Immunised Hypothesis

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Special Pleading; double standard; Moving the Goalposts.

Description

The advocate forwards a claim that in practice (or even in theory) cannot be falsified. That is, the proponent might forward a testable hypothesis initially, but then, when evidence is brought to their attention which contradicts their claim, they continue to add on ad hoc explanations; generally refusing to even entertain the idea that their original claim may actually be false (thus exhibiting Simple-Minded Certitude).

Example

Reilly Liebe-Mann is a "emotional healing dream counsellor". He believes that he can interpret dreams to find hidden meanings in a patient's subconscious. He is in the middle of a session with one if his "patients", Turner Knott, who only sees Reilly to humour his parents. They are discussing one of Turner's recent dreams.

Turner continues: “…and the snake was slithering around the floor of my car.”

Reilly offers his interpretation: “Snakes represent transformation, knowledge and wisdom. A snake in a dream is indicative of self-renewal and positive changes.”

Turner points out: “Well things are really stable at the moment. And me? Knowledge? Wisdom? I’m hardly the sharpest knife in the cutlery draw. I don't buy this interpretation.”

Reilly: “Well you didn’t let me finish. The snake also represents hidden fears and worries that are threatening you. Your dream may be alerting you to something in your waking life that you are not aware of or that has not yet surfaced.”

Turner replies: “That really doesn’t sound right at all. Things couldn’t be any better at work, I'm super relaxed…”

Reilly: “Your not thinking along the same lines that I am…, It’s so obvious to me know. Snakes are phallic and symbolise dangerous and forbidden sexuality...”

Turner interrupts: "Can you please get your hand off my thigh?"

Reilly: “Uh, sorry. I was lost for a moment thinking about your dream."

Turner: "Well I actually own a python as a pet. Maybe I was just dreaming about Monty?"

Reilly: "No, I’m sure I’m right about your dream. It’s just that I haven’t yet taken into account the car…”

At this point Reilly continues with ad hoc interpretations. He says excitedly: “Don’t you see! The snake and the car are actually in the dream as red herrings, to throw us off the real message. Herrings are a type of fish, and I had a dream about ice fishing the day before last. But ice fishing represents breaking through a hardened emotional barrier, which is definitely not you. However, fish swim in water, and water is the first part of ‘watermelon’. Pregnant women or women on the verge of their menstrual cycle often dream of such fruits. It all makes sense; your dream is a subconscious cry for help; that you really want to be a young and fertile woman and bare children!”

Turner: "Seriously, how many times do I have to ask you to keep your hands to yourself? And can you please put your shirt back on?”

Discussion

Reilly has continued to interpret the dream in a way that favours his initial hypothesis; Turner is in denial about his true self. No matter what evidence Turner produces to counter this claim, Reilly spins explanation after explanation until his hypothesis is so convoluted that it should be treated with utter disdain. He is in a win-win situation. If Turner never agrees or is never "healed", Reilly can claim Turner is living in denial. His dream interpretations are always correct. It's just that not all patients are open to accepting who they "really are".

However, if it does turn out that Turner is in denial, and he eventually does change we have no reason to assume that the dream he had, and Reilly’s interpretation, was actually correct. It could just be a coincidence, or more upsettingly, with enough "therapy" Turner might be convinced to change, a victim of folie à deux.

It could be argued that the above rejection of dream interpretation - that it is nothing but a waste of time and doesn’t reveal underlying psychological issues - is itself an example of an immunised hypothesis. That no matter what the evidence for dream analysis, we would rejected it as pseudoscientific bunk. But any resemblance between this rejection of dream interpretation, even when it seems to work, and the fallacy Immunised Hypothesis, is a coincidence.

Special Pleading

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Claiming to have special insights or superior sensitivity; asserting connoisseurship; Immunised Hypothesis

Description

This fallacy occurs when an advocate claims that he or she has a special insight into the topic under discussion. Further, (by implication or explicit claim) the opponent cannot possibly comprehend the subtleties or complexities of the issue because he or she is unable to attain the level of insight available to the advocate. Underlying such special pleading or claims to deep insight or empathy is a presumption that the views of the advocate cannot be evaluated because the opponent lacks the capacity to make any valid judgement. All such claims should be treated with deep skepticism.

