The Skeptic's Field Guide

Poisoning the Well

2012-05-09T07:59:00.001+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Guilt by association; "they're all tarred with the same brush."

Description

The advocate attempts to undermine or throw doubt on the opponent's position by linking the opponent's argument to a group which is seen as suspect, a source which is denigrated by the advocate, or an idea that is unfavourably viewed. Thus the metaphor of poisoning the well. Any "water" (idea) taken from that "well" (source) is poisonous (tainted, of no value).

Example

Stan Webserver (the advocate) is engaged in a dispute with Sally Cubbyhouse during a seminar on unemployment. Sally cites some figures published by the Catholic Welfare Agency which suggest that 10% of families resident in urban areas are living below the poverty line.

Stan says: "I wouldn't even consider any figures put out by them, they all have an axe to grind and just want to undermine the policies of the government."

Comment

It may actually be true, or partially true that an advocacy group such as the Catholic Welfare Agency is prone to selective publication of results, using biased research methods, and concealing information that doesn't support their case. It may also be true that their research is impeccable, objective and extremely valuable.The seeker after truth is not naive, and therefore should be skeptical about research results. But seekers after truth are not cynical.

Stan's fallacy is in the act of dismissing the results out of hand (á priori). In doing so he refuses to give careful consideration to Sally's point. Stan's intransigence obstructs the discussion, and probably creates an implacable opponent out of Sally. Further discussion between them will be fruitless. Stan's response should have been to question Sally about the provenance of the article, and to seek further information. If the time was available to him, he could then read the article for himself and draw his own conclusions.

Advocates who habitually Poison the Well by denying á priori that information from particular sources can have any value, or by linking unrelated ideas or facts in order to disparage an opponent's position, may see themselves as skeptics. For example, a common bonding ritual in non-US Western culture, and within a particular social class, is "bagging the Americans". This is a social activity where like-minded people discussing geopolitics share variants of the sentiment "Americans can't be trusted", or "Americans are ignorant fools".

In sharing these sentiments they (by implication) congratulate each other and see themselves as skeptical, principled and capable of deep insights into global political issues. However, it could be argued that such sentiments are shallow rather than profound, and that persons expressing such sentiments are selectively cynical rather than skeptical. A seeker after truth can always come up with a skeptical response to a fatuous generalisation intended to Poison the Well.

For example, an analytical line of probing questions could be directed at the advocate who claims "Americans can't be trusted". Each question would move the advocate out of his or her comfort zone. "What do you mean by 'Americans'? All Americans? All of the time? Aren't Americans pretty diverse… like, say, Australians, Canadians, the English?"

When smug and ignorant advocates assert that they "always disbelieve" a particular source of information – e.g. the Americans, the police, a particular political party, the government, the unions, the environmental lobby, the mining companies, the military – more often than not, they fondly imagine that they are enlightened, principled and skeptical. When an advocate associates their opponent's position to a disliked group, idea, or source, they perhaps think they have made some clever insight that others are incapable of making. Perhaps they have. But when it is their modus operandi, when they routinely make such unsubstantiated links, they are declaring their knee-jerk cynicism and simple-minded world view.

Ignore the well-poisoners and seek out the company of open-minded persons. Persons more like your good self.

Other examples

A climate change contrarian makes the point that environmentalists have made many failed catastrophist predictions before, such as The Club of Rome on resources, Paul Erlich on population, and even the Y2K computer bug.

An anti-evolutionist states that Hitler was a Social Darwinist, and as such Darwin's book On the Origin of Species can't be believed.

Ad Hominem

2012-05-03T18:17:00.001+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Personal Abuse; Playing the Man (or person) Not the Ball; Personal Attack; Reductio Ad Hitlerum.

Description

The advocate attacks his or her opponent rather than the argument put forward by the opponent. When an Ad Hominem attack is used, the content of the attack does not relate to objective facts about such things as the opponent's membership of a particular group, or the profession they practise (e.g. environmentalist, lawyer). Rather, the abuse is directed at the person's character or other personal attributes.

Example

Phil Schnotter and Nigel Pennyweight are having a heated conversation in the pub about banks when Phil (the advocate) says: "I know why you think bank profits are too high Nigel... you're just prejudiced against banks because you're a penniless loser. If I were such a loser I would be prejudiced against banks too… You just hate hardworking, successful people who happen to have enough money to invest."

Comment

At times this fallacy may be hard to distinguish from other common fallacies such as Impugning Motives and Poisoning the Well. In fact, all three fallacies may be closely associated with each other and may even occur in the one sentence. The key characteristic of an Ad Hominem attack is that an abusive label is directed at the individual and used as a gratuitous insult (that is, an insult which really has no bearing on the subject under discussion).

In the example given above, the use of the word "loser" is the key indicator that an Ad Hominem attack is taking place. The label is simply a term of abuse, and Phil clearly intends to hurt and belittle Nigel by calling him a "loser". Use of such terms is likely to raise the emotional temperature of the discussion and result in an unproductive trading of insults. (Note that immediately after the personal abuse in the example above, Phil then impugns Nigel's motives in the words that follow the personal abuse. He says: "… You just hate hardworking, successful people...")

Another point to consider is whether the personal abuse is, strictly speaking, a fallacy; is there a link between the personal attack and the claim? In the example above, Phil clearly links his abuse of Nigel, calling him a penniless loser, to his hatred of banks, by using the conjunction "because". As such, Phil is fallacious.

If Phil had stated: "You are wrong about bank profits. It's important for banks to maintain a healthy cash reserve to be protected against economic slow downs and recession. And, also, you are a penniless loser." he would still be engaging in personal abuse, but would not fallacious. In this version, the abuse is merely an entertaining adjunct to the argument.

A form of personal abuse which is particularly common today is the unjustified use of a negative label associated with the topic under consideration. For example, a witless advocate might label a proponent of zero population growth a "racist" without justification. In doing this, he or she is actually seeking to undermine the proponent's credibility in order to evade discussion of the issue, rather than engaging in considered debate. It is commonly the case that for each term of abuse that may be directed at a person advocating one side of an argument, there is a term of abuse which may be directed at the other side. For every "greenie", there is a "redneck", for every "misogynist" there is a "feminazi", for every "fascist" there is a "stalinist", for every "homophobe" there is a "queer".

