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[FOLEY]

Seven fallacies of thought and reason

There are many forms of logical fallacy, errors, and mistakes of reason. In addition to this many fallacies co-exist and network together in yet further complex combinations. The net consequence of this is a conviction and feeling of coherence in the views being held – a sense of things making sense! This feeling of ‘everything making sense’ in the absence of any evidence, logic or reason, is an illusion based in the collective impact of unstructured thought.The level of the delusion is often far greater than the sum of its underlying parts. The mistakes of thought and reason listed here have been chosen and highlighted on the basis that they are the most common. Therefore, these errors are so prevalent, they have permeated and perverted the public’s perception of science the most.
The seven main fallacies are listed here in reverse order. The order generally relates to the popularity and persuasiveness of that fallacy in general popular science and pseudoscience, with number 7 being the lesser and number 1 being the most popular forms of fallacious thinking and argument. The combined outcome of accepting these fallacies is the same – they all lead to error in thinking. All represent mind-traps in thinking that lead ultimately to either unsound thinking or a completely fictitious characterisation of science and the processes of legitimate scientific argumentation.

[FOLEY]

7 I am entitled to my opinion (used to support the truth of the opinion).

A quite common outcome in arguments between science and pseudoscience is when the person holding the failing position resorts to saying ”…well, that is my view and I am entitled to my opinion.” This is often recruited in support of the argument being made, thus implying that ones entitlement is somehow important for the truth of the argument itself. Indeed they are entitled to their opinion, but their entitlements were never in question. We are all entitled to our opinions – but this has no consequence for the scientific truth of them and does not establish or justify the validity of them. So the problem here arises when one recruits the mere ‘entitlement’ (and no evidence) to a view, as some form of evidential support for the truth of the view. It is often used as a final defence mechanism when faced with quite strong counter-arguments and evidence.
The crucial point with this error in argumentation is that your individual entitlement to hold a view is no indication at all as to its validity or truth – indeed, it is completely irrelevant (a form of the non-sequitur fallacy). When having a scientific debate, discussing evidence and theory, it makes no sense to recruit your human rights and ‘entitlements’ in defence of any view. It shifts the focus from one of science, evidence, and reason to one of human rights (see Whyte, 2005). This is an irrelevant and unhelpful tangent. You are of course entitled to hold any view you please, but it becomes a fallacy of reason to recruit that mere entitlement as some form of evidence in support of the truth of that view.
Recruiting the ‘I’m entitled to my opinion’ stance in any debate is functionally equivalent to saying, ‘I am entitled to be wrong!’ Entitlements do not establish truth. Human entitlements and rights are irrelevant to a scientific debate based on facts, evidence and reason. A scientist may be entitled to his / her opinion of the facts, but their entitlements do not make them correct, their data and evidence makes them correct. A scientist is entitled to believe that the boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius, but the entitlement to that view does not make the scientist correct – the facts gained from scientific study provide evidence – which actually exists independent of anyone’s view of it. Therefore, it is sound reasoning, logic, and the recruitment of supportive empirical evidence of quality that makes an argument more likely to be correct.

[FOLEY]

6 Argumentum Ad-hominem: Shoot the messenger fallacy.

This is a common logical fallacy. Argumentum ad hominem basically means that the argument becomes directed towards the individual as opposed towards the crucial issues being discussed. It is succinctly described as, attack the messenger not the message (hence – shoot the messenger). It is often seen in both politics and pseudoscience. Its aim is to undermine the position of ones opponent, by undermining the opponent personally (in a manner that is actually completely irrelevant to the debate). The hope here is that if one can discredit the individual, this by default, discredits his / her argument. It does not. The fallacy here relates to the irrelevance of the attack. It is not viable to argue against a position and then justify that argument by criticising the individual who holds it. Arguing that the proposals from the Educational minister are unlikely to work because he / she have no children of their own is hardly convincing. Furthermore, saying that Einstein or Darwin were selfish men does nothing to discredit the theories of Relativity and Evolution. They may have been the most selfish or the most unselfish of men, but this is an irrelevance as to the ‘truth’ of their scientific claims. Similarly, a cognitive neuroscientific account of strange experiences (i.e., near-death experiences) is not incorrect simply because the scientist proposing it is a skeptic. These are all examples of the ad-hominem fallacy. Any claim or theory should not be rejected solely on the basis of who holds it.