Another variant of the fallacy Special Pleading occurs when an advocate, faced with contradictory evidence, introduces caveats, double standards and exceptions to the rule, in order to maintain (and redefine) their position. See Immunised Hypothesis for a detailed explanation.

Example

Toby Nightlight is writing a letter to the local newspaper. He is incensed at a column in the paper written by a local medical practitioner, Dr Sally Sodfreud. The basic theme of Sally's article is that violence associated with alcohol abuse in the local indigenous community has increased enormously over the last year. She attributes this to the construction of a "wet canteen" at the community centre just over a year ago.

Toby's first sentence reads as follows: "As an aboriginal man, I know what damage has been done by paternalism towards aborigines in the past. Dr Sodfreud might be well meaning, but she doesn't have a clue... [if she were to] walk a mile in my shoes, she would understand just how insulting her suggestion is."

Comment

In the example given, the wording of Toby's opening sentence appears to be attempting to establish from the outset that his views on the issue of alcohol use are unchallengeable. Seekers after truth would place little weight on such a claim per se. They would examine the rest of the letter and consider any of Toby's claimed insights on their own merits. Reasoned justification of views would be needed before they could be considered to be credible. After all, Sally could herself claim special insights not available to Toby. As a local GP she would no doubt be attending to injuries inflicted by alcohol-fuelled violence and she would be talking to the victims.

Special pleading is a commonplace feature of newspaper opinion columns, political speeches, television panel discussions and the like. People who seek to air their convictions in such public forums are usually attempting to influence public policy. Often there is also an attempt at self-aggrandizement through moral and intellectual posturing. In such circumstances, and when the "public advocates" fail to mount a well-researched, intelligent argument in favour of their convictions, they often fall back on a range of shallow rhetorical devices, including special pleading.

Statements along the following lines are examples of special pleading: "You don't understand because you are: a man, a woman, an aborigine, a whitefella; or you are ignorant, a philistine, insensitive, lack cultural awareness or intellectual ability, spirituality etc. If you were like me or had my fine sensibilities you could not help but agree with me."

Special pleading can take many forms and can be employed in a wide variety of contexts. If for example, the judge at an art show is unable to convincingly explain her choice of a prize-winner, she may fall back on transparent and self-serving special pleading by way of justification. We here quote verbatim some examples of the genre from an actual judge at an exhibition (attended by Jef). The judge is commenting on the first prize-winner: "It speaks to me... it is perhaps... I sense that the artist is challenging and inviting self-examination... the viewer needs to be attuned to minimalism... only seems like a four-year old could do it... that is perhaps a figure.... perhaps looking down... perhaps in torment." Perhaps the judge is an arts wanker?

A variant of special pleading is synonymous with immunised hypothesis. That is, the advocate makes a claim that in practice (or even in theory) cannot be falsified. When evidence is brought to their attention which contradicts their claim, they continue to add on ad hoc explanations; generally refusing to even entertain the idea that their original claim may actually be false.

Postdiction

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Hindsight Bias; 20/20 Hindsight

Description

The advocate claims that they accurately predicted an event after the fact, when in fact they did not, or can provide no evidence that they did.

Example

In her end of year wrap up column, financial astrologer May Kidup explains why the Leewoman Sisters Bank collapsed earlier in the year. She explains that it was written in the stars:

Sure, some like to blame the bank for overstretching itself, or the government for poor fiscal policy and a lack of regulation. But when you read the stars the true culprit becomes clear - a clash in the Pontiac, between Sami and Leroy. As we know, the sun is the father of the astrological Pontiac, and is represented by Leroy the Ladybug. Sami, the Queen Bee, is his son.