Arguably the most vile form of Ad Hominem is Reductio Ad Hitlerum. This variant, given its name, should be fairly obvious to spot. Comparing the disliked leader of a political party to Hitler is a seemingly popular fallacy that people who hold extreme political views like to make on occasions. Comparing any modern western democratically elected leader to Hitler should be self evidently absurd to the impartial observer. Any advocate of a point of view should avoid labelling an opponent with emotionally laden, abusive and grossly simplistic terms. Labelling invites retaliation, and the intellectual level of the debate plummets beyond any hope of recovery.

The authors of this book are particularly averse to puerile name-calling and gratuitous slander directed at individuals during any disagreement. It is our considered view that anyone who deliberately uses personal abuse in an attempt to win an argument is engaging in unconscionable conduct. No matter what the circumstances, any person who resorts to Ad Hominem only does so because they are a stupid bastard of the first order.

The Perfect Solution

2012-05-01T08:35:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Silver bullet; burden of solution

Description

The advocate claims that because a proposed solution, idea, or system is not perfect, it should be abandoned completely.

Examples

1. Radio "shock jock" Kyle Jones is angrily discussing the speeding fine he received on the way to work in the morning. "These hidden camera speed traps are complete rubbish. I got caught speeding. Big deal. Down the road, after getting the ticket, I was immediately speeding again. They don't work. People still speed. It's just government revenue raising."

2. Recent changes in the sport of tiddledywinks, allow a referee to use slow motion video, infrared "hot spot" cameras and trajectory tracking and prediction "laser eye" software, in any close decisions. This really upsets commentator Gumptal Flabernarky. Commentating on a review in which he believed the referee incorrectly referred, he states: "Is he kidding himself? Even with the slow-motion replay he got it wrong! I could've told him that without the replay. What a joke this use of technology is. If he can't get it right even with the slow-mo, then why have it at all?"

Comment

In the first example, Jones argues that because the enforcement of speeding laws will not be able to catch every person who speeds (the system is not perfect), we should abandon any enforcement completely. This fails to take into account that it is not intended to be perfect and that enforcement is, presumably, intended to be a deterrent. If such a deterrent leads to less speeding and as such, lowers the road toll, then on balance it's probably a good thing.

The Perfect Solution fallacy is closely related to, and often made up of, the fallacies False Dichotomy and Burden of Solution. Speeding and enforcement of speeding laws is not a black and white issue. We need to consider how we deal with different degrees of speeding and repeat offenders, and examine the effect of permanent speed cameras, mobile speed traps, highway patrols etc. If we agree that speeding is bad, but do not like the current laws and enforcement, then we should probably propose other mechanisms, or risk being guilty of the Burden of Solution. How else can we try to stop motorists from speeding other than fines and court appearances? One cannot denigrate the current system, fairly, without proposing some other solution (or at least acknowledging one's own failings).

It is also worth noting that Jones goes on to impugn the motives of the police and government, stating that speeding fines are really about revenue raising, rather than lowering the road death and injury toll. He also fails to acknowledge that most other people wouldn't keep speeding after getting a fine, because most other people aren't self centered wankers.

In the second example we, the audience, are able to see that a referee made the wrong decision because we can check using technology. Yet Flabernarky goes onto argue, because the technology is not perfect, the referees ought to not use it to help make decisions? A self-contradictory argument if there's ever been one.

By analogy we can see the absurdity of this position. "Even with the very latest high resolution medical imaging equipment doctors still make incorrect diagnoses! What a joke this use of technology is. If doctors can't get it right even with the the latest technology, then why have it at all?"

Observational Selection

2012-04-23T22:48:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Selective observations; counting the hits and ignoring the misses; searching for confirming instances; observer bias; publication bias.

Description

This error occurs along a broad spectrum, from individuals forming their own views on a subject of very little importance, to research into sensitive and complex social issues, and even "hard sciences" such as physics. At either end of the spectrum, observations are made by people and people have unconscious (and sometimes conscious) biases. These biases influence the observations people make.

When research is carried out by advocates of a particular viewpoint, the researcher has definite convictions about the importance of particular variables and for this reason, they may consciously or unconsciously tend to seek confirmation of their views in the data and ignore contradictory evidence. The advocate "observes", but only pays attention to information which seems to support their existing convictions.

Example

Jenny Frame is being interviewed on the national radio program Social Issues. The subject of the interview is her PhD research on "recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse". In the course of the interview, she states: "My research is designed to demonstrate that child sexual abuse is very widespread and that most victims repress their memories of abuse throughout their adult lives."

Comment

Jenny's description of her research indicates that she is seeking to "prove" a hypothesis, rather than to test it. Her approach to research is clearly partisan and biased. Policy-makers, lawyers or practitioners in the field of child protection could not safely rely upon Jenny's conclusions. She would be far more credible if she described her research in the following terms: "I am seeking to establish the nature and extent of child sexual abuse, and whether and to what extent the victims repress their memories of abuse throughout their adult lives."

This improved description of Jenny's research intentions is certainly more even-handed than the original description, but of course there is still no guarantee that her research will prove to be unbiased. Ultimately the credibility of her research can only be assessed by closely examining her methodology.

Observational selection can often be found in research programs. PhD candidates, for example, naturally frame a topic which accords with their current interests and convictions. They try to find a supervisor whose mind-set is compatible with their own. The thesis is also probably examined by academics who are sympathetic to the topic, methodology and findings. This is not to say that these lines of research are therefore flawed. Each would need to be treated on its own merits. (For a notorious case history of observational selection of this kind, the reader is encouraged to retrieve and read articles and/or books by Derek Freeman and others on Margaret Mead's anthropological fantasies in Samoa.)

Public enquiries about social issues conducted by panels of self-selected advocates are usually profoundly biased and hopelessly compromised. Campaigners for human rights are arguably the least suitable panellists for a disinterested, truth-seeking enquiry on human rights; judges are arguably the least suitable panellists for a truth-seeking enquiry on judicial powers; parliamentarians are arguably the least suitable panellists for a truth-seeking enquiry on parliamentary superannuation; developers are arguably the least suitable panellists for a truth-seeking enquiry on local government rezoning powers.

