Grammar and Fallacies

As the semester winds down and we work on the various projects we're juggling, the mind feels a certain tug, doesn't it? 

In one direction, there is the relief and excitement of the fast-approaching summer vacation. No more snow.  And no more lessons describing the difference between APA and MLA--"What do you mean the title is lower case?" "The first initial? You don't spell the name out?" Ah, don't we all love these little moments that prove someone in the world has too much time on his hands.  One (presumably an English major) can imagine the APA board sitting around a table deviously figuring out ways to distinguish its citation system from MLA. One (presumably a social sciences major) can imagine the MLA powers that be engaging in similar acts of deviousness when they gather around their table. 

In the opposite direction, our minds experience something else: a frustration and fatigue that accompanies the increasing demands of our professors. While I sympathize with this psychological tension, I must add my contribution to it. 

Fallacious reasoning is no more acceptable in April or May than it was in January. We have to vigilant with the arguments we construct during these last few weeks. On that note, let's take a look at a fallacy that Gula describes under the heading Grammatical ambiguity.

While some grammatical rules could be enforced a little too scrupulously, it turns out that grammar can affect meaning. And meaning can affect the cogency or soundness of an argument. 

Thus, grammar can affect the cogency or soundness of an argument. Gula identifies [f0ur] kinds of grammatical ambiguity, but in this post I'll only look at three of the more glaring cases.  I'll also quote Gula more than I normally would because I think his examples are clear and concise as are his explanation[s].

1. "Ambiguity can occur over whether a phrase is restrictive or nonrestrictive" (96). Gula then provides the following sentence and subsequent explanation to illustrate his point. 

This proposal is favored only by the workers who are eager to get something for nothing. 

"If the statement is written, there should be no problem, provided that the writer honors [the principles of punctuation] and the reader understands [them]. But if the statement is spoken, it may be interpreted: 

"This proposal is favored only by the workers, who are eager to get something for nothing" (96).

That comma makes a big difference. Because nonrestrictive clauses require commas and restrictive clauses do not, the meaning of a sentence can change either because of improper comma usage or because when a sentence is spoken instead of written the speaker can convey an ambiguity with a pause or cadence.  

As Gula writes, "The listener might interpret the statement to mean that all the workers are eager to get something for nothing" (96). Such an interpretation, I think, would commit two additional fallacies: Ad hominem and hasty generalization. 

2. "Faulty or incomplete comparisons can contribute to ambiguity" (97). Gula then provides the following examples to illustrate: 

    

I like Leslie more than Louise.

Gula then provides the following explanation: "This statement can mean 'I like Leslie more than I like Louise' or 'I like Leslie more than Louise like Leslie'" (97).

3.  "There are ambiguous reference of pronouns" (97).

Here is the example Gula offers to clarify what he means:

The police and the fire department are threatening a strike, and the politicians are threatening reprisal. The newspapers claim that their statements are only causing further hostility (97). 

So we notice the pronoun "their" in the second sentence, but it would be nice to know what group of individuals the pronoun refers to. Presumably, police and fire department could both be represented by the pronoun "their," and so could the group of politicians. Thus,  as it stands, "their" could refer to three different nouns. Since the newspapers are claiming that something is true i.e,. "that their statements are only causing further hostility" the charge of fallacious reasoning is warranted. 

Back to Gula

Using Robert J. Gula's Nonsense Red Herrings, Straw Men and Sacred Cows: How We Abuse Logic in Our Everyday Language as my guide, I've spent much of this semester blogging about fallacies. Occasionally, I've deviated from this topic, but for my final posts of the semester, I've decided to return to it. 

Of all the fallacies that you will encounter in college, none of them seems as obviously immoral as the ones associated with quotation. Gula identifies two such fallacies. For the sake of simplicity, I'll refer to these as the Fallacy of Quoting out of Context and the Fallacy of Selective Quoting.

In this post, I will address the Fallacy of Quoting out of Context. In my next post, I will focus on the latter. 

When you take a first-year composition course, you learn about the importance of proper citation. You learn the difference between a quotation and a paraphrase. You learn about the severe academic consequences of plagiarism. 

But aside from the academic consequences associated with using another person's words or ideas without including an adequate citation, are the moral consequences of using another person's words in a deceptive fashion, all the while still following the protocols of an acceptable citation system.  

I'm sure most of us would readily agree with Gula when he writes, "Quoting out of context can turn a person's words against him" (92). 

The indignation you feel is particularly intense when something you said or wrote is taken out of context in order to convey an attitude or behavior that you neither expressed or performed, is it not? Sometimes, if what you said or wrote is quoted out of context, it can be misrepresented to such an extent that it conveys a meaning which is opposite the meaning you actually articulated. To illustrate this fallacious tactic, let's look at the following example. 

