary if the evidence from 9-11 was faked, mistaken or could be interpreted in a more convincing way.
After the tragedy of the September 11 attacks in the US, it was a given that the conspiracy nuts would be out in full force. Their claims are as numerous and detailed as they are paranoid, single-minded and simple-minded. Broadly, they believe the US government, CIA and military orchestrated the attacks. They make claims such as the US military flew planes into the World Trade Centre and used a bunker buster bomb to attack the Pentagon. Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with it, in contrast to what the 'official' version of events would have us believe.
If someone proposes some theory about something, could it be tested? Karl Popper argued that science proceeds by refuting false hypotheses, not by confirming true ones.
Popper's work has been criticised, but what we can say about Popper's idea of falsification, is that at the very least, for a hypothesis to be worthy of consideration it needs to be testable by some method. There needs to be some criteria, some kind of evidence (at least in theory), that would allow us to judge the hypothesis false. The more detailed and specific the hypothesis, the better, as this means there is potentially more evidence that would warrant us judging it false. If we can find no such evidence, then the explanation looks quite strong. Killing erroneous hypotheses is the paradox by which science proceeds. As Popper said: "Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.” (Conjectures and refutations. P 75).
Falsification should be applied to any idea about how the physical world works. Any hypothesis about the physical world should be falsifiable - expressed as a predictive statement that through experimental investigation could be shown to be false. Applying falsification to the non-physical world - such as politics - is a little more problematic. However, it's always worth having the idea of falsification in the back of your mind when someone proposes an explanation for something. That is, "How could I tell if what you're saying is horse shit or not?"
When a claim is not falsifiable, one is dealing with an Immunised Hypothesis. Claims about the physical world that are based on immunised hypotheses are pseudo-scientific. Examples of pseudo-sciences that Popper became suspicious of are psychoanalytic beliefs such as those of Freud and political Ideologies such as Marxism. In Popper's view, these theories could never go wrong, as they were sufficiently flexible to accommodate any type of new behaviour. No observation or test could show these theories to be false, as their proponents are able to invent 'just-so'stories to account for any possible behaviour. These theories gave the appearance of being able to explain everything, but in fact they explained nothing, as they could rule out nothing. Of course there are other pseudo-scientific beliefs we can easily include with the previously mentioned ones - intelligent design, astrology, fortune telling, tarot cards…
An important point to note about Falsification is it is only able to discriminate between scientific and non-scientific propositions. On its own it cannot identify the truthfulness of those propositions. It is also difficult to apply to very complex phenomena, where the chain of cause-and-effect can be lost in a dizzying number of feedback loops that often occur across many spatial and temporal scales.
Using an opponent's argument against them by reversing the direction of their reasoning. That is, the argument is turned on its head. If we reach a dubious or absurd conclusion (reductio ad absurdum) then we have reason to assume the original argument is flawed.
Consider the following fictitious example.
Shamoo Shabang is opposed to embryonic stem cell research. She says: "You can’t destroy an embryo as each is a ‘potential life’."
Her friend Olive Olivers responds by pointing out: "The basics of biology tell us that there are many stages in the development of life. Given this, it seems rather arbitrary to say the ‘potential’ begins with fertilisation."
She goes on to invert Shamoo’s argument by heading in the other direction: "Before fertilisation we have the ‘potential life’ of each sperm and ovum (each of them, potentially, could fuse and start off the whole process). If we follow the ‘potential life’ reasoning we ought to attribute them this moral status too. This is patently absurd."
Though Olive has given a reason to doubt the "potential life" argument, Shamoo understands inversion also, and inverts the inversion: "If I granted that argument any validity, then surely we can go the other way? Concluding that there is no point at which we can attribute ‘potential life’ to a gestating human, and as a consequence award no moral status to any unborn child? Clearly, you’d agree, that’s an abhorrent position?"