Observational Selection is not confined to flawed methodologies in formal research programs or public enquiries. Few individuals can even read a newspaper article without selectively attending to information which confirms their own biases. Casual readers of magazine horoscopes often see accurate predictions where none exist. Two bystanders present at a brawl between police and protesters will sincerely ascribe blame for the incident to different protagonists.

In any contentious situation, the seeker after truth will at least recognise the potential for biased observation, and will be wary about possible distortions of the truth, overstatement, exaggeration or outright fabrication by partisan advocates.

Naturalistic Fallacy

2012-04-19T08:45:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Is/ought fallacy; Argument to nature.

Description

The advocate claims that because something is natural or exists in nature, it is by definition good. And/or the advocate derives 'ought' from 'is' without any compelling (and reasonable) link.

Example

Talk show host Grant Haggard has invited guest Riley Hardge on his show to discuss proposed gay marriage legislation. Hardge, attempts to bring up Haggard's recent arrest for public obscenity: "So Grant, you admit you were in the park that afternoon, and given you had binoculars I would normally believe you when you say you were bird watching. But why did witnesses see you in your van with your pants off?"

Haggard ignores the questions, turns to the camera and states: "The issue at stake here is the nature of family and life itself. Enacting this legislation would be commiting a crime against nature. The natural state of affairs is for marriage to be one man and one woman, so we can maintain the family unit. Look no further than the humble beaver. Both mother and father beaver have essential roles in the family unit. They mate for life and raise their young together, as a team. Just like humans do!"

Comment

Haggard's argument is wrong in two significant ways. The first, and most obvious, is that he has cherry picked one example from nature, from millions, to make his point. He has Stacked the Deck. One can demonstrate this easily by picking a fun counter example. Bonobos, for example, exhibit almost the complete opposite behaviour to beavers. They are overly promiscuous, engaging in opposite sex, same sex, and multiple partner sexual behavour, as frequently as humans shake hands.

The other way in which he is wrong is the Naturalistic Fallacy. Giving his example the benefit of the doubt, let's say that in nature homosexuality does not occur besides in humans. So? There is no compelling logic or link from the way things are (a description) to the way things ought to be (an ethical position). Haggard is essentially Begging the Question. He has presupposed that the way beavers live is good.

Another example of the Naturalistic Fallacy is the most basic argument in favour of Social Darwinism - a theory of societal ethics which claims its basis is in nature (evolution by natural selection - though it has a closer resemblance to selective breeding). Social Darwinists argued that if nature is this way (only the ‘fittest’ survive), then it ought to be this way with various features of society. (It has been mostly used as a justification for laissez-faire economics and eugenics.) But as with the previous example, this is an unfounded leap.

An argument in support of an ethical theory needs a better claim than, because something is done this way, it ought to be. This has nothing to do with whether it is right or wrong, good or bad. It is simply a statement of (supposed) fact. To get from a fact to an ethical value, there needs to be some kind of compelling argument about the ‘goodness’ or ‘evilness’ of the fact. For this to happen we need an agreed upon ‘good,’ and an agreed upon ‘evil’. (Note, this is a very simplistic treatment of Social Darwinism - and arguments not based on ‘is-ought’ with respect to the ‘goodness’ of laissez-faire economics and eugenics have been made by many.)

Moving the Goalposts

2012-04-13T08:10:00.001+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Shifting sands; raising the bar; running for cover; red herring.

Description

The advocate changes the nature of the discussion by seeking to make the opponent tackle a more difficult version of the topic. The topic that was originally under discussion is recast and the new version favours the advocate. This tactic is often used when the backpedalling advocate feels that he or she is about to lose the argument. With the "goalposts" in their original position, the opponent would "score". But with the posts moved, the opponent's "shot" is now "off target".

Examples

1. Bella Donna claims that Sybil Antwhisper, her room-mate, is not sharing the housework equitably. Sybil tells Bella to go away and itemise and record who does what household tasks. If Bella can show that she does more housework than Sybil, then Sybil will mend her ways. A week passes and Bella shows Sybil clear evidence that Sybil does not "pull her weight" around the house.

Sybil (the advocate) responds: "That's all very well, but I have more work and study commitments than you do – you should do more housework than me... it's the total work of all kinds that matters, not just housework."

2. Three weeks out from the State Election, the Premier and Leader of the opposition are taking part in a televised debate. The issue in contention is the running of Public Hospitals under the current government. The Leader of the Opposition, Ken Oath, is making his point: "Under your government, the average waiting times in emergency rooms is four hours. Now that's just not good enough."

The Premier, Phillip Ingheck, replies: "I agree, four hours is clearly not good enough. That's what it was before we came into office. Under my government the waiting time has actually been reduced from four to two hours." Ken responds: "Well that's not the real issue anyway, it's waiting times for operations."

Comment

In the first example the implied agreement between Bella and Sybil at the outset was that the amount of housework done by both parties should be approximately the same. When Sybil was confronted by the evidence however, she quickly and unilaterally "changed the terms of the debate". She did this because the evidence was against her version of events and she was about to lose the argument on the issue as originally defined.

Whether or not it is morally right to count all forms of work when assessing household contributions is not the issue here. The issue here is that the ducking and weaving advocate (Sybil) is seeking to change the terms of the dispute to avoid a defeat on the original issue in contention.

In this situation, and if Bella is a skeptic and critical thinker, she would point out that Sybil was attempting to move the goalposts. She would insist that they resolve the original question as agreed, and that any further discussion or extension of the issue would have to be considered separately. If the issue had originally been defined as "total work" rather than "housework", then Sybil would have a point. As it is, her argument is weak and ethically suspect.

In the second example Ken realizes that he had initially used out of date information which did not support his case. Instead of acknowledging this, he attempts to change the focus of their discussion on Public Hospitals from emergency room waiting times to waiting times for operations. Phillip would be well advised to point this shift in focus out, and say that he is more than happy to discuss this new issue (waiting times for operations) once the first issue has been resolved.

Moving the goalposts can be avoided if both parties agree at the outset to clearly define the parameters of the discussion. Time spent doing this is time well spent. Otherwise discussions can become misdirected, frustrating and pointless.