Suppose you overhear a roommate whom you don't particular care for say the following sentences. 
"Let's steal the final exam. All we have to do is get the flash drive she keeps it on. She'll never know."

Sounds fairly incriminating, does it not? 

If his words are quoted verbatim, then it seems like the roommate is conspiring to commit academic fraud.  If a professor or an administrator were to ask you whether your roommate ever planned on committing academic fraud, you could think back to these sentences and say: "Yeah, I heard him discussing it with my own ears. One morning I heard him say, 'Let's steal the final exam. All we have to do is get the flash drive she keeps it on. She'll never know.'"  

But suppose you also know that your roommate is an aspiring dramatist who writes and rehearses his plays in your living room. Suppose further that you also know the plot synopsis of his most recent play: a group of students plan to steal a final exam and tragedy ensues. 

You've heard of the colloquialism that distinguishes between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law? 

Well, here we have a situation where a conflict arises between the letter of meaning and the spirit of meaning. According to the letter of meaning, your roommate intends to commit academic fraud. According to spirit of meaning, your roommate intends to develop an interesting dramatic plot. To interpret correctly the meaning of his words requires the appropriate context. To ignore or suppress this context would distort your roommate's meaning in a rhetorically significant situation--the situation being the hearing on whether your roommate ever plotted to commit academic fraud. 

To quote someone out of context is not an act of plagiarism; it is, however, a fallacy, thus it should be avoided.     

Analogies The Final Installment

In the past two posts, I've explored the benefits and the dangers of using comparative language to express an idea or an argument. Referencing a book by Robert J. Gula, I distinguished between the poetic purposes of an author and the logical purposes of an author.

A writer or reader or audience member of any kind must consider how poetic and logical purposes are different.

Since the purposes of poetry are different from the purposes of logic, our standards in assessing the effectiveness of each will also be different. A poetic comparison, if it succeeds at all, will succeed on poetic terms; a logical comparison, if it succeeds at all, will succeed on logical terms.

As you've read in my two previous posts, the terms that the laws of logic impose on us are strict.

In this post, we'll look at the last example that Gula gives to illustrate a fallacious chain of analogical reasoning, and then we'll look at the recommendations he offers by way of summary.

In Nonsense Gula writes, "Analogies are abused when a person uses the terms of one element to predict  the terms of another element" (144).  To show this definition in action, let's look at the following exchange:

P: "Who are voting for?"

Q: "Probably Smith.  I'm an environmentalist, so I think the government should be putting a lot more money in making renewable energy a practical way for the United States to generate electricity and transport its citizens to and from wherever it is their going.

P: "If the environment is important to you, then you shouldn't vote for Smith."

Q: "Why not?"

P: "Well, because take a look at the current administration's record on environmental issues. I guess it hasn't had any photo ops where high ranking cabinet members actually shoot polar bears from helicopters, but needless to say, it hasn't exactly been friendly to the tree and the flower.

Q: "But that's irrelevant. What this administration has done is one thing. What Smith will do is an altogether different thing."

P: "No. Not when one considers all the similarities between the current president and Smith. For example, the president's father made his fortune in the oil business, and so did Smith's. The president attended Exeter, then Princeton, then The University of Chicago School of Law. Guess what Smith's academic career looks like? You got it, Exeter, Princeton, Hyde Park. After he graduated from law school, the president was awarded a federal clerkship before going into politics, just like Smith. I think it's clear from all these similarities that since the president said one thing during his campaign about the environment but ended up implementing a different policy, we can conclude that Smith will do the same thing."

If you can forgive my long winded example, what is your assessment of it?

P tries to argue by analogy. P connects several similarities between the current president and Smith. P then goes further by drawing a conclusion about Smith's future behavior. Such an analogical reasoning chain would be fallacious.

At the end of his discussion of analogies, Gula (144) recommends answering the following questions when evaluating the cogency of an analogical argument:

1. "Have all the properties of X (the object of analogy) and all the properties of Y (the other object of the analogy) been cited?"

2. "How many of these properties are similar?"

3. "How many of these similarities are relevant?"

4. "To what extent are some of these similarities actually not as similar as they have been made out to be?"

5. "To what extent is X different from Y?"

Analogies are everywhere. We use them all the time. When we are being asked to assent to a speaker's conclusion based on analogy, we should be aware that arguing from an analogy has a high standard to satisfy before the argument's conclusion can be accepted.

Analogies II

In my last post I, referencing Robert J. Gula, who himself was referencing a metaphor from a poem by John Donne (For the record, if anyone wants to read it, I think the poem that Gula references is titled "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,") explored some of the ways in which comparing one object to another object can be useful, incisive, and beautiful. 

I also explored, again using Gula as my guide, one way in which making an argument that derives a conclusion from an analogy can lead to a chain of fallacious reasoning.  

In Nonsense, Gula provides several more ways an argument from analogy can be abused. Let's take a look a few more.

