Why Fallacies are False -- 24, your mission....

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to know how to run a discussion with somebody who backs conspiracy theories, uses fallacies, or relies on bad sources.

It starts like a fight in a movie. The hero always lets the villain take the first swing. It lets her see what the bad guy has going for him. Let the other guy make his statement.

It proceeds like a court case. Whoever starts the case has to prove they’re right. The prosecution bears the burden of proof in a criminal case; the claimant bears the burden of proof in a non-criminal case. Keep asking “How do you know?” Point out every fallacy the other person uses.

Have a dictionary on speed dial. Remember when I talked about the redefinition fallacy? Along with strawman arguments and red herrings, redefinition is a favorite way to slip past you in an argument. Don’t fall for it. Show the dictionary entry. Ask "which of these definitions is the one you want to use?" When you get the answer "none of them", then say, "then we can't define it that way. Pick another word."

Maybe you have a whiteboard handy. Write down each statement in the claim, making the claimant dictate the exact wording so you’re not making a strawman argument against them. Write the name of the fallacy, like Texas Sharpshooter, next to it, or the name of the data source.

With a data source, make the claimant give you the exact wording it used and, if that doesn’t prove that the claimant misrepresented it, such as quoting out of context, show that it’s unreliable in one way or another, such as appealing to misleading authority. Provide your countervailing sources.

Draw a line through every statement as you debunk it.

At some point, whoever you’re talking with might get frustrated and challenge you to prove the negative. Your answer is, “You started this, you have to prove it, I don’t have to prove anything.”

At some point, whoever you’re talking with might complain, “But you’re rejecting all my arguments.” Your answer is, “I told you why I rejected them. Go find different arguments.” This is usually impossible because the claimant has no real depth in the subject, but is only repeating things other people have said.

At some point, if the other person mutters, “I can’t talk to you,” your answer is, “You can talk to me all day long, but you’ll never convince me of anything as long as you use fallacies or unreliable information.” (They may be more explicit: “Don’t be such a tight-ass.” Your answer is, “That’s an ad hominem argument. Name-callers always lose.”)

I had one person say to me, “I didn’t mean for this to be a debate.” Your answer is, “You expected me to agree with everything you said. Well, I don’t, and it would have been a lie to stand here and let you think I agreed.”

I got a comment on my blog from somebody who was excited about Egyptian archaeology, but who never read what I posted. I said more than once on my blog, you have to use post-1995 archaeological data because it has revolutionized our understanding of Mediterranean cultures. The commenter recommended a book to me – that was published in 1930, before we knew that humans originated in Africa, before we knew about radiocarbon, before we knew what DNA did let alone started the Human Genome Project. People who get excited about a subject, are not necessarily people who study it in depth or keep up with the latest information. You have to study in depth or keep up with the latest info and show them that they are using debunked or superficial data.

Never assume that somebody who starts a debate with you, knows who you are and what your expertise is. Usually they won’t, and they won’t ask. And even if you say you’re an expert, they’ll probably run right on ahead with what they were going to say anyway. Keep questioning what they say, keep feeding them bits of information out of your own expertise. At the point where they admit they don’t understand what you’re saying, they also admit that they didn’t know what they were talking about in the first place. Been there, done that.

It can, however, go to extremes. Somebody who knows about my debunking blog nevertheless went ahead and tried to teach me something about the Bible. And got terribly upset when I told them they were teaching their grandmother to suck eggs. You’ll see what I mean if you read my debunking thread.

People will bring up old discussions again and again. My debunking thread got started because of an Internet discussion group, where the same questions got posted more than once. Sometimes the same person posted the question more than once. People forget what you told them; sometimes they even forget they asked. But sometimes they come across a new piece of information. Unless they have learned how to evaluate sources in the meantime, it will probably be just as bad as any source they used before. Debunk it.

Lots of people are one-issue wonders. They ignore that nothing exists in a vacuum. When JAMA recently posted a questionable paper on fluoridation they properly attached it to an introduction saying they were just trying not to exclude information. The fact is the review of the literature which they posted:

a/ admitted that 2/3 of its sources were likely to be biased, that is, they were not performing proper clinical studies, they were performing advocacy research;

b/ failed to address malnutrition which can result from bad teeth and affects learning and intelligence; 

c/ failed to assess the likelihood that two Chinese studies showed the effects of lead and mercury release into the atmosphere through coal-burning;

d/ failed to show that the IQ tests used were equivalent, never mind that IQ tests are tests of acculturation, not actual intelligence.

And in fact less than 2 IQ points were gained on a scale that goes from 60 to 120. Are you willing to risk malnutrition for your children for 2 IQ points?

This is why you can’t just be an in-depth expert on a subject: that is pipelining and how many times have I slammed that in the last few months? 

You have to drag in those side issues, because the person who is stating a false case to you never will. It looks bad for their argument. For example, tooth decay causes inflammation and this is a promoter of cardiovascular disease. So not only does eliminating fluoridation promote that worldwide deadly scourge malnutrition, it also promotes fatal heart conditions. To gain less than 2 IQ points.

It took me half an hour of Internet research to come up with scientific papers documenting the side issues that invalidate the anti-fluoridation paper. But because I understand fallacies and have fifty years of combatting them behind me, I had the nasty suspicious mind that looked into those side issues.

You’ve only got a hundred years to live. See what you can do.