[FOLEY]

5 I’m offended! (A special case of the red-herring fallacy)

When a core belief is under threat from a good counter-argument it is common for many to defend the belief by stating ”I’m offended”. Here the person whose beliefs are under threat seeks to defend their position and thinking, not with evidence and argument, but by throwing out an often unjustified comment claiming to be offended. Creationists get offended by Evolutionary theory, Parapsychologists get offended by more sceptical scientific interpretations, and Pseudoscientists get offended when their unfounded premises and illogical cherished ideas are called into question. None of this of course, means that the beliefs of the individual being offended are actually true. It means nothing and can be cast as an instance of:

1. the red-herring fallacy (evading the issue via diversion);
2. to some degree the non-sequitur fallacy (where the argument does not follow from the premise, or the conclusion does not follow from the argument), and / or;
3. the irrelevant objection fallacy (where the completely irrelevant tangent of being offended is recruited as an objection to the argument).

The problem is the ‘I’m offended’ card gets played far too easily for those whose position is difficult to defend. It is often recruited even when an opponent in a debate makes a perfectly reasonable suggestion or asks a respectful but challenging question.
Playing the 'I'm offended' card every time the debate gets interesting is neither a well reasoned, sensible or scientific position to take. It has no place in an adult intelligent debate about the issues. The perception comes about because to question a core belief of someone is, to them, to question them personally. It is not and nothing could be further from the truth. This ‘red herring’ fallacy is an attempt to steer attention away from the real crux of the issue that many find difficult to deal with. It liberates such individuals from having to justify and support their argument. If you say 'I am offended' then that’s all you need to say and in the minds of such people it gets them out of having to consider the issues at hand. It is a sort of cognitive defence mechanism - that serves to protect the belief position of the person. It seems their position really is – ”I get offended by anything you do not agree with” - how can this be a viable position for a reasoned argument on science?

[FOLEY]

4 Science cannot explain everything and does not have all the answers.

This argument goes something like – as science cannot explain everything and does not have all the answers, it follows that:

1. science is limited; and
2. other answers from other knowledge systems could be true (i.e., belief-systems and pseudoscience).

Or to put it another way, science is limited and those very limitations stop it from answering specific questions concerning certain issues. This is then typically used to gain leverage for claiming a ‘truth’ via these other knowledge systems (typically ones that don’t employ the principles of science). Common examples would be debates on psychic abilities, the existence of an after-life and the existence of apparitions from areas like parapsychology and popular science.
There are a number of reasons for why this argument is a falsehood. Firstly, science never claims to have all the answers – just a reliable and useful method for revealing them. So attacking science for not having all the answers is something of a straw-man argument in the first place (blaming science for not being able to do something – it never claimed to be able to do in the first place!). Secondly, the argument is based in the assumption that the limitations of science actually have any implications for what is being proposed. Although science is indeed limited, it does not automatically follow that these limitations have any implications for the existence of certain phenomena (i.e., of paranormal phenomena). The problem here relates to the idea that the limitations of science have any bearing whatsoever on the failure to find any evidence for, say, paranormal phenomena. However, if Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP) exists, a relatively simple science of mathematical probabilities, chance expectancies and well controlled experiments would be able to demonstrate its existence. The same would hold for other claimed abilities (mind reading, psycho-kinesis, mediumship, dowsing, remote viewing, etc). Science has had techniques and methodologies at its disposal for many years that are more than suitable to test and refute (or establish) such claims.
A relatively basic and simple well-controlled science would be more than sufficient to establish the truth of these claims. Thirdly, the limitations of one knowledge system do not, by default, add credence or support to any alternative. That is, although science may well be limited, this does not mean that alternative knowledge systems have any additional merits by default. For instance, gaps in knowledge from Astronomical science do not mean we should abandon it for Astrology. For Astrology to be a viable alternative it would need to demonstrate its own credentials for knowledge and understanding, independently of the limitations of any other system. The fact that science does not have all the answers, does not mean that pseudoscience has any answers at all (or is indeed capable of ever producing any)! This is the crucial delusion underlying this argument. On this basis, the argument is meaningless.