And as with all fathers and sons, when the son grows up he needs to show his father that he is a man. This happens when they are sitting in the same house. As such, they fight. This creates danger in the stock-market. That’s why the Leewomen Sisters Bank fell.

Comment

May Kidup claimed the cause of the collapse of the Leewoman Sisters bank was due to trouble caused by the astrological fighting of Sami and Leroy. The problem is, besides the astrological Gibberish, when an explanation comes after the fact, how can we verify or falsify it? In science, we would run the experiment again, or seek to make a prediction using the same model, that can be tested against a future event.

Astrology seems to go out of its way to avoid such empiricism. We would also ask for a much more explicit claim as a prediction. We would not be very impressed with a prediction that: “Sometime during the year, a bank will collapse”. We might think a claim such as: “When Sami and Leroy clash, the Leewoman Sisters bank will collapse”, is far more impressive. It provides us with enough precision as to be able to categorically say the event did or did not occur.

Such specificity in a prediction from an astrologer is unlikely. When going over an astrologer’s predictions for any given year – one finds they tend to be very general. There are occasions when they do get specific, often to do with deaths and divorces of celebrities. On reviewing such precise predictions, one finds a lack of hits (not that astrologers ever self-review...).

Other examples

Parents who claim, after their child was born, that they “just knew it was a boy (or girl)”. If they were to write down their guess before the child was born, at least we could confirm their claim of accurate prediction. Chances are many of these claims would turn out to are right (about 50%...) But if the claim of an accurate prediction is based on a memory, that is, they claim a successful prediction after the fact, then we cannot rule out postdiction. The greater number of times they claim this has occurred, without writing it down before the sex of the child is known, the more suspicious we should be. A charge of postdiction becomes more justifiable.

 

iPhone - you get it or you don't

The following Samsung commercial takes the **** out of people who line up for iPhones and the like. I find it to be both highly amusing and true to life.

My favorite line: "I could never get a Samsung. I'm creative".

Last week well known Apple evangelist, and blogger at Daring Fireball, John Gruber provided a great example of special pleading when citing a quote in a review of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in comparison to the iPhone 4S.

You either see it or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s cool, enjoy your Nexus. But I think the reason Apple Stores are so crowded, and getting so big, is that there are an awful lot of people who do see it.

An advocate generally reverts to special pleading when they have no other way of justifying their position. The beauty of special pleading as a rhetorical trick is it gives the opponent no room to maneuver. Gruber has argued that his opponents, Android users, cannot possibly comprehend the subtleties and beauty of Apple's iOS operating system. They are simply unable to attain the level of insight available to Gruber. "You either see it or you don't." He has a deep insight into and empathy with technology that cannot be evaluated by Android users who, by definition (they use Android), lack the capacity to make any valid judgement. How does one respond to that?

This excellent article at Gizmodo points out the irrationality of brand loyalty.

______________
(Note that I'm a happy iOS user - I wrote this on my iPad which I lined up to buy... For a full gadget disclosure, see my gdgt profile.)
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gruber.jpg
Via The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/15/2638611/horseshit

Podcast - Tutorial 34: Psychoanalysing Tool

It’s been a while, but we’re finally back with another, albeit short, episode. Courtesy of Dr Phil - we have a couple of fallacies for you to test yourself on.

Listen Now: https://ia802506.us.archive.org/3/items/HH101/HH101e0047.mp3

Dr. Phil outwitted

I'm almost done mixing the next podcast (on Begging the Question). Meanwhile, try this video. The guest special pleads, Dr. Phil throws in a false analogy (one of his favourite moves), the guest points out it's a false analogy then outwits Dr. Phil in the commercial break. Legend.

Podcast: Tutorial 23 - Special Pleading

All enlightened critical thinkers agree, this is the best podcast on fallacies going around. And this episode on Special Pleading is one of the best we’ve produced to date. If you disagree, it’s because you don’t have the kind of cognition and sensibility required to recognise quality. It could also be because of the environment in which you are listening to it, the type of music player you are using and/or your headphones. If you had decent equipment and were in a place that allowed you to concentrate properly, you’d no doubt agree with me…

Be warned, I had issues mixing with Audacity - there are some “off air” sections that I should have edited out, and some other “crapping on” that normally I would have trimmed for the sake of brevity. By the time I realised this (on “proof listening”) it would have meant almost starting from scratch, which I couldn’t be arsed to do. 