Other Examples

Lots of squealing from the left… about Kerry Packer minimising his taxes. …But they’re wrong about Packer. In fact, he paid far too much. If anything, Packer was overly generous — every year he and his companies paid millions more than they needed to. Over his career, Packer possibly paid billions more than was strictly required... In wages. [Blogger Tim Blair defending former media tycoon Kerry Packer <http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/packer_attackers> Emphasis in original.]

Moral Equivalence

2012-04-10T09:15:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Moral confusion; deceptive moral comparison; mendacious moral equivalence (also see sanctimony); false analogy.

Description

The advocate seeks to draw false comparisons between two phenomena which are not morally equivalent. The fallacy of moral equivalence is a strategy often used to denigrate an agency or entity by implying or stating that its policies or practices are as reprehensible as a widely (and justifiably) despised agency or entity.

An Example

Adam Polemicist is the third speaker for the negative in the Fooloomooloo High School senior debating team. He is attacking the third speaker for the affirmative who has just spoken. The topic of the debate is: "Asylum Seekers should be detained in a secure facility while their applications for refugee status are assessed."

Adam (the advocate) states: "So-called refugee facilities are nothing more than concentration camps. Just like concentration camps used by the Nazis, they are designed to break the will of the inmates while plans are made for their disposal."

Comment

At times this fallacy may be closely associated with another common fallacy – weasel words. If for example, Adam had just referred to refugee detention centres as "concentration camps" and left it at that, he would be using weasel words in an attempt to evoke an emotional response in the audience.However he has not just used this label – he has gone on to make an explicit claim of moral equivalence. He has asserted that the refugee detention centres are "just like" Nazi concentration camps. While there may be some superficial points of comparison between a refugee detention centre and a Nazi concentration camp, these would need to be made point by point on their own merits (and tested one by one by the skeptical opponent).

In the present example, the advocate's sweeping claim of aggregate moral equivalence is a mere rhetorical device which says more about his penchant for moral posturing than his grasp of the issue. It is worth noting that arguments to moral equivalence often employ the fallacy of false analogy. Adam's attempt to equate detention centres with concentration camps is a particularly egregious false analogy because he intended it to be taken as a literal analogy. Debunking opponents should explicitly repudiate instances of unjustified moral equivalence.

When egregious claims of moral equivalence are made between (say) the US Government and Nazi Germany; or between a labour union and Stalinist Russia; seekers after truth should not just reject the claim. They should address false moral equivalence as an issue in itself. It should be pointed out that those who are in the habit of claiming baseless equivalence are not primarily interested in solving problems or addressing issues – they are interested in winning an argument through the use of shallow rhetorical devices.

Thinking about this further, if the refugee detention centre example above truely was morally equivalent to a Nazi concentration camp, then there would in fact be no need to compare it to a Nazi concentration camp. Simply describe what goes on in the detention centre. If there are mass killings, why compare it to anything else? Just point out there are mass killings, and mass killings are bad. And thus we see why insincere advocates resort to moral equivalence. Without resorting to hyperbole, they have nothing to say.

An unfortunate by-product of the promiscuous use of the moral equivalence fallacy is the potential for moral confusion. For example, an individual who keeps a pampered pet cat indoors in a home unit might be castigated by an animal rights activist for confining the cat. The claim might be made that the confinement is "a form of torture". The activist advocate further claims that the cat owner is no better (in a moral sense) than a feedlot operator. The comparison is clearly inappropriate and unjustified – the cat owner knows this and so the argument is not persuasive. Further, the cat-owner would tend to be dismissive of any further points made by the animal rights activist, who otherwise might have made some excellent points regarding the treatment of animals in other contexts.

It's worth pointing out that occasonally one can find an example of a positive moral exquivalence that is fallacious. Usually it comes from an individual with an overinflated sense of self worth who chooses to compare themselves or their actions to some highly regarded person; Jesus and Gandhi seem to be popular.

The authors of this book have no doubt that their efforts in writing about fallacies and informal logic, continuing and extending the work of people such as Aristotle, Hegel, Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein and Jesus, will quell such behaviour.

Other examples

'Most people in this room understand that slavery is not over in America or in the Western world or in the world in general. The animals are today's slaves.' Ingrid Newkirk, President of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)

Misuse of Information

2012-04-06T13:20:00.001+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Misuse or misunderstanding of statistics; misuse or misunderstanding of facts and/or theories.

Description

The advocate misinterprets information (and the misinterpretation supports his or her position); or the advocate deliberately misuses information (a statistic, fact or theory) in order to support his or her position.

Example

1. Misuse of statistics

Scott Armani raises a delicate issue with his boss Phil Greenspan: "What am I going to do about the average wage of the employees in our third world factory for this report? We need to make it look like we pay decent wages."

Phil responds:e "Easy to fix. Just include the factory manager's pay rate and the average should come out nicely."

Following Phil's advice, Scott works out the average wage as follows. He uses data based on ten employees from the factory, including the manager. Their rates per hour are: $1.00, $1.00, $1.00, $1.00, $2.00, $2.00, $2.00, $3.00 , $3.00, $50.00. Thus the average wage for the factory as stated in the Annual Report will be $6.60 per hour.

2. Misuse of facts/theories

Karl Vladimir Eyemnotrite is the editor of the monthly Stalinist newsletter, We've Still (sort of) Got China, Cuba and North Korea. Writing in his usual opinionated style, he editorialises against the recent attempt to introduce laws to ban gay marriage.

"The problem with laws like this, is that they are judgmental. They tell us how to live. But we are in no position to judge anyone else. In order to judge, we must first be able to observe. Einstein showed us, with his theory of relativity, there are no privileged observers. Everything is relative. Quantum physics adds to this. The act of observing (or rather judging) changes the properties of things. So given these two fundamentals of physics – everything is relative, nothing absolute, and observations change what we are observing – how can we judge something like gay marriage if it does not harm us directly? The answer? We can't."

Comment

In the first example, Scott has not technically lied in his report, but he has used a statistical technique to create the impression the company prefers. The average chosen for the report is the mean. It is one of the three most common measures of central tendency – the others are the median and the mode. The mode of Scott's data range (that is, what most of their employees are paid per hour) is $1.00. The median pay, (the middle number when the data is arranged in ascending order) is $2.00 per hour. Through the selective use of statistics Scott (on the advice of Phil) has painted the picture he wants for the report.