Replace the group, person or phenomenon involved in the proposition they are arguing for (or against), with another group, person or phenomenon for which they hold a different (often inverse) position. Assuming that the chain of reasoning for the argument ought to be comparable, it follows that a comparable conclusion ought to be reached.
The following example illustrates how substitution can be used.
Lee N Wright is arguing with his girlfriend Ima Green about the justification for military pre-emptive strikes on terror cells and rogue states. He says: "We might not be one hundred percent sure that there will be a terrorist attack, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."
Ima is aware that Lee is an anthropogenic climate change contrarian who thinks there is no need to worry about greenhouse gas emissions. She points out Lee’s inconsistency by simple substitution: "We might not be one hundred percent sure that climate change is man-made, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."
If Lee argues the precautionary principle in one case, it could be argued that he needs to uphold it in all cases. He either needs to back away from his argument for pre-emptive strikes, or alter his position on climate change. (This assumes there are no significant differences in both cases, otherwise one could be guilty of the fallacy false analogy.)
Of course, Ima is in the exact same position as Lee, given she thinks we ought to act to minimise man-made climate change. (We are often left wondering how people are able to function whilst suffering from such obvious cognitive dissonance?)
In all these cases, it is more than likely that an argument between proponents will go back and forth. In this sense it can be thought of as a dialectic inquiry. The Socratic method is a form of dialectic that, in its strictness sense, isn’t of much use in real life. However, it is worth discussing given its historical importance, and as a precursor for a more "loose" version which is of greater practical use in humbug hunting.
Essentially the Socratic method is a running dialogue between two people, one taking the lead role, in a question and answer format. The purpose is to establish the truth of the matter under consideration by proposition, contradiction of the proposition, repetition of this process and then eventual synthesis (the truth). In its strict sense, the requirement is for both people to have an agreed upon topic, to remain on topic, and to proceed by a question (from the lead person) and response (from the minor person). The lead looks for fallacies and contradictions in the minor’s responses, which are then used to drive the discussion forward until, eventually, the truth of the matter is attained.
The non-strict interpretation, which is entirely more useful, is any kind of thorough question and answer dialogue, with all involved agreeing that the questions are answered and that the goalposts remain firmly in place. This sets up the "ground rules" for a discussion and requires a strong lead who refuses to allow the dialogue to go off topic and will not tolerate non-answers (so perhaps even this interpretation is somewhat unrealistic). The best example of this is actually the epitome of its converse - any interview with any politician, anytime in the past, present and future. The second best example is any excellent teacher asking a series of questions to a bright student.
As a tool for truth seeking, the Socratic method is useful in particular domains of knowledge - in ethics and epistemology (for example) but not (usually) science. And even then the Socratic method will more than likely not yield the truth. It is best viewed as a tool used to clarify ideas, spin other hypotheses, defend a position and remove contradictions and fallacies from that position. Much like playing the devil’s advocate, the Socratic method is guaranteed to keep you "on your toes" and challenge unthinking dogmatism.
Bonehead's statement is in error because he is employing the single cause fallacy. In particular, his claim that there is only one reason (my emphasis) is clearly far too extreme. In their book Humbug!, Clark and Clark (2012) describe the single cause fallacy in the following terms: 'Single cause fallacies occur when a person assumes that there is only one cause of a complex problem.' Bonehead fails to recognise that in reality, there are many possible reasons why a particular student may be late to class on a particular occasion.
A fallacious argument, as almost every account from Aristotle onwards tells you, is one that seems to be valid but is not so... Of those who invent their own classifications... their most noteworthy characteristic is that they disagree not only with the Aristotelians but also extensively with one another, and have quite failed to establish any account for longer than the time it takes a book to go out of print... Despite divergences of arrangement, there is considerable overlap in raw material as between one writer and another: the individual kinds of fallacy are much the same, even down to their names. (1970: 12, 13)As such, we decided our original decision should stand. (For a taxonomic treatment of fallacies see, for example, Gary N. Curtis site: (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html)