Download: 

Or play:

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An anecdote about dowsers being double-blind to their special pleading

For those who are unfamiliar with dowsing, it is:

…the action of a person--called the dowser--using a rod, stick or other device - to locate such things as underground water, hidden metal, buried treasure, oil, lost persons or golf balls, etc.

I already looked at an example of Substitution Richard Dawkins uses in the The Enemies of Reason (part 1). The second thing I want to look at from this documentary is the use of a double blind experiment, and the Special Pleading that follows.

In this clip from The Enemies of Reason part 1 (about 29 minutes into it), we see dowsers explaining why they only picked the correct bottle with water in it 1 time out of 6 (or 2 times at best). There were 6 bottles that had water, out of 36, and they assumed they would identify the correct one better than "chance" (if not 100 percent). When this fails to eventuate, the Special Pleading begins.

Ken Church (one of the Dowsers): How does dowsing work, that’s the number one question. [Surely that’s the number two question, if the answer to the number one question: “Is there any controlled evidence that shows dowsing works”, is “Yes”.] And nobody can answer you. We I reckon… I’m convinced… that something is helping me to dowse. One of the earlier chaps thinks it’s God.
Dawkins (to another dowser - Jim Negus): How do you do it? What’s your principle of dowsing?
Negus: I think the question, and I expect God to respond in a way that I understand… [He goes into some superfluous detail and demonstrates how when he walks forward, the wire bit follows the camera around. This only serves to demonstrate his ignorance of the ideomotor effect and Newton’s first law – inertia.]

Dawkins: Have you done the test yet, in the tent?
Negus: Yes I did.
Dawkins: And what was the result?
Negus: I was going to get six right, 100 percent
Dawkins: Yeah, and what happened?
Negus: One!
Dawkins: So what do you make of that then?
Negus: He’s having his laugh [points skyward], in’t he. He loves a joke. You don’t realise…

Thus we have the Special Pleading.

The next section gets on to explaining how the double blind experiment works. It then shows that all the dowsers tested perform within chance expectation – that is, on average, 1 out of 6 correct (6 bottles filled with water amongst 30 filled with sand, all hidden). The double blind wins again. Chris French, the psychologist running the experiment, goes on to explain that when talking to dowsers, they have many anecdotes of discovering water, or broken pipes, etc. They think it’s a “gift”, however, there are alternative hypotheses worth spinning. For example, could they only pay attention to and remember the times they correctly found water and forget the times they didn’t? I.e., are they counting the hits and forgetting the misses? This is called Observational Selection, or confirmation bias. Unless you write things down, to keep an accurate record, you can’t trust your own memory (I remember reading this somewhere once, or perhaps I heard it on the radio…).

This is the beauty of the double blind experiment; it rules out these biases. If they actually have special water finding powers, beyond random chance and hindsight-confirmation bias, a controlled double blind experiment would conclusively show it.

French goes on to explain that once the subjects are shown they don’t have magical powers, they begin to make excuses – they engage in Special Pleading. This is a common problem of close minded people. Not being prepared to change your mind in spite of evidence means you are guilty of Simple-Minded Certitude. This is a laughable criticism often levelled at skeptics and those accused of “scientism”. Supposedly we don’t believe in alien visitation or homeopathy or dowsing, or whatever, because we are “close minded”. However, it’s the complete opposite. We are perfectly prepared to believe in any of the above, so long as there is credible evidence in favour of it. Chris French is the perfect example of this, as are the scientists who investigated electromagnetic sensitivity. They give these claims “a fair go”.