In the second example, Karl Vladimir has cited two concepts of modern physics to back up his claim. These are theories of the physical world and say nothing about ethics or law. Thus they are being misused. In this book we do not take issue with gay marriage (what two or more consenting adults get up to and label it is entirely up to them), but we do take issue with fallacious reasoning, such as Karl's argument raised in his editorial, which misuses a theory and is therefore flawed.

The best defence for seekers after truth – against being deceived by the misuse of information – is to do their "homework" on the topic under consideration. This is only really possible if the general topic of discussion is known beforehand (in the case of verbal discussion), or if time is available for follow-up reading (when the misleading material is in a publication). If the misleading material is offered during a spontaneous discussion, in the age of internet enabled smartphones, a quick query on a search engine could be enough to call a sciolist's bluff.

That being said, the best recourse for the skeptic is to question advocates closely on the details of their claim, and to be alert for circular arguments, weak premises, unwarranted inferences and weak or unconvincing anecdotes. Close questioning often reveals that ill-informed advocates know far less about the topic than they claim to know. We have certainly found that at least 100% of those few people who routinely disagree with us know five eighths of three fifths of nothing at all about anything.

Other examples

"Quantum Scalar Energy Pendant is made from natural minerals that are fused and structurally bonded together at a molecular level. It produces scalar energy that helps to enhance the body’s biofield. Quantum Scalar Energy Pendant promotes positive flow of energy and helps to maintain energy balance. Mineral based high-tech formulated energy pendant, made from volcanic lava, using Japanese technology. Capable of emitting scalar energy instantly transforming bio-energy into our body to promote molecular activities of water molecules in body organs." Quantum Scalar Energy Pendant (http://www.sependant.com).

WTF? Fallacy

2012-04-01T22:45:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Kook, Crank, Nutter

Description

The advocate puts forward a claim that is comprehensively and self-evidently flawed - a claim that is beyond flawed - it borders on the insane. Because the claim is so error ridden one would not actually know where to begin in trying to analyse it. The WTF?* Fallacy is only to be invoked when the claim under consideration is so lacking in any rational basis that one is left speechless with perverse admiration - how could anyone, in their right mind, make such an astonishingly stupid assertion? The only possible response is those three little words, muttered in hushed and awed tones: "What the F....?

Comment

Though similar in nature to Simple-Minded Certitude, the WTF? Fallacy is more extreme. WTF?ers ought to have seen the absurdity of their claim for themselves. There is simply no point in engaging with a WTF?er, as meaningful interaction will be nigh on impossible. Our advice is to completely avoid any interaction. If you must engage in social intercourse, a supercilious attitude is best, and moreover, such an attitude is completely justified. Heap nothing but scorn and derision upon the advocate.

A clue for spotting WTF?ers is that initially one would naturally assume that the deluded one was putting forth an absurdist joke. To which your natural response might be: "Good one mate... Hahahaha... That's a hilarious suggestion."But there will be no reciprocal jovial response from the WTF?er, merely a blank stare. A blank stare which should be met with raised eyebrows, and a comment such as: "Please tell me you're not serious?"

The WTF?er of course will continue to stare blankly... no data can ever enter that tinfoil-covered case-hardened skull.You should avoid drooling when your mouth reflexively drops open at this point. A shorthand way of describing your state at this moment of realisation is "gobsmacked". Take a step backward (for reasons of personal safety - at this point you realise you are not dealing with a rational human being after all), turn on your heel, shake your head, beat a safe retreat, and mutter: "What the Fuh...?"

Other examples

“I mean, one of the biggest problems that exists right now in the world is nuclear waste... That's something I've been involved with for a while with a group of scientists - finding a way to neutralise radiation, believe it or not... According to science, we aren't going to have a planet in about 50 years at the rate we're going with nuclear waste... I can write the greatest songs and make the most fabulous films and be a fashion icon and conquer the world, but if there isn't a world to conquer, what's the point?” Madonna (2006).

"I'm just wondering what the heck is in our water supply?... Of metallic oxide salts, that create a rainbow effect in a sprinkler? What is oozing out of our ground, that allows this type of effect to happen? ... This cannot be natural. We all know, it wasn't something that happened 20 years ago, but now it's happening now." A lady viewing the "rainbow" in her sprinkler, Youtube clip - Haarp's Rainbow Aerosol's [sic], July 6, 2007

"We used to have, in Atlantis, 12 strands [of DNA], and they're in the form of four triangles facing in, in each cell. And we forgot who we were in the experiment after Atlantis, and everything changed; reincarnation was introduced..." Elisis Livingstone, professional faith healer, in The Enemies of Reason.

* We are aware that there may be other interpretations of WTF?, however as far as we're concerned it stands for "What the Fuh…?"

Podcast on WTF? Fallacy http://ia700208.us.archive.org/3/items/HuntingHumbug101Episode1-WhatIsHumbug/18Tutorial18_Wtf_Fallacy.mp3

Weasel words

2012-03-28T19:21:00.000+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Euphemism; dysphemisms, emotionally loaded language; missile words.

Description

The phoney advocate uses euphemisms, dysphemisms or emotionally loaded labels to boost his or her own position or to undermine the opponent's position. The general descriptor weasel words is a metaphorical usage which connotes a "weasel-like" slippery evasion. The fraudster, in using weasel words, seeks to misrepresent the issue under discussion by avoiding an accurate and factual description of the topic.

Example

Hazel Clavicle the peace activist and Irwin Tammany the former Minister of Defence are being interviewed by Bob Sizlics on a current affairs television program. The topic under discussion is the French bombing campaign in support of the rebel alliance fighting government forces in the Republic of Mukalukaluk.

After viewing footage of bomb damage, Bob asks them both for a comment on civilian casualties. Hazel claims the damage is evidence of genocide. Irwin says that collateral damage is always regrettable.

Comment

Both Hazel and Irwin may be sincere in their beliefs. However both are obscuring the reality of the issue by using weasel words.

