Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Fallacious Reasoning (Encore)

Starting point is 00:00:00 The following is an encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. We are often told that schools are where you learn how to think, not what to think. Sadly, almost no school curriculum deals directly with logic in the closely related subject of logical fallacies. Fallacies are all around us. Just read something online or watch a few minutes of television, and you'll probably encounter people using fallacious reasoning and logical fallacies. In fact, you've probably engaged in it yourself. We're all guilty of it.

Starting point is 00:00:31 Learn more about some of the common logical fallacies on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing, sensual. to read details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax.

Starting point is 00:01:17 It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. The dictionary defines a fallacy as a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.

Starting point is 00:01:48 There are actually dozens of acknowledged fallacies, and once you know what they are, you can see them everywhere. Here is a list of well-known fallacies, and some examples of what to watch out for. FYI, many of these go by their Latin names. Ad homonym. Ad hominem is Latin for To the Man. In a nutshell, it's saying something about the person making the argument, not the argument itself. This happens all the time, and is probably the most common fallacy that people slip into. This could be as simple as name-calling or pointing out facts about the person making the argument,

Starting point is 00:02:22 not the argument itself. For example, if someone were to call someone dumb, crazy, stupid, a liar, or a traitor, or any number of insults, they would be engaging in ad hominem attacks. There are several variants of this, including our next fallacy. Tuquo-quo. From the Latin for U2, Tukuo-Qua is also known as an appeal to hypocrisy. For example, someone could say that you shouldn't eat junk food. In response to that, you could say that the person making the claim is overweight and therefore what they are saying should be discounted. The person might be overweight, but it doesn't mean that their weight makes their argument wrong. Junk food can still be bad for you, even if the person who says it is overweight. Another example might be a parent telling their child not to get married at a young age. The child replying that they got married at a young age so they don't need to listen to them. The fact that the parent was married at a young age might be the reason why they think getting married at a young age is a bad idea and has nothing to do with the validity of the argument. What aboutism? This is a closely related fallacy where you bring up another subject to deflect criticism.

Starting point is 00:03:29 The problem with what aboutism is that it really doesn't answer the claim being made. A common use of this will be when politician A from one side is accused of doing something, and their defenders will say, what about politician B who did the same thing? The problem with this is if what politician B did was wrong, then what politician A did was also wrong. If what politician B did was right, then it also must absolve politician A. This was a common tactic of the Soviet Union during the Cold War who would bring up problems with the United States whenever they were confronted with rights abuses in their country. Post hoc, ergo proctorhawk. This is Latin for, after this, therefore because of this. And it's often shortened to just post hoc. It means that because something

Starting point is 00:04:16 followed it must be the cause of the thing which came before it. This happens all the time in politics where someone is elected, and then they either take credit for something good which happens or is blamed for something bad which happens. Just because something happened doesn't mean that the election of someone had anything to do with it. This has recently been used for people trying to link the adoption of 5G wireless networks with COVID-19. The argument is that because COVID-19 appeared soon after 5G networks were deployed, that one caused the other. It's like Homer Simpson creating a bear patrol and then using its existence to justify

Starting point is 00:04:52 the lack of bears. Hasty Generalization A hasty generalization is using insufficient data to make a much larger sweeping claim. It is the illogical basis for stereotyping. An example would be someone saying, everyone from Townville are liars. I've met three people from Townville and they were all liars. Even if the person did in fact meet three people from Townville who were all liars, it doesn't follow that everyone from Townville are liars. Another example I've encountered frequently is people

Starting point is 00:05:21 who say, never visit Country X. I went to Country X and had a miserable time. Even if they did have a miserable time, it doesn't follow that everyone would have a miserable time or that all of country X is bad. Argumentum ad ignoratium. Also known as an appeal to ignorance, this is assuming that something is true if it hasn't been proven false, or assuming that something is false because it hasn't been proven true. An example of this would be that saying, aliens are real because no one has ever shown that aliens haven't visited Earth. Of course, you can't prove a negative in this case. It would only take one example to show that aliens have visited Earth, but there are no number of counter-examples that could possibly prove it false.

Starting point is 00:06:05 Straw man argument. This is basically creating a false representation of an opposing position so that you can argue against it. I've been seeing this all the time in political ads lately, where one candidate will attack a caricature of another candidate's position rather than the position itself. They will say that their opposition wants to hurt the economy or hurt the country, which is just a straw man. No one runs on a platform of hurting the economy, yet many political campaign commercials will act as if that was the platform. This is often used on infomercials where they portray someone struggling to do something simple like mopping or chopping an onion and then have a product that will solve the

Starting point is 00:06:42 problem which most people don't really have. Fault's dichotomy. This fallacy creates a false distinction of there being only two options, or that not supporting one position implies that you must support another position. One example would be that if you don't support policy A, then you must be in favor of policy B. In reality, you might be against A and B, or you could support both, or you could support some alternative. The common phrase, either you are with us or against us, presents a fallacy of a false dichotomy. Sunk-cost fallacy. This is also known as throwing good money after bad. People will advocate spending more money on something based on how much money they have previously spent on it. Many projects which have gone over budget will justify spending more

Starting point is 00:07:28 money on it now because of how much money has already been invested. In reality, past investment has little to do with the rationale behind future investments. Most decisions which take into consideration past investments are based on emotion, because the person or group making the decisions may have made the previous decision and don't want to be proven wrong. You might engage in this when you've decided to finish a book because you've gotten halfway through, or if you're continuing watching a TV series because you've already invested the time. Red Herring A red herring argument is similar to a straw man.

Starting point is 00:08:01 It is bringing up a subject totally unrelated to the issue at hand to draw attention away. Let's say you got a ticket for speeding, and when your spouse asked you about it, you try to change the subject to some tragedy on the news. Another would be to bring up a subject, and then asking, how can someone worry about that when there's some other larger problem in the world? The fact that there are other larger problems doesn't mean that something else also isn't a problem. Circular reasoning Also known as begging the question, this is making a premise that assumes the truth of the conclusion. An example of this would be everything Joe says can be trusted because Joe is the most trustworthy person there is. The claim that Joe can be trusted is based on the fact that it is true without proving any evidence that Joe can be trusted.

Starting point is 00:08:47 Likewise, voting for a third party is wasting your vote because they can't win. Well, the reason they can't win is that no one votes for them. Appeal to authority. This fallacy assumes that because someone said something, it is therefore true. Someone who is an expert in their field could still be wrong, or they might not have any relevance in the field to which they're being cited. An example would be a famous actor being used to promote a smartphone. Being an actor has nothing to do with being an expert on smartphones. Likewise, a Nobel laureate like Linus Pauling made a lot of claims about vitamin C, and many people believed it because he won a Nobel Prize, even though the Nobel Prize had nothing to do with vitamin C.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Finally, I'll end with the bandwagon fallacy. This is assuming that something is true because it's popular. This is seen often in advertising when the number of customers is given as a selling point. As one famous album cover put it, 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong. Well, actually, they can. McDonald's also used to advertise the number of hamburgers they sold on their signs. There is also an anti-bandwagon fallacy, which says you shouldn't do something or that something is bad because everyone else is doing it. This would be like saying a band isn't good anymore once they become popular. There are many more fallacies out there, some of which are only subtle differences from the ones I've listed here. However, this list should give you a good starting point to what to

Starting point is 00:10:11 look out for whenever you hear someone make a fallacious claim. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackle. Special thanks to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Please remember to leave a review over on Apple Podcasts. Even a simple review can really help the show get discovered in the sea of other podcasts that are out there.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Fallacious Reasoning (Encore)

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