“Fair go” is not synonymous with “credulous acceptance”, however. Fair go means to listen to the evidence and weigh it up against, or see where it fits in with, scientific orthodoxy. If it doesn’t fit in too well, the evidence would need to be strong. One of the best examples of an open minded person (one prepared to change one’s mind) who gave parapsychology a fair go is Susan Blackmore.

Anyway, back to the dowsing. French goes on to say:

I think that they are completely sincere, and that they’re typically very surprised when we run them through a series of trials and actually say, at the end of the day, “Well your performance is no better than we would expect just on the basis of guess work.” And then what typically happens, they’ll make up all kinds of reasons, some might say excuses, as to why they didn’t pass that particular test.

It then cuts back to Church and another dowser, Karen Fuller

Church: I feel the whole test… is wrong.
Fuller: I’m shocked beyond words that this has happened. But I did say from the outset, couldn’t we just sort out some grey blocks and some scaffold boards, so that I can walk above it, which is what I would routinely do, and I’ve done for forty years. [I wonder if she'd have made the same complaint if she'd correctly identified all six?]

Church: Who knows where, or what bottles, were in what tubs…
Dawkins: That’s the whole point isn’t it? That’s the whole point…
Church: Well, yeah, but, if you understand dowsing like I do, you’ll understand that everything leaves an image.

And there we have it; an extreme example of Special Pleading, “If you understand dowsing like I do…”
I'll leave the last words to Dawkins:

This state of denial is extraordinary. Even when confronted with hard fact these dowsers prefer not to face up to truth but retain their delusion.

Special Pleading Olympics

This is the logo for the 2012 London Olympic Games. Pretty bad isn’t it… Well, it cost £400,000. Anyway, there has been much bagging of it in the press in the UK, so the creators have defended it by pleading:

[The logo] ...is designed for a different age... dynamic, modern and flexible - suitable for use online and on mobile phones by a generation at ease with new media.

No, it's crap:

Stephen Bayley, founder of the Design Museum, described it as feeble, a "puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal"...

Although Wally Olins, who co-founded the company that designed it, thinks it's shocking:

What's interesting is that it's so new and because it is new it is startling. This only happens when people do something that is so totally different that it's shocking. I've been involved in this kind of thing on a number of occasions during the course of my career and almost always it occasions the same kind of reactions. People produce something entirely new that is very unexpected and the reaction is shock, horror.

No, it's just dull and unoriginal. Not new at all. If anything, it's conservative. Can't you just do that using "Word Art" in MS word?

The irony of their special pleading defence is the fact that the designers were apparently trying to include everyone with their logo; one shouldn't need "special insights" to "get it":

London's bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games was won on the strength of a presentation that promised London would inspire the youth of the world. Wolff Olins met the brief by producing something that in its words was "neither an appendage to London nor the Olympic symbol" but "a brand which can be read and understood by people of all ages, around the world". It was "unexpectedly bold, deliberately spirited and unexpectedly dissonant", echoing London's qualities as "a modern, diverse and vibrant city" while eschewing "sporting images and London landmarks" to mitigate the impression that the Olympics actually comprise a series of athletic events with luxuriously trained winners and losers and outbreaks of nationalism, held every four years at great expense in a different but real city. The emblem's form, therefore, "is inclusive ... for everyone, regardless of age, culture and language".

If you say so...

Michael Leunig - Spiritual/Psychological Portrait.

To celebrate the purchase of a new Wacom graphics tablet, I will inaugurate a new occasional feature which will appear from time to time at Humbugonline (spot the double redundancy in this sentence).

I shall call it, the spiritual/psychological portrait distortature.

The public figure to be recognised in this first offering is Michael Leunig (personal website here).

Mr Leunig, an Australian Living National Treasure, likes to represent himself as a vulnerable, sensitive, compassionate and deeply insightful public figure and commentator.

These claims by Leunig do not impress me. What impresses me is that he manages to make a living as a cartoonist despite the fact that he has limited graphic skills and no discernable sense of humour. Truly, an inspiration to all.

