Disputes about God, GMOs and more: 8 main logical errors
despite progress, pseudoscientific ideas popular and ineradicable: every day they sound in intractable online disputes (as in the LavkaLavka crusade against GMOs), and influence government initiatives. People come up with dubious arguments against the theory of evolution, global warming, and so on — and their erroneous arguments are often taken seriously. We have collected a number of logical errors and tricks that are most often found in anti-scientific disputes. Knowledge of these mistakes is not necessary to use to win the dispute: you can simply take them into account in order to better argue yourself and see exactly where your opponent is mistaken.
Error in logical reasoning, when any possibilities are excluded, except for the two considered. Simply put, the world is divided into black and white. Usually, one possibility is called logically false or simply unacceptable, only the second remains - in favor of which the choice is made. "You're either a cat or a dog. You don't look like a cat, so you're a dog!"
Example:
Such opposition is often used as an argument in favor of religion: either God exists or there is no meaning or morality in life. It excludes any sources of meaning and morality, except religious. Or, for example: you either believe in astrology, or you have a blinkered mind. It eliminates the possibility that a person can be open to new ideas, but at the same time weighs all the pros and cons, and there are few arguments in favor of astrology.
This is the conclusion of equality between two subjects (or, for example, ideas) from a limited set of qualities that they both really possess - but of which equality does not follow at all. For example, if cats and dogs are soft, fluffy pets, there is no difference between them. In the case of ideas, this error works a little smarter - when two points of view are considered equally significant, one of which is significantly more logical than the other.
Example:
This is not even used as an argument, but as a reason to start a dispute. For example, it makes no sense to organize debates between competent and incompetent participants, trying to consider two points of view on one problem - there can be no equality between these points of view. Here you can read about 8 scientific disputes, which should have ended long ago, but continue because of false equality; for example, because people believe that the arguments against the use of GMOs are as strong as the arguments for.
Despite the importance of this term, in Russian it does not have an adequate translation, but we mean anecdotal evidence - anecdotal data and evidence, when an assertion is based on fragmentary, isolated cases. In the world of pseudoscience, episodic evidence is analogous to the evidence obtained as a result of an experiment (which, we recall, must be verified by scientists and repeated many times). For example, you say: "My uncle Billy-Bob ate three kilograms of apples a day for a year - and his cancerous tumor disappeared!" - and conclude that apples beat cancer.
Example:
All arguments against the use of GMOs in food are currently based solely on episodic evidence. Studies claiming GMOs cause cancer, autism spectrum disorders, liver problems, and other diseases are not supported by any evidence. Another example: all the evidence that homeopathy works not only as a placebo is purely episodic — science says something else.
Formally, this is not a completely logical mistake, but a common argument on the side of pseudoscience: the admiration for all "natural", "natural" and "natural". What exactly is considered natural in each case is very subjective: from the use of healing herbs instead of pills to exclusively "organic" food. Sometimes serious conclusions are drawn from this primacy of imaginary nature, for example ethical: a person should not play God and experiment with science, do not disturb the natural course of things.
Example:
The most vivid example is, perhaps, the fight against GMOs: it is clear to everyone that useful and harmless cucumbers can only be their own, relatives, from the garden. Homophobes also like to appeal to the “inherent nature”, emphasizing that this form of sexual orientation is supposedly unnatural. Both are erroneous statements, which are refuted by science.
An argument that goes beyond logic - and that is why, from the point of view of logic, is completely unacceptable. The point is to predict some of the terrible consequences of an idea and conclude that this idea is wrong or simply immoral. Something in the spirit of "red enhances aggression, which means that people need to stop driving red cars, otherwise we will kill each other!".
Example:
This technique is used extremely simply: "Homosexuality must be declared a disease, because otherwise children will no longer be born and humanity will die out." Or even worse: the theory of evolution is false, because if we all believe in it, it will lead to the development of eugenics, genetic experiments and - you guessed it - the extinction of humanity.
The simplest logical trick that, like everything in this list, is not always used intentionally. It works like this: one of the participants in the dispute distorts the statement of the opponent, replacing it with something similar, but less logical. The meaning of the statement is changing, and it is easier to dispute. Use this trick - how to overcome a stuffed person, and then declare that you fought with someone alive.
Example:
Most often with the help of "stuffed" contested the theory of evolution - distorting it, or simply excluding from it important components. Let's say her opponents ask the question: "If a person is descended from monkeys, then why do monkeys still exist?" - implying that the evolution of the organism cancels all previous steps. This question cannot be answered. Several substitutions take place at once: that evolution has ended, that man evolved from modern monkeys, finally, that evolution occurs linearly - and when one animal evolves from another, the previous step simply disappears.
This logical trick is based on a Texas arrow story that shot a revolver at a barn wall, and then walked over to it and painted around the bullet holes of the target - so that everything looked as if it hit the target every time. This is often used in hypotheses. According to the rules of the scientific method, you first need to put forward a hypothesis, and then collect data to test it - and not adjust your hypothesis to the already existing data so that it seems plausible.
Example:
"Texas shooter" is most often used in favor of the idea that the world was created by some reasonable creator. Proponents of this idea declare that the chances that a protein molecule appeared "accidentally", or cells appeared "accidentally", or even that the Universe appeared "accidentally" are incredibly small - which means our world was created by someone. This argument simply uses our world (that is, data) in order to derive a convenient hypothesis from it, but it is also erroneous because there is nothing accidental in the world: the processes of physics, chemistry and biology are extremely orderly.
Finally, we recall that all these errors are not given so that you can win in any dispute - but in order to follow your own reasoning. The last error is derived from all listed. The proof of the error is when you conclude that the idea is false because there is some kind of error in the argument in its favor. Although in fact the idea may still be correct - at least by pure chance. For example, this is the argument: “In the world there are only redheads and brunettes. Ilon Musk is not redhead, respectively, he is black”. There is a logical error (false dichotomy), but the conclusion from it is still made correct.
Example:
It is best to illustrate this mistake not with an anti-scientific example, but rather with an anti-religious one. Despite the fact that the existence of God is most often derived from the "Texas shooter", it is impossible to conclude from this error alone that God does not exist, although many atheists do just that.
Material was first published on Look At Me
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