From my last post, we know that to draw a conclusion based on an analogy between two objects, the two objects being compared need to have sufficient similarity for the conclusion to hold. According to Gula, other considerations need to be satisfied as well because "Analogies are abused when there is significant dissimilarity that goes unnoticed" (143). 

To illustrate Gula's point, let's take a look at the following short dialogue:

Q: "I don't think that I can vote for Smith in the upcoming election." 
P: "Why not?"
Q: "Well I'm really unhappy with the way things have gone the past few years. This current administration has not provided enough aid to help people who are struggling with the recent economic decline. And since Smith is an alumni of the same college, same law school, and same business school as is our current governor. Both Smith and our current governor also happen to live in the same wealthy neighborhood; both are filthy rich. I mean isn't it clear? To me it's obvious that Smith will simply continue the same ineffective policies that have gone on the past few years."
P: "But Smith is a Democrat. Our current governor is a Republican. Surely this distinction isn't merely irrelevant?"

The conclusion that Q draws is weak because although many similarities do exist between the two candidates, there seems to be a significant dissimilarity that Q simply ignores. Sometimes, given the public cynicism about politicians and given the influence that money has in the political process, it might seem like the two major parties in the U.S. are not so different as they try to make themselves appear during campaign season.

Nonetheless, I think P's point is a good one. I think the platform espoused by each of the two major political parties in this country contain enough dichotomies to invalidate Q's analogy, thus invalidating the effectiveness of Q's argument.  

A third way that analogies can lead to fallacious reasoning is "when one particular similarity is used to equate two very different things" (Gula 144).

To illustrate this potential abuse, let's look at this exchange:

P: "I'm going to Vegas next weekend."
Q: "What's your game of choice?"
P: "Roulette."
Q: "That's risky."
P: "So is buying a Dow Jones Industrial ETF."

Just so you know, an ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund. It collects a group of stocks into a financial instrument and allows it to be bought and sold as easily as a single share of stock. For modern investors, it really is quite an innovation. 

Now it is true that buying an ETF that contains the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in one sense committing a person to a financial risk. A person who places some chips on red risks a certain amount of money on that spin of the wheel. Similarly, a person who buys an ETF that tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average risks a certain amount of money based on the collective performance of those 30 stocks. 

Nonetheless, this similarity obviously does not establish the identity of the two kinds of financial risks in question.  For one thing, risking one's money on a spin of the roulette wheel does not allow one the opportunity to recoup the loss. The chips are gone. One would need to risk more chips to recoup the lost chips. 

In contrast, the ETF allows a patient investor to recoup just about any temporary decline in cash value. The time horizon for a person who risks money on a roulette spin is different than the time horizon for a person who risks money in an ETF.

The two situations are far from identical, thus P's response is fallacious. Next week the journey continues with part III.

        

Analogies Part I

In Nonsense, Robert J. Gula spends a good amount of time discussing and evaluating the use of comparison both as a poetic feature of our language and as a logical feature of our language. I think there is enough material to justify at least two blog posts on the topic. This is the first. 

Gula begins chapter twelve by recognizing the benefits of having the linguistic and physical mechanisms capable of generating an almost infinite number of comparisons and contrasts: "Devices of comparison and contrast can aid us in expressing ourselves. They add vividness and richness to utterances, they are sometimes a way of making concrete an abstract idea, and they sometimes provide a means by which we can clarify a complex idea" (141).

Gula then uses his poetic knowledge to illustrate his point. He refers to an evocative comparison made by John Donne, the sixteenth century English poet. 

"[W]hen the poet John Donne compares two people in love to the legs of a drawing compass, his comparison allows him to concentrate a complicated thought into just a few lines [. . .]" (142).

In one regard, the legs of a drawing compass are individualized; they are detached from one another. This detachment allows the drawing compass to perform its intended function. Yet the legs of a drawing compass are not completely detached from one another. They share a common hinge. 

The image of a drawing compass's legs provides us with an concrete image of separation and unity. When two people are in love, they are still two individual people. One can fly to Miami; the other can fly to Helsinki. True, they are not constrained by something as tangible as a pair of handcuffs, yet  they do seem to be constrained in a more abstract way. The thoughts of each person for example may repeatedly cycle back to pictures and articulations of the beloved, thus constraining each's ability to effectively perform any task that requires an act of higher cognition. Each may be constrained emotionally by the absence of one's beloved. 

Thus, the balancing of separation and unity is nicely captured by the concrete image of a drawing compass. Donne's analogy is a creative achievement to be enjoyed.

Some creative achievements may not have the poetic excellence or the literary endurance of a lyric by John Donne. For those of you who are interested in the stock market, an event recently occurred--Apple Computer released its first quarter earnings results on Wednesday--that gave people a chance to create some charming colloquialisms. For example, I heard one person say that "Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash." 
I guess an image is helpful when you try and understand how big a pile of money 137 billion dollars actually is. 

