by Kevin Vost
18. False dichotomy. This fallacy of “either-or” or “black and white” thinking presents the false dilemma of only two alternative answers or courses of action when there may be many more between the two extremes, or at times, when neither alternative is correct. A common false dichotomy present in self-proclaimed “new atheists” is to propose that atheists believe, in accord with the findings of sciences such as astrophysics and geology, that the universe is billions of years old, while Christians believe, in accord with the Bible, that the earth is only about six thousand years old. This false dichotomy ignores the fact that only a small minority of Christians hold to fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible that run counter to scientific findings. Indeed, even seventeen hundred years ago, St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in Africa, wrote that the Bible is not a textbook of science and that it should not be interpreted in ways that are contrary to human reason. Another common false dilemma some atheistic writers present is to argue that atheists respect reason while people of faith reject it. They cite statements such as this one from Martin Luther: “Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word”143 — while failing to note that Luther was not a man who thought like Aquinas, who, centuries before Luther, had written that “human reason does not exclude the merit of faith but is a sign of greater merit.”144
19. Genetic fallacy. This is a common variant of the ad hominem fallacy, in which an idea is rejected because of its real or supposed source, such as the psychological state or upbringing of the person advancing the argument. I recall a person who assumed that my reversion to Catholicism in my early forties must have been in response to a crisis, thereby implying that my belief in God answered a psychological need for comfort and assurance, rather than being a response to the Holy Spirit’s promptings and St. Thomas Aquinas’s arguments. I responded, to the contrary, that my reversion occurred during one of the most serene and successful periods of my life. After having read and absorbed the philosopher Seneca’s statement that “the busy man is least busy with living,” I had stopped part-time college teaching on the side and had the most leisure and time for calm reflection in all of my adult life. We might recall yet again that one of Thomas’s bits of advice on study runs directly counter to this fallacy in precept 7: “Do not place value on who says what, but rather, commit to your memory what true things are said.” He was far less interested in the source of opinions than he was in their truth or falsity, and we would do well to think more like him.
20. Hasty generalization. This fallacy entails a failure in inductive reasoning,145 jumping to an erroneous general conclusion based on far too little evidence. An example sometimes found in the writing of atheists is the argument that intelligent people such as scientists do not believe in God. They provide some examples of prominent intelligent atheists or atheistic scientists, while completely ignoring vast numbers of exceedingly brilliant, accomplished scientists and other thinkers who do believe in God.
Repetitio est Mater Memoriae (Again)
Do you still recall the first ten logical fallacies? If so, that’s great, and if not, it’s time to brush up and rehearse them again until they are stored away securely in the treasury of your memory. Now we will add five more logical fallacies to our memory banks. Here we go.
Logical Fallacies 11–15 (Locations 21–25)
Still in our dining room, we move now to a big wall thermometer (location 21), on top of which you spy (as you might have expected — or perhaps not) very tiny, hyperactive people bowling. Moving next to the chair at the right of the table (22), you find your grade-school principal, but she is very tiny. Indeed, she is a surprisingly petite principal. At the foot of the table (23) is a rather complicated scene, for a woman is posting a hockey puck in the mail, whereupon air goes out of the odd, inflatable puck, and the postman tells her she really ought to send a proper hockey puck. (Got all that? Perhaps it is easier for hockey fans, or perhaps for postal employees. No need to worry, though. Sometimes the extra effort that goes into complicated images makes them all the more memorable!) Moving now to the chair on the left (24), you smell something fishy, for there, flopping about, is the biggest red herring you have ever seen. Well, having about had your fill of the dining room, you head next to the doorway into the adjoining family room (25) and come across an odd scene, for a convicted criminal is writing a text and a guard then blacks out a section within quotation marks. Got them now? I’ll give you a minute. Good! Let’s see what we’ve remembered.