When Hazel describes the situation as "genocide", she is seeking to equate war-zone civilian casualties with the deliberate mass killing of non-combatant ethnic groups because of their ethnicity (i.e. actual genocide). She is appropriating a legitimate and essential term for her own corrupt purposes. She is using "genocide" as a dysphemism. In doing so she compromises its accepted meaning and reduces its potency and precision. Over time, widespread misuse of the term will leave us with no label for actual genocide in common usage. A by-product of watering down such a term is the comfort it provides to perpetrators of genuine genocide.

Irwin's euphemistic use of "collateral damage" is intended to distance the viewer from the human drama and tragedy which is the outcome of almost any bombing campaign. Civilians are, after all, people. Collateral implies buildings and real estate rather than individual human beings.

If Bob, the interviewer, were a seeker after truth and a good journalist, he would challenge both his interviewees on their tendentious use of terminology. He would ask them to justify their usage. If he did this, and pursued the matter, they might even both agree that they are talking about "civilian casualties" rather than genocide or collateral damage. If participants involved in any discussion agree to reject the use of weasel words (in favour of precise descriptions), the discussion is much more likely to result in a fruitful outcome.

Mealy-mouthed weasels commonly accuse their opponents of not being "open-minded". The seeker after truth will treat such accusations with skepticism. The weasel may simply be using a disparaging label as a rhetorical tactic. The "thought processes" underlying the accusation might be something along the following lines: "My opponent does not agree with me. Further, because I believe I am open-minded, my opponent's disagreement must mean they are not open-minded."

Corruption of a useful term like “open-minded” by closed-minded weasels should be attacked with vigour at every opportunity. After all, it could be that those claiming to be open-minded are in fact closed-minded to the fact they are full of crap.

Other examples

"You see, [Obama] believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe, in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism." John McCain during the 2008 Presidential Election (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/18/campaign.wrap/index.html). Accessed 2 November 2008.

“Indigenous people have the answers and we need collaborating, not using a jackboot to seize powers.” Then leader of the Australian Democrats – Lyn Alison (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6229708). Accessed 28 June 2008.

“In plain English, what does it mean when students ‘achieve a deficiency’ or reach a ‘suboptimal outcome?’ It means they failed. A ‘suboptimal outcome’ is even worse in a hospital. It means the patient died. The airline industry sometimes speaks of a ‘hull loss.’ What it means is that a plane just crashed. Here’s more twisted language: your doorman is now known as an ‘access controller,’ and a receptionist is a ‘director of first impressions.’” John Leo. The Office of Assertion - Some thoughts on writing well (http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-05-21jl.html) Accessed 15 April 2009.

Unfounded generalisation

2012-03-25T11:26:00.001+10:00

Other Terms and/or Related Concepts

Unwarranted inference, false generalisation, over-generalisation, stereotyping.

Description

There are two fairly distinct forms of unfounded generalisation which may nevertheless "blend" into each other. They are false generalisation and over-generalisation.

A false generalisation may involve drawing a conclusion about an issue based on too small a sample or on atypical cases. It involves making a claim about a group which is untrue or unsubstantiated. An example would be a statement such as: "Both my grandfathers were heavy smokers and died of old age in their 90s. So I don't think smoking causes lung cancer."

An over-generalisation, on the other hand, is a blanket statement which asserts that a whole group has certain characteristics when the characteristics in question may only be widespread or typical of the group rather than universal.ExampleCecily Backspace has just completed a study of gender and leadership based on open-ended interviews with bosses and workers. She has written an article for Financial World Weekly purporting to be based on her work. In the introduction to the article she states: "It is commonly accepted that women in leadership positions build consensus in work teams, whereas men seek to dominate through competition. My research project seeks to identify the impact of such leadership styles on subordinates..."

Comment

It may or may not be true that on average women in leadership positions seek to build consensus, but Cecily's blanket statement above suggests that this is her á priori belief. Even if it is true that on average, women seek to build consensus (when compared to men), her assertion that "women in leadership positions build consensus" is much too unequivocal. If what she asserts were literally true, then there would be no autocratic female politicians and no consensus-building male leaders.

Two more examples: (a) "Men are smarter than women" is a false generalisation because it is untrue; (b) "men are taller than women" is a true generalisation given the unstated assumption that it only applies "on average" and not to particular individuals. Unfounded generalisations are often the core of racial or gender stereotypes. For example, a person may assume all members, or almost all members of a racial or cultural group are violent because the two individuals from the group that they met in a dark alley last week were violent.

It is generally the case that enlightened people living in contemporary cosmopolitan cultures are sensitised to issues such as racism and sexism. They know that they shouldn't hold negative stereotypes about vulnerable groups in society, even if a member of such a group assaulted them with a broken beer bottle last night in the hotel carpark. Negative stereotypes are readily recognised as unfounded generalisations. Right-thinking people tend to avoid them because they understand they should not pre-judge an individual because of their group associations or characteristics.

However, people are less likely to recognise the flawed reasoning in positive stereotypes. Consider the following statement: "Indigenous peoples are more spiritual than people living in industrialised societies." Few would take offence at such a statement, but it is nevertheless a blanket assertion offered without evidence. As stated, it is clearly an unfounded generalisation and just as logically flawed as a negative stereotype.

Part 3: Tools for straight thinking - Humbug! 2nd Edition

2012-02-03T08:07:00.000+10:00

This book primarily deals with spotting humbug. However, it is important to be able to put forward rational reasons for believing or not believing a particular claim. There are numerous techniques a one can keep in the "intellectual toolbox" which can help in this debunking process. This section of the book outlines some of these techniques and rules of thumb.

Occam’s Razor

If there are two (or more) equally valid, but conflicting hypotheses for an observed phenomenon, one should choose the hypothesis that requires the least number of steps to explain it. If you have different explanations for something, all of which can explain it equally well, then you have no reason to choose a complex reason over a simple one.

Note that the essential criterion - explain it equally well - must be met before applying Occam’s razor. (Obviously it is always preferable to accept the hypothesis that explains "the something" best.) Occam’s razor is no guarantee of truth or even of likelihood, but it is not invoked as such. It is a "rule of thumb" that is used to give provisional acceptance to a hypothesis. The provision is that until evidence comes along to give greater weight to an alternative hypothesis, it is best to stick with the simplest one. As Occam once said: "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer."