I heard another person say, after the earnings report came out and the stock was down about ten percent, "Apple is a melting ice cube." 

This expression is, in my opinion, better than the previous example because it's less cliche, and it captures in a familiar image the bearish case against Apple Computer. Again, it may not have the longevity of a Donne poem, but comparing a stock that was once the darling of Wall Street to a melting ice cube is a analogy that I appreciate; it is a creative achievement that helps people understand a complex phenomenon. 

However, like other creative achievements that are properly enjoyed, analogies can be used immorally. 

According to Gula, "It is one thing to use an analogy to help convey an idea. It is another thing to argue by analogy or to use an analogy to form an inference or judgment. [. . .] Analogies are abused  when they try to claim similarity and to establish identity under the guise of merely suggesting that similarity" (142).

Gula then provides four examples to clarify the sorts of situations in which analogical reasoning is abused. I will explore the first one here and continue exploring the rest in next week's post. 

Suppose you are discussing with a colleague  your favorite chili recipe. "My grandfather's chili is the best I've ever had."
"Yeah," your colleague replies with a dismissive smirk. "That's because you've never had my recipe. For reasons of nostalgia and elderly respect, I know my chili can never surpass your grandfather's." Your colleague, smiling, then looks you in eye and says, "Parity, I think, would be impossible for you to dispute." 
"I doubt it."
"What's in your grandfather's chili? Tomato sauce? Chili Powder? Some cayenne? Garlic? Salt, pepper? Right?" The colleague nods, shrugs his shoulders. 
"Right. Well I put all that stuff in my chili so your grandfather's chili and mine would taste the same. Equally delicious."

Here we have a speaker claiming that because some object (a pot of his chili) contains several of the same ingredients that another object contains (a pot of grandpa's chili), they are identical in taste. But it seems like a pot of chili is too complex an object to be generalized in this fashion. Sure, the two recipes share some features, share some ingredients, but the conclusion that they will taste the same because of their shared ingredients would be fallacious. The similarity between the two pots of chili would need to be more comprehensively established before such a conclusion would be justified.    

Begging the Question

You've probably heard this colloquial phrase before. Since many arguments have premises and conclusions that result in disputes between speakers, answering one question many times naturally leads to another. For example, take a look at the following exchange:

Q: "Sugar is a toxic substance that should be regulated by the government."

R: "What evidence do you have for believing that sugar is toxic? It doesn't seem toxic; people eat it everyday and nothing bad happens.

Q: "In the short term nothing bad happens. Long term effects are very bad. There's new research that suggests eating concentrated amounts of sugar, say, drinking a can of soda or even drinking a glass of fruit juice throws our digestive and neurological system into a state of confusion. From an evolutionary point of view, sugar and fiber are a package deal. Take away the fiber? Consume only the juice? We're getting massive infusions of sugar that our bodies can't cope with in a healthy manner."

R: "Maybe you're right. Maybe in the long run sugar is toxic for the human body. But that only begs the question: Should the government regulate every substance that is toxic in the long run for the human body?"

As I said mentioned earlier, it makes sense that the phrase beg the question is so common. Discussing one issue of contention, many times leads to another issue of contention, which then leads to another issue of contention. Despite its usefulness in everyday discourse, begging the question does have a more specific meaning in logic.

In logic, begging the question is also known as circular reasoning. According to Robert  J. Gula, "When an argument uses one of its premises as a conclusion, that argument is said to be circular" (110). The conclusion to an argument could also be referred to as a thesis. Basically, a conclusion or a thesis is the proposition that is being supported by other propositions. Take the following argument:

1. Michael Jordan won Defensive Player of the Year in 1988.
2. Michael Jordan won six NBA Finals MVP awards.
3. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever.

1&2 support 3. Thus, 3 would be the conclusion of the reasoning chain. Because 1&2 support the conclusion, they would be the premises of the argument. The premises support the conclusion; they do not affirm it or restate it. To restate a premise or a collection of premises as the conclusion would be to commit the fallacy of circularity. To take our previous example as illustration:

1. Michael Jordan won Defensive Player of the Year in 1988.
2. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever.
3. No basketball player was ever better than Michael Jordan.

Here we have a premise (1) that supports either (2) or (3). The problem is that (2) and (3) restate the same conclusion. What a speaker is interested in is why should a person believe that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. (1) provides evidence to support such a belief. (2) simply affirms that the belief is true in words that are slightly different than (3).

Suppose a skeptical person is having a conversation with an acquaintance and is presented with (2). Suppose the skeptical person asks: "Why should a person believe that Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever?"
"Well," the acquaintance sips his beverage. "There are many reasons."
"Do you happen to have any on hand?"
"The most obvious reason I can provide is that no basketball player was ever better than Michael Jordan."

In this dialogue, the acquaintance has commit the fallacy of circularity with his last sentence. In an argument, premises and conclusions perform difference functions. Premises support a conclusion--of course, as arguments get more complex, one conclusion can be used to support another conclusion, but that's a topic for a different blog.

Using a premise to restate a conclusion using different words is not an acceptable form of reasoning.

Even when dealing with obvious truths like (2), a supporter of (2) must be ready to provide evidence if a skeptic asks for it. You may be stunned to find a skeptic, but they are out there. When you do find a skeptic, remember to keep your wits about you. Remember that (3) does not support (2), and (2) does not support (3).

The same logical rule holds when you write papers for your classes.   

Logical Lingo III

In my past couple of posts, I've explored two common fallacies, identifying them by the terms philosophers use. In particular, I've identified the non sequitur and the red herring.

For today's post, I will identify another common fallacy--the straw man. I don't know about you, but, like the red herring, when I read the name of this fallacy, I get curious. First, I get curious about the content of the fallacy: What is the straw man fallacy? Then, I get curious about the terminology:

To answer my first question, I will refer to our old friend the late Robert J. Gula. In Nonsense, Gula gives the following definition "When you take something your opponent has said, exag-gerate [sic] or distort it, and then attack what you have exaggerated or distorted, you have created a straw man (79). 

Although Gula doesn't mention it, I think my former logic professor described the straw man fallacy as a person building a scarecrow. A scarecrow is sort of like a man made of straw, and a man made of straw is, unlike a man made of muscle and bone, easily knocked down and destroyed. Of course, the man in "the straw man fallacy" is not actually a man; it's actually an argument. 

But not just any argument. 

It is the argument put forth by an opponent. Sometimes your opponent's argument might derive a conclusion that is very close to something that you already believe. Other times, however, your opponent's argument might derive a conclusion that is the opposite to something that you already believe. 

Although we should always be on guard against all fallacious reasoning, it is the latter situation that we need to be extra mindful of maintaining our logical poise. The urge to build a straw man is more intense when we confront an argument with which we intensely disagree. Why? 

Because there are certain beliefs of ours that we cherish; we don't want to admit that they lack the strength we attribute to them. 

If someone makes an argument that weakens one of our cherished beliefs, we may respond by creating a straw man. Thus, when we engage, whether in speech or writing, in controversial topics, the temptation is usually greater that I will misrepresent my opponent's argument. I will change my opponent's argument into a much weaker argument and then attack that much weaker argument.  

For example, take a look at the following dialogue:
Jack: "Who'd you vote for?
Jill: "Well, after listening to the debates I  voted for candidate X. I really think that her argument about the environment was strong. It's about time a candidate for public office built her platform on key environmental concerns."
Jack: "Candidate X? Are you crazy? My father told me that she wants to ban the sale and purchase of sports cars and that she will enact a law requiring every household to go dark for three days a month. She thinks that we should all go back to living in log cabins and riding horses. I mean, there is no way. Given the lifestyle that most Americans have grown accustomed to living, her arguments are totally impractical. Voting for candidate X is stupid."

How does Jack's response to Jill seem?

It seems dubious to me. Probably, candidate X put forth a series of arguments that contained a series of conclusions that were much more nuanced than the ones he represents. He misrepresents candidate X's argument, which makes it much weaker. After he attacks the weakened argument, he draws his own fallacious conclusion. This is a very common fallacy. Politicians do it all the time. Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters do it all the time as well.

Let's take another example:

[It's dinner time. BLT's are on the menu. A plate of bacon is sitting in the middle of the table.]

Mom: "Look at all that grease.We're not getting any younger. We eat a lot of meat. Our blood pressure and cholesterol levels are probably at dangerous levels. If we want to live longer, we need to eat healthier. We should modify our diet. We should eat more vegetarian meals."
Dad: "Don't be ridiculous. After a hard days work, I'm not gonna sit down and waste my time nibbling on rice cakes and lettuce. If that's what you want to eat, be my guest. I don't want to eat foods that have no taste. Besides, I need protein, I need vitamins and minerals. I need iron. You can't get iron from rice cakes."

So mom concludes that her and her husband should eat more vegetarian meals. Dad takes her conclusion and exaggerates it. After he exaggerates it, mom's argument is much weaker than it was when she articulated it.There may be good reasons to reject mom's argument, but dad hasn't provided any.

Because we cherish many of our beliefs, we don't want them to come under fire. When we are engaged in an episode of argumentation--whether through speech or writing--it is easier to misrepresent an opponent's argument, especially when the argument is strong, than it is to accurately present it. We need to fight this urge.

Straw men should be built to keep crows away, not the reasoned and fair challenges our opponents present to us.  

Logical Lingo II

One of the seemingly stranger logical terms a student may encounter when listening to a debate or reading a correspondence between two opposing partisans is red herring. 