The hyper bowlers (21) stand for the fallacy of hyperbole, and your petite principal (22) represents the petitio principii, aka, “begging the question.” (You might embellish this one a bit by imagining her begging a student to ask a question.) The posting of the hockey puck when the air goes out and the woman being urged to send a proper hockey puck (23) represents the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc (because of the phonetic similarities, of course, and not just because the fallacy’s name happens to come after the image description in that sentence). The red herring (24) stands for, well, the fallacy known as red herring. Its Latin name is ignoratio elenchi (ignoring the argument), but I couldn’t resist using the English name since it makes for such a nice image! Finally, we see the quotation blotted out of the con’s text to remind us of the fallacy of quotation out of context (25). Let’s review:
Location
Image
Fallacy
21. Wall thermometer
Hyper people bowling
Hyperbole
22. Seat on right
Petite principal
Petitio principii
23. Foot of table
Posting hockey pucks
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
24. Seat on left
Red herring
Red herring
25. Doorway to family room
Quotation out of con’s text
Quotation out of context
21. Hyperbole. This fallacy exaggerates and distorts true facts. It is very commonly found today in popular news reporting of scientific studies. For an example familiar to me as a psychologist, a headline may declare that a particular deficient brain chemical has been found to cause a disorder such as depression or schizophrenia, or at least that people with depressed or schizophrenic minds have this particular chemical deficiency, because a statistically significant number of patients in a study were found to have the deficiency. The headlines ignore the fact that in virtually all such studies, some people with the disorders do not have the chemical imbalance and some people within the normal control group and without the disorder do have the chemical imbalance. While such findings may show great value, producing hope for many people, to state that the imbalance causes a disorder based on imperfect evidence ignores the fact that the imbalance is neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause, since a person might have the disorder without the imbalance or the imbalance without the disorder.
22. Petitio principii. Better known as “begging the question” or “circular reasoning,” this fallacy assumes from the start what it supposedly proves. St. Thomas addresses a particularly interesting and profound example when he argues that the existence of God is not self-evident to human beings.146 He counters an argument stating that God’s existence is self-evident to us because it is naturally implanted in us, employing both the logic of Aristotle and the words of Scripture, noting that for things that are self-evident we cannot think otherwise (for example, the fact that a whole is greater than its parts or that a triangle has three
sides), and yet people do think otherwise about God’s existence, as Scripture itself makes clear: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’ ” (Ps. 53:1.) Thomas explains that God’s existence would be self-evident to us if we understood the nature of His essence, since His essence and existence are one (it is His very essence to exist), but God’s essence is imperfectly known to man, and that knowledge is achieved through reasoned argument or through revelation. An awareness of God is implanted in our natures, but in a very confused way. It is one thing to know that someone approaches, and another thing to know that (for example) it is Peter. All people seek happiness, but not all realize that our complete happiness (beatitude) lies only in God.
23. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. To put it into English: “after this, therefore, because of this.” This fallacy assumes that because one thing occurred after another, it must be the result of the first thing. For a month, a young man takes a scoop of Miracle Muscle Grow in his milkshake every day before his workout, gains five pounds of muscle, and attributes it to that expensive, but powerful miraculous powder, not thinking that perhaps his weight-training workouts, along with normal, healthful foods could have yielded similar results. This fallacy bears relation to superstitions and also to the placebo effect, wherein a certain percentage of the population derives positive effects from supposed “medicines” that are really inactive sugar pills. This is why scientific researchers include control groups and try to control as many other potentially relevant variables as possible to try to make sure that when they are testing for effects of some drug or other intervention, it is truly the cause of the effects, and not merely something that happened to come before them. Those who would think like Aquinas should bear this fallacy in mind in matters related to the proper care of one’s mind and body.
I’ll note as well that, in the realm of scientific research, the avoidance of a variation of this fallacy is also expressed in the valid dictum “Correlation does not prove causation.” Just because two things tend to occur together does not necessarily prove that one causes the other, because either one might be the cause of the other, or both might be caused by some other factor or set of factors. For an extreme example, consider that, in children, shoe size correlates fairly strongly with performance on tests of intelligence. As shoe size increases, children tend to score significantly higher on tests of all kinds of mental abilities, from short-term memory, to mathematical calculation ability, vocabulary, reasoning, problem-solving, and more. This does not necessarily imply that we should figure out new ways to make our kids’ feet grow, because that finding reflects the fact that not only foot size, but brain size and interconnections,147 practical experience, and learning also increase dramatically from infancy into adulthood. Test children of the same age or test adults, and the correlation between foot size and intelligence pretty much disappears. Correlational studies can provide useful information, especially when subjects cannot be assigned to experimental or control groups for practical or ethical reasons, but they must always be interpreted with utmost caution when attempting to ferret out possible causative factors.
24. Red herring (Ignoratio elenchi). The Latin term refers to the fact that this fallacy ignores the real elenchi (argument) by diverting attention to something irrelevant. If you’ve ever accused someone (or been accused) of clouding the issue, changing the subject, or saying something besides the point, they (or you) may have been laying down a trail of red herring!148
25. Quotation out of context. In this fallacy, a statement is selectively presented in a misleading way by ignoring the setting or context in which it is used. An extreme example culled from our discussion of the fallacy of the petitio principii could be to quote Scripture to deny God’s existence: “There is no God” (Ps. 53:1). What a great difference a few preceding words make: “The fool says in his heart . . .” Those who would think like Aquinas should exercise great care not to take Thomas’s words out of context inadvertently. Returning again to our previous example, we find: “Therefore, the existence of God is self-evident.” This however, came from one of the objections he went on to refute. When citing from the Summa, we should exercise great care whether the passages are from the objections, or the “on the contrary,” “I answer that,” or replies-to-objections sections.