Spinning Another Hypothesis

In order to use Occam’s razor it is, of course, necessary to have more than one hypothesis. The technique spinning another hypothesis is very useful in combination with Occam’s razor. When commentators propose reasons for a claim, are their reasons the only ones possible? If you are able to think of another reason, then the answer is "obviously not", and even if you can’t think of another reason it doesn’t mean there isn’t one - you might not be that smart (although given the book you're reading this is likely not the case). When thinking of alternative reasons you are, in the words of Carl Sagan, spinning another hypothesis.

Once other possible explanations have been proposed, the next step is to eliminate (if we can) each hypothesis until there is only one. Consider all the possible tests that could be done to demonstrate that all the alternative explanations are false. If it isn’t possible to whittle all the possible explanations down to one, then apply Occam’s razor. Spinning another hypothesis is essential if one wants to remain open-minded and undogmatic. People tend to make up their minds about things very early on and ignore evidence that doesn’t fit their "worldview" (as Francis Bacon called it - counting the hits and forgetting the misses).

Hume's Razor

In his work Of Miracles, David Hume nominated a principle which has since been called Hume’s razor:

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless that testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to establish.

If we are asked to believe X, in deciding whether to believe it (give provisional assent) or not we should ask: "Is it more likely that X is true, or that the evidence for X is mistaken (or can be interpreted in a different or more realistic way)?" If it seems that it’s more likely that the evidence is wrong, then we don’t believe X.

Playing the Devil’s Advocate

This is a tool which can be used to promote open-minded skepticism. It involves strong advocacy of negations to the proposition in question. Like a good debater, the devil’s advocate employs reason to examine a position or argument in order to test its validity; bringing up facts or points that are unfavourable to the position or argument in order to test it. In this sense it is similar to spinning another hypothesis.

The role of the devil’s advocate is to be skeptical and to find flaws in the proponent’s argument despite the fact that this person often also believes the argument. Whether the devil’s advocate ultimately believes any of the points being made is irrelevant. This is a process to go through in order to ensure an argument is as flawless as possible - through the proponent’s systematic rebuttal of the points made by the devil’s advocate. (For those with an etymological bent, the expression "devil’s advocate" comes from Catholicism. It was an argumentative position taken up in order to challenge claims of advocates putting forward individuals of saintly reputation for beatification and canonisation.)

Let's consider an example that demonstrates a few of these things.

We are not going to entertain any specific claims of 9-11 conspiracy theorists. This has been done elsewhere with far greater knowledge and skill than we could hope to muster. Moreover, it's not really possible to reason with such people, even with a point-by-point take down. However, here are four points about such beliefs in general.

Playing the devil's advocate, and spinning another (or rather, the official) hypothesis, if it's a choice between a conspiracy or a "stuff up", then go with the stuff up every time. 9-11 was a stuff up by intelligence agencies. (To be fair to conspiracy theorists - there was a conspiracy - by al-Qaeda.)
The White House was incapable of covering up something as small as (known to only a few people) Bill Clinton's "extra-curricular" activities with an intern and a cigar. Yet, conspiracy theorists would have us believe they were capable of covering up a conspiracy that would require the perfect compliance and secrecy of hundreds of people?

To both these points let us apply Occam's razor. To be justified in applying Occam's razor, the conspiracy needs to have equal explanatory power as the standard explanation. For the sake of argument, we will grant the 9-11 conspiracy equal explanatory validity as the official version. We can apply Occam's razor and still refute it. By definition, conspiracies are always more complex than the standard explanation - conspiracies involve steps to cover them up. More steps, more complex. To rationally believe a conspiracy, it must have better explanatory power than the standard explanation. But, of course, they never do (which, presumably, is why they're not the standard version!).

Following from this we can now see a place for Hume's razor. We are asked to believe a 9-11 conspiracy theory. In deciding whether to believe it (give provisional consent) or not we should ask: "Is it more likely that the conspiracy is true or that the evidence of the conspiracy (as outlined by the conspiracy theorists) is mistaken or can be interpreted in a different or more realistic way?" Putting it simply - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Conspiracies such as 9-11 certainly fall under the category of an "extraordinary claim", yet their evidence is completely unconvincing (and at times, quite laughable).

The official version - al Qaeda (who have claimed 9-11 of course) hijacked and crashed four planes - is far more convincing. It's not that extraordinary - Muslim terrorists exist, have been and continue to be suicidal, and state their hatred of America and the West on a regular basis. However, it would be extraordinary if the evidence from 9-11 was faked, mistaken or could be interpreted in a more convincing way.

After the tragedy of the September 11 attacks in the US, it was a given that the conspiracy nuts would be out in full force. Their claims are as numerous and detailed as they are paranoid, single-minded and simple-minded. Broadly, they believe the US government, CIA and military orchestrated the attacks. They make claims such as the US military flew planes into the World Trade Centre and used a bunker buster bomb to attack the Pentagon. Al-Qaeda had nothing to do with it, in contrast to what the 'official' version of events would have us believe.

Falsification

If someone proposes some theory about something, could it be tested? Karl Popper argued that science proceeds by refuting false hypotheses, not by confirming true ones.

Popper's work has been criticised, but what we can say about Popper's idea of falsification, is that at the very least, for a hypothesis to be worthy of consideration it needs to be testable by some method. There needs to be some criteria, some kind of evidence (at least in theory), that would allow us to judge the hypothesis false. The more detailed and specific the hypothesis, the better, as this means there is potentially more evidence that would warrant us judging it false. If we can find no such evidence, then the explanation looks quite strong. Killing erroneous hypotheses is the paradox by which science proceeds. As Popper said: "Our belief in any particular natural law cannot have a safer basis than our unsuccessful critical attempts to refute it.” (Conjectures and refutations. P 75).

Falsification should be applied to any idea about how the physical world works. Any hypothesis about the physical world should be falsifiable - expressed as a predictive statement that through experimental investigation could be shown to be false. Applying falsification to the non-physical world - such as politics - is a little more problematic. However, it's always worth having the idea of falsification in the back of your mind when someone proposes an explanation for something. That is, "How could I tell if what you're saying is horse shit or not?"