A quick check of the OED informs me that before it denoted an illogical relationship, red herring was part of a longer idiom derived from hunting. To draw a red herring across the track (or some similar verbal construction) meant that someone was using a smoked herring (which is a fish) to train hounds to follow a trail. 

This earlier meaning does not contain any negative or fallacious connotations. However, as a logical term red herring is common fallacy that when employed will inhibit people from communicating about controversial topics without losing their cool. 

Basically, a red herring is a big, bright, pink fish with a powerful odor. Although used initially to train hounds to follow a specific scent, the idiom associated with this process eventually came to mean something closer to its opposite.

To accuse a person making an argument of employing a red herring is to, in the broadest sense, accuse them of creating a diversion. Thus, instead of staying on course, instead of pursuing the topic at hand, by employing a red herring the speaker or the writer hopes to lead the audience away from the relevant trail.

After defining red herring, Robert J. Gula adds the following detail: "The red herring is invariably irrelevant and is often emotionally charged" (74). 

It's the emotionally-charged aspect that makes this particular fallacy so insidious to group discussion. Once the topic of debate becomes obscure or unclear, the chances the discussion will be productive is nil. To illustrate the effectiveness, especially in group discussion, of the red herring let's look at the following extended dialogue.

Jack: "The problem that I have with him is the truck he bought. I mean, in this day and age, how can anyone justify purchasing a car or truck that doesn't at least get 30 miles per gallon. The environment is falling apart: the amount of arctic ice is shrinking which is causing the polar bears to die off, there are areas in the Gulf of Mexico the size of Massachusetts that cannot support any life--no fish, no plants, no amoebas, nothing. Dead zones they call them--now we got a new way to capture energy. An innovation called fracking which provides us with natural gas only at the expense of our ground water supply. I suppose no one is perfect, but I think that buying a car or truck is one decision in which a person should strongly consider the environmental impact of their purchase. It's not like there aren't beautiful and reliable cars and trucks that get 30 miles per gallon on the market.

Jill: "I think he would admit that there are beautiful and reliable cars and trucks that get 30 miles per gallon on the market, but he needs a truck for work that he can afford. The cost of a suitable work truck that gets 30 miles per gallon would cost him an extra fifteen thousand dollars."

Jack: "I guess some people are greedier than others. What's strange is that Mike is supposedly a Christian. Doesn't the Bible have a verse in it that prohibits greedy people from entering heaven?"

Jill: "That's not what the Bible says. Besides, the Bible verse I think your referring to may not have been intended literally."

Jack: "How do you know what the Bible writers intended? Maybe they intended every verse to be taken literally. I know when I write something very important, when I write something that I want people to understand clearly, I intend it to be taken literally."

Jill: "You've never written a metaphor or simile before? That's ridiculous. I know that you write song lyrics that have all sorts of figurative language in them."

Jack: "I haven't written song lyrics in like six months. But even if I have written song lyrics before that doesn't mean I use symbolic language all the time. I suppose you never use language literally? You're a lawyer for crying out loud."

Jill: "Exactly. In order to practice law, I needed to pass the bar.  You think I took a stroll in Wrigleyville? Or that the judges brought in a Chubby Checker tape and the law students limboed our way into the profession?"

Jack: "Who's Chubby Checker?"

How does this dialogue look to you?

It seems all over the place, doesn't it?

It starts off focusing on the environment and whether an environmental concern, a vehicle's miles per gallon, should determine the vehicle a person purchases. This initial topic is abandoned when Jack uses a red herring in the second paragraph to respond to Jill's explanation. The composition of the Bible may be a fascinating topic to explore under the correct circumstances, but, in the above dialogue, Jack simply uses the Bible to divert the legitimate counter-claim that Jill makes.

Jack then introduces a second red herring into the discussion. Like biblical composition, biblical interpretation may be, under the proper circumstances, a fascinating topic to discuss, but in this dialogue, Jack simply uses it to complicate and divert Jill's focus.

Jill also uses a red herring. The issue that Jack brings up about his own employment of literal language is narrowly defined. Jill doesn't address the narrowness; rather, she broadens his meaning, and, in doing so, she complicates and diverts the direction of the dialogue.

This dialogue contains only two speakers, and it ends up sprawling into all kinds of complicated but unrelated topics. Also, I hope you get the sense of the emotional aspects creeping into each speaker's tone. Emotions are an important aspect of human judgment and human life, but appealing to emotion is not acceptable in logical reasoning. Anger, laughter, pity, sadness could each be appropriate mechanisms of persuasion, but they are not logical forms of persuasion.

The red herring can incite each one of these. And once an emotional incitement occurs, it is difficult to regain the civility and seriousness that was lost.

There are many nourishing items on the menu of logic. The red herring isn't one of them.

Some Words about Numbers

When people present arguments, whether in speech or in writing, they often use numbers as evidence to support a conclusion. However, we need to be wary of arguments that use numbers, especially statistics.