This Spiritual/Psychological portrait was created by an ineffable, profound, numinous process which would be beyond the understanding of any person who does not possess my fine sensibilities. I just held the Wacom wireless pen, it hovered over the tablet, and some unseen essence guided my hand... to produce a portrait which captures the true nature of this subject. (A rage-filled sanctimonious prig with no solutions to offer anyone for anything.)

Rewards are bad… okaaay…?

I will be visiting this article – Gold Star Junkies – on more than one occasion as it has many examples of fallacious thinking. (Though this is not to say the article itself doesn’t raise worthwhile issues in education.) The Author, David Ruenzel, cites psychologist Edward Deci, who raised an eyebrow at the idea of public recognition and rewards for people's achievements:

Deci obviously didn't like anything having to do with rewards systems, including award assemblies — "ghastly" he called them.
Ruenzel continues, explaining to Deci that a particular school in California:

…in an attempt to curb escalating discipline problems, began rewarding well-behaved kids with periodic assemblies. …The school also handed out a $5 bill and food certificates on Fridays to a randomly selected student with perfect attendance and good behavior.
…the award policies were fervently defended by parents. …Half Moon Bay is a liberal, Northern Californian community… "This is nothing that touches on the issue of liberalism," Deci said. "For a lot of well-to-do professionals, rewards are an element of their own obsession with achievement. They may all belong to the Sierra Club, but their obsession with success blinds them to the potential problems with rewards."

In one sweeping statement Deci makes an Unfounded Generalization and Impugns the Motives of these students' parents. They all belong to the Sierra Club and the reason they support rewards is because they are obsessed with success (says the successful psychologist!).

I think Deci is wrong to Impugn their Motives. These parents are, most likely, genuinely concerned with their children. I hazard a guess that they hold their views because they are simpletons, lacking the great psychologist's personal insight and expertise. If only they could see things from his perspective. If only they had spent years and years perfecting research in order to prove humans are primarily intrinsically motivated (and as such, behaviourism wrong). Please, you would believe me if you were me… I'm (Special) Pleading with you.

Update: Gold stars are okay after all

All Hail the Fallacy Meister

In today's Australian Phillip Adams manages to pack seven fallacies into a single short sentence. The sentence: My generation grew up believing we wouldn't grow up (see link above for full article).

If we play "spot the fallacy" with this sentence, we can make the case that is contains (in context) Factoid Propagation, Observational Selection, Popular Opinion, Simple-Minded Certitude, Special Pleading, Stacking the Deck and Unfounded Generalization.

Phillip seems to be getting more adept and skilled at generating fallacies as he ages. In decades past, a tally of seven fallacies on a "spot the fallacies" bingo card would not be reached until towards the end of one of his columns, and even a few years ago, at least a paragraph of the Master's text would be required. The question arises: "How is it possible for a single person to be so prolific in generating fallacies, and further, how can he become even better with advancing age?"

The answer I think lies in Phillip's increasing self-obsession and ego centrism. To Phillip, his own experience is the experience of all others, and his own views about anything and everything are the only views which could possibly be held by any right-thinking person. So he feels that he merely has to assert a belief, and that is the end of argument. By definition he is right. His beliefs are truths. So if he says that his generation grew up believing that they wouldn't grow up, then it is so. Others of his generation who don't have such a recollection are deluded, or they are liars. Phillip has written, and it is so.

Examples of Special Pleading

The advocate claims special insights into an issue, and that the opponent is incapable of achieving the same level of understanding.

• iPhone - you get it or you don't
• An anecdote about dowsers being double-blind to their special pleading
• Special Pleading Olympics
• Special pleading and arts wankers
• Pithy and ironic aphorisms on some fallacies in thinking
• Rewards are bad… okaaay…?

For a comprehensive and considered written commentary on Special Pleading (and other fallacies) - see The skeptic's field guide to spotting fallacies in thinking - Humbug!

Podcast on Special Pleading:

Download: http://www.archive.org/download/HuntingHumbug101Episode1-WhatIsHumbug/23Tutorial23-SpecialPleading.mp3