When a claim is not falsifiable, one is dealing with an Immunised Hypothesis. Claims about the physical world that are based on immunised hypotheses are pseudo-scientific. Examples of pseudo-sciences that Popper became suspicious of are psychoanalytic beliefs such as those of Freud and political Ideologies such as Marxism. In Popper's view, these theories could never go wrong, as they were sufficiently flexible to accommodate any type of new behaviour. No observation or test could show these theories to be false, as their proponents are able to invent 'just-so'stories to account for any possible behaviour. These theories gave the appearance of being able to explain everything, but in fact they explained nothing, as they could rule out nothing. Of course there are other pseudo-scientific beliefs we can easily include with the previously mentioned ones - intelligent design, astrology, fortune telling, tarot cards…

An important point to note about Falsification is it is only able to discriminate between scientific and non-scientific propositions. On its own it cannot identify the truthfulness of those propositions. It is also difficult to apply to very complex phenomena, where the chain of cause-and-effect can be lost in a dizzying number of feedback loops that often occur across many spatial and temporal scales.

Inversion

Using an opponent's argument against them by reversing the direction of their reasoning. That is, the argument is turned on its head. If we reach a dubious or absurd conclusion (reductio ad absurdum) then we have reason to assume the original argument is flawed.

Consider the following fictitious example.

Shamoo Shabang is opposed to embryonic stem cell research. She says: "You can’t destroy an embryo as each is a ‘potential life’."

Her friend Olive Olivers responds by pointing out: "The basics of biology tell us that there are many stages in the development of life. Given this, it seems rather arbitrary to say the ‘potential’ begins with fertilisation."

She goes on to invert Shamoo’s argument by heading in the other direction: "Before fertilisation we have the ‘potential life’ of each sperm and ovum (each of them, potentially, could fuse and start off the whole process). If we follow the ‘potential life’ reasoning we ought to attribute them this moral status too. This is patently absurd."

Though Olive has given a reason to doubt the "potential life" argument, Shamoo understands inversion also, and inverts the inversion: "If I granted that argument any validity, then surely we can go the other way? Concluding that there is no point at which we can attribute ‘potential life’ to a gestating human, and as a consequence award no moral status to any unborn child? Clearly, you’d agree, that’s an abhorrent position?"

Substitution

Replace the group, person or phenomenon involved in the proposition they are arguing for (or against), with another group, person or phenomenon for which they hold a different (often inverse) position. Assuming that the chain of reasoning for the argument ought to be comparable, it follows that a comparable conclusion ought to be reached.

The following example illustrates how substitution can be used.

Lee N Wright is arguing with his girlfriend Ima Green about the justification for military pre-emptive strikes on terror cells and rogue states. He says: "We might not be one hundred percent sure that there will be a terrorist attack, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."

Ima is aware that Lee is an anthropogenic climate change contrarian who thinks there is no need to worry about greenhouse gas emissions. She points out Lee’s inconsistency by simple substitution: "We might not be one hundred percent sure that climate change is man-made, but the precautionary principle means we ought to act before it’s too late."

If Lee argues the precautionary principle in one case, it could be argued that he needs to uphold it in all cases. He either needs to back away from his argument for pre-emptive strikes, or alter his position on climate change. (This assumes there are no significant differences in both cases, otherwise one could be guilty of the fallacy false analogy.)

Of course, Ima is in the exact same position as Lee, given she thinks we ought to act to minimise man-made climate change. (We are often left wondering how people are able to function whilst suffering from such obvious cognitive dissonance?)

The Socratic Method

In all these cases, it is more than likely that an argument between proponents will go back and forth. In this sense it can be thought of as a dialectic inquiry. The Socratic method is a form of dialectic that, in its strictness sense, isn’t of much use in real life. However, it is worth discussing given its historical importance, and as a precursor for a more "loose" version which is of greater practical use in humbug hunting.

Essentially the Socratic method is a running dialogue between two people, one taking the lead role, in a question and answer format. The purpose is to establish the truth of the matter under consideration by proposition, contradiction of the proposition, repetition of this process and then eventual synthesis (the truth). In its strict sense, the requirement is for both people to have an agreed upon topic, to remain on topic, and to proceed by a question (from the lead person) and response (from the minor person). The lead looks for fallacies and contradictions in the minor’s responses, which are then used to drive the discussion forward until, eventually, the truth of the matter is attained.

The non-strict interpretation, which is entirely more useful, is any kind of thorough question and answer dialogue, with all involved agreeing that the questions are answered and that the goalposts remain firmly in place. This sets up the "ground rules" for a discussion and requires a strong lead who refuses to allow the dialogue to go off topic and will not tolerate non-answers (so perhaps even this interpretation is somewhat unrealistic). The best example of this is actually the epitome of its converse - any interview with any politician, anytime in the past, present and future. The second best example is any excellent teacher asking a series of questions to a bright student.

As a tool for truth seeking, the Socratic method is useful in particular domains of knowledge - in ethics and epistemology (for example) but not (usually) science. And even then the Socratic method will more than likely not yield the truth. It is best viewed as a tool used to clarify ideas, spin other hypotheses, defend a position and remove contradictions and fallacies from that position. Much like playing the devil’s advocate, the Socratic method is guaranteed to keep you "on your toes" and challenge unthinking dogmatism.

(Updated to include 'Falsification'. 23 March 2012.)

Part 1 (d): Seekers after truth - Humbug! 2nd Edition

2012-01-11T17:45:00.000+10:00

Truth-seeking involves both a habit of mind (a disinterested search for truth) and a set of intellectual skills (the capacity to make a distinction between clay and another substance with a similar colour and texture). Humbug-hunting is a way to foster one's critical thinking abilities in order to better seek the truth. It can be a rewarding and enjoyable pastime, but one needs to have the right attitude. Our enjoyment of hunting for humbug is founded on a well-honed sense of the ridiculous, an appreciation of unconscious irony, a readiness to engage in shameless hypocrisy, and a commitment to subverting the interests of those who manipulate people in ways detrimental to their own good. All of these foundations of our enjoyment of this have been enabled and facilitated by the book we wrote together, its associated website (www.skepticsfieldguide