The speaker or writer might support his argument by appealing to "recent studies," or the fact that "seventy-five percent of spinach eaters watched at least one episode of Popeye. . .," or "polls indicate that your candidate has approval ratings among women in the low teens." Statistics, of course, can help make an argument cogent, but we need to be careful of the potential fallacies that can result from an improper use of statistics.

As our good friend the late Robert J. Gula writes in Nonsense, "If we're dealing with a statistic, we should ascertain who gathered the statistic, what process was used, how many people were polled, how these people were selected, [and] what specific questions were asked[. . .]" (65).  

Now most of us do not have the time to perform such a thorough review of a statistical study's raw data. This impracticality is partly resolved by relying on the testimony of reputable sources. It is a fair assumption that a study conducted by the CDC or CBO is trustworthy, whereas a study conducted by one's postman may require a significant amount of corroboration before it can be considered trustworthy. I imagine this is an important reason why professors demand certain kinds of sources: they want the statistics to be generated by organizations that are presumed to be reputable.

Assuming the data is reliable, one of the fallacies that a speaker or writer who makes an appeal to numbers might commit is to use the term "average" in an equivocal manner.

For example, you might hear a person say "I'm just an average guy." In such a construction, the term "average" is probably not being used in a quantitative way. What the speaker is trying to convey is the fact that he is "normal," "unspectacular," "similar to the majority of people who populate a particular geographic area."

"Average" is also used to specifically convey a quantitative relationship. When used to convey a quantitative relationship, the term "average" can connote three different measurements. To illustrate these different kinds of measurements, let's take a look at the following set of numbers:

100
200
300
300
9,100

Now, what is the "average" of these five numbers?

Well it depends on how one interprets the term "average." The mean average for these five figures would be 2,000.

The mode (the figure that appears most frequently) for these five figures would be 300.

The median  (the number that is in the middle of the series when those numbers are listed in order, highest to lowest or lowest to highest) for these figures would be 300.

Let's look at how the following data set be used fallaciously.

Suppose the following figures represent the weekly salaries of five employees at a local company. Suppose further that the owner of the local company claims that his employees make a living wage. "Every employee at my company," the owner tells a local journalist,"is well-compensated. In fact, the average salary at my company is 2,000 dollars per week."

How does this bit of reasoning strike you?

It strikes me as weak.

Because the owner is citing the mean average as if it were the mode, his argument is fallacious. Clarifying the meaning of "average" is an important step in producing cogent arguments that use statistical data.

Another point to consider when evaluating an argument that appeals to numbers is that "percentages" are basically irrelevant without context.

For example, an incumbent local politician who has served a single term might claim the following: "Under my administration, the crime rate has dropped by 50%."  Sounds impressive doesn't it? But what if under the previous administration only two crimes were committed? I mean, I guess one crime is better than two crimes, but in this context the statistic cited by the politician seems a little foolish.

To take another example, suppose a CEO claims during an interview with Maria Bartiromo the following: "Our international sales grew 500 percent last quarter." Sounds great, right? It sounds like the CEO is leading the company into the next century. Well, before we applaud too loudly, we may want to know what the total amount of revenue was the previous quarter. If the company only booked 100 dollars in international revenues the previous quarter, then that 500 percent increase seems a little less awesome.

In a lot of arguments, statistics come from surveys or polls. What we need to keep in mind is that the effectiveness of a survey or poll is contingent on, among other things, the quality of the sample. It may be true that "Eighty percent of the people surveyed claimed that candidate X is doing an excellent job." Sounds great doesn't it?

But one wonders about the the quality of the sample. If the sample of the survey was candidate X's friends and family, then eighty percent no longer seems so great. In fact, it seems somewhat suspicious. In order for a survey to contribute to the strength of an argument that draws a general conclusion about a large population, it must be based on a sample that fairly represents that population in both size and diversity.

Finally, we need to be careful when people use the behavior or beliefs of a large population to support a conclusion. TV commercials use this technique a lot.

For example, a car company might broadcast a commercial that says "In the past ten years, ten million people have bought the XYZ. Ten million people can't be wrong." The inference seems to be that because ten million people have bought the XYZ, I should go and buy the XYZ. But if the most important criterion for me in deciding which vehicle to purchase happens to be a high MPG, and if the XYZ has a low MPG in its class, it wouldn't make sense for me to purchase the XYZ regardless of how many vehicles the company has sold.

Numbers can cogently support an argument, but only if they are used appropriately. How the data is collected, interpreted, and disseminated affects its argumentative value. Although most of us may not have the time to scrutinize reams of raw data or check the wording of a survey question, we should be aware of the fact that statistics can be used for logical purposes and for fallacious purposes. Such an awareness is not foolproof, but it does make our cerebral defenses a little more resilient.