Logical Fallacies 16–20 (Locations 26–30)
It’s time again to revisit our mnemonic house. Are the gists of all the precepts still tucked away in the foyer, along with the first fifteen logical fallacies in the living room, dining room, and doorway to the family room? Very good, if so! If not, be sure to find and put there any items that aren’t waiting for you in their proper place. Now we will step into the family room and add to our mnemonic furnishings the last five logical fallacies of this chapter.
There is nothing odd about the tall, thin dresser (location 26) next to the door in the family room, except that it is slanting not unlike the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa. On the television set (27) on the other side of the door, a finely dressed “prosperity gospel” televangelist is hosting a TV special and pleading for donations. Right next door in the closet (28) is a stereo, which would not be unusual if this stereo did not have hands that are typing on a keyboard. Near the closet is a weightlifting bench (29), and who should be there pumping iron but the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. You’re surprised by the weight he is lifting, having supposed that a straw man would be weaker. Finally, we arrive at our pool table (30), and you are highly honored, for the secretary-general of the UN has dropped by to tell you he distributed to all nations the middle section of the last term paper you completed while writing on that very pool table!
Family Room
Okay, now it’s time for the meanings. The slanting dresser (26) represents the fallacy of, well, slanting. The preacher on TV’s special pleading (27) should remind us of special pleading. (Amazingly easy and straightforward so far, no? Well, it continues that way.) The stereo typing in the closet (28) should work well for stereotyping; the straw man on the bench (29) should work well for the straw man fallacy; and last, but not least, we come to the pool table (30), where the UN secretary-general who distributed the middle of your term paper will no doubt serve to remind you of the fallacy of the undistributed middle term! Let’s chart all this out:
Location
Image
Fallacy
26. Dresser
Dresser is slanting
Slanting
27. Television
Preacher’s special pleading
Special pleading
28. Closet
Stereo typing
Stereotyping
29. Weight bench
Straw man lifting
Straw man
30. Pool table
UN secretary-general distributes middle term paper
Undistributed middle term
26. Slanting. This fallacy bears some relation to the petitio principii, or begging the question, because it attempts to skew the conclusion toward one’s conclusion by the use of loaded words with strong positive or negative emotional connotations, in effect informing the hearer in advance what he is supposed to think and feel. We often see this in supposedly neutral and objective political reporting. A very simple example relating to religious belief is when some non-Catholics refer to Catholics as “papists” when criticizing Catholic dogma, implying from the use of that intentionally derogatory term that Catholics are followers of the pope, more so than of Jesus Christ. Of course, Catholics are not immune to slanting either, and we owe it to Christ, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (Joh
n 14:6) to keep our “paths straight” (Prov. 3:6) and not slanted as we seek to share the truth that leads to eternal life.
27. Special pleading. This fallacy involves setting standards for others that are not applied to oneself, by selectively omitting or overlooking information that would be detrimental to our argument. Lest I be accused of the same myself, let me make clear that to think like Aquinas is not to be infallible, even for St. Thomas himself, and neither would he have claimed it to be! His errors were amazingly few, though, considering the massive volume of his writings, and they rarely, if ever, involved philosophical issues. At times, he used scientific beliefs of his time as illustrations of certain principles that were later found to be untrue, though he did note his awareness that current scientific theories might later be proven false.
28. Stereotyping. This fallacy treats members of groups as if they were the same, assigning to each member characteristics attributed to the group that the individual may or may not possess. There are times when generalizations based on group membership can be valid rules of thumb — for example, that football players are very heavily built. Still, not every football player is very heavy. NFL football players average about 245 pounds, with the average tight end coming in at over a whopping 300 pounds, whereas other players, such as wide receivers and defensive backs, typically weigh much less. The kicker who holds the record for the longest field goal weighed less than 200. In its more egregious form, stereotyping implies that members of a particular sex, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or political organization all share certain negative characteristics. This is something those who would think like Aquinas should avoid. For example, while Thomas did not hesitate to criticize the theological errors of people who belonged to different religions, such as those of pagan, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers, he did not hesitate to welcome their ideas and quote their writings when he concluded that their insights were true.