[FOLEY]

3 Science is often wrong, and has been shown to be wrong before, therefore it could be wrong about the paranormal.

A common argument against science is that, it has been wrong before – so it could be wrong again and also about issues that pseudoscience promotes. Despite popular opinion, science is not about absolutes and definite proof. Science deals with the most plausible, probable and likely explanations based on the evidence available at any given time (i.e., it is probabilistic). As noted earlier, science makes the explicit commitment that any scientific truth is provisional and although any account may turn out to be false in the future, it may be the best account in the present. The underlying thought processes at work in pseudoscience play on the notion of science being about probable truth (as opposed absolute truth) as a weakness. Once the idea of a weakness in science is proposed, it is a small step to further claim the lack of absolutes implies that no theory can be considered completely ‘true’ and thus, could be totally wrong. Furthermore, as scientific ideas are not 100% true; then pseudo-logic states that:

1. any idea could be a viable alternative to the scientific theory; and
2. all existing ideas are equally valid and equally true. Herein lay the fallacies of this argument.

In reality the explicit commitment of science being about provisional truth is actually a strength. It is an open commitment to knowledge never being infallible. There are many complex areas of inquiry and finding answers is not easy. Initial ideas and hypotheses may be quite wrong; however, where they are shown to be wrong, they will be amended and retested. Via this process, we get closer to what is true every step of the way by being less wrong than before. To argue that science cannot prove things to be 100% true is fine, but for people to use it as an argument to give validity to completely untenable ideas is fallacious. Pseudoscientific ideas can be quite wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with the limitations of science. Both pseudoscience and science may be wrong; but science is highly likely to be far less wrong than pseudoscience.
Let us examine the initial notion of science having been wrong before (as this is the basis underlying this argument). Science has indeed been wrong before. Science is not 100% foolproof and it has never claimed to be perfect. Sometimes ideas need refinement and sometimes ideas require a complete refutation. However, this is not a weakness or a fault of science. Indeed, it is a fundamental and accepted part of the process of science as it discovers provisional truths. As science explicitly acknowledges that all knowledge is provisional, this makes it clear that current knowledge can be, and indeed should be, constantly revised if it is necessary to do so. Crucially however, the errors in science are not revealed to the educated world by pseudoscience! Science identifies the errors in scientific knowledge in the first place. This highlights an important aspect of science – that is, it is self-policing. Fraud, error and mistake, if they occur, will be discovered. The process of science identifies and corrects its own mistakes.Pseudoscience also makes a fundamental contradiction here in relation to its argument. Pseudoscience criticises science for prior mistakes – but uses the new knowledge produced by science to attack earlier scientific ideas. From this position it attacks science itself. This is odd when one realises that the new knowledge which pseudoscience tries to employ in its argument was not produced by pseudoscience, but was actually produced by the very system pseudoscience seeks to attack and undermine! That is, it uses new science to attack old science and then attack the whole process of science itself. Pseudoscience also fails to understand that older ideas, which may have been incomplete, aid newer and more comprehensive ideas. There can be far less friction between new ideas and older ones than pseudoscience would have you believe.
A further failing in this argument against science is that although science may well have been wrong before, this does not mean that pseudoscience has ever been correct ever! That is to say, the limitations of science do not, by default, provide support for any form of pseudoscience. To be a viable source of knowledge and understanding, pseudoscience requires its own merits.