Beware of Fallacies Part II

Last week I wrote about fallacious reasoning in regard to checking the reasoning that politicians employ during campaign debates and assignments you may have to complete during your collegiate career. I gave an introduction to fallacies by quoting Robert J. Gula; I then proceeded to examine a specific kind of fallacy: the Ad Hominem Fallacy.

For today's post, I will continue to explore fallacies.

One important distinction to make when you form an argument is that correlation is not causation. In Gula's book, he identifies three kinds of causes: necessary, sufficient, and contributory (120).

A necessary cause is one that is required to satisfy a particular state of affairs or situation. For example, water is a necessary cause for human life to exist. To take another example, in order to make a three-cheese pizza, one needs to have access to at least three different kinds of cheese.

I cannot exist if I don't drink water. Likewise, I cannot make a three-cheese pizza if I do not have access to at least three different kinds of cheese.

Notice that a necessary cause is something that we need in order to achieve some goal or some state of affairs, but in the examples that I gave above, we still need other causes in order to satisfy our goal or state of affairs. We need three different kinds of cheese in order to make a three cheese pizza, but just because we have three different kinds of cheese does not mean we can make a three-cheese pizza.

A three-cheese pizza requires other ingredients. Pizza usually has some kind of tomato sauce on it. Pizza also usually has some kind of bread or crust that provides the base for the cheese and sauce. In the same way, the existence of human beings requires more than water. The existence of human beings also requires some kind of food and a certain range of body temperature. Thus, a necessary cause is required to achieve some goal or state of affairs, but it is not sufficient.

A sufficient cause is one that is sufficient to cause some state of affairs. In Nonsense, Gula writes: "If Y always occurs when X is present, then X is a sufficient condition of Y" (120).

For example, hitting my shin against a piece of furniture will cause a bruise. In other words, hitting my shin against a piece of furniture is enough by itself to cause my shin to bruise. But notice that there are many other ways to get a bruise; in other words, there are thousands of sufficient causes for a person to be bruised: If a baseball traveling at high velocity hits my shin, it will cause a bruise; if someone of suitable size punches me in the eye with a clenched fist, it will cause a bruise; if I fall off my bike and land on my knee, it will cause bruise. All these examples are sufficient causes for a bruise, but none of them are necessary.

The final kind of cause is a contributory cause. A contributory cause is a cause which is neither a necessary cause nor a sufficient cause. A contributory cause occupies a kind of middle ground between the two other kinds of causes. It contributes to a state of affairs.

For example, eating a lot of saturated fat may contribute to a person having a heart attack. But since some people who eat a lot of saturated fat never have a heart attack, eating a lot of saturated fat is not a sufficient cause for a heart attack. And since some people have heart attacks without eating a lot of saturated fat, eating a lot of saturated fat is not a necessary cause. Instead, eating a lot of saturated fat is one factor that could contribute to a person having a heart attack.

To summarize the distinction between these different kinds of causes, Gula gives the following principles:
1. If X does not happen, then Y will not happen. (X is a necessary cause of Y.)
2. If X happens, then Y will happen.  (X is a sufficient cause of Y.)
3. If X happens, then Y may happen.  (X is a contributory cause.) 

A lot of fallacious reasoning is a result of people misapplying these three different kinds of causes. To illustrate how fallacies are disseminated by misapplying these three different kinds of causes, let's think of the way that politicians speak.

A politician might say "If I am not elected, then the economy will not grow." But growing the economy is a very complicated phenomenon.

The failure to elect a single politician will not in itself inhibit the economy from growing. The more rational formulation would be for the politician to say "If my opponent is elected, then it's possible that the economy will not grow."

This is the more logical formulation because it treats the election of a single politician as a single, contributory cause. Most voters, regardless of their political beliefs, will probably grant the truth of the latter statement. "Sure," we might say, "if I vote for your opponent and he is elected, then it's possible that the economy will not grow. But it's also possible that by electing your opponent the country will experience an economic boom. It's possible that the United States balances its budget and the unemployment rate drops to 4 percent. So what?"

Furthermore, suppose that a politician says, "If I am elected, then the economy will grow." Of course, once again, we know that growing the economy is a complicated process. It includes billions of variables--some of which remain unknown until the moment they are instantiated, some of which may remain unknown in perpetuity.

The election of a single politician is not a sufficient cause to grow the economy. What the politician should say, if the politician wants to respect the strictures of logic and good reasoning, is "If I am elected, then it's possible that the economy will grow."

Of course, broadcasting such a slogan will not play as well in the soundbites during the evening news.

When politicians attempt to connect phenomena, it would be logical for them, in most cases, to speak about contributory causes. But campaigns that run on logic and sound reasoning have a tendency to end with concession speeches.

Since most of us are not running for political office, we don't need to worry about making a good soundbite. Instead, let's worry about becoming better writers, better thinkers.

Let's avoid, as best we can, confusing the different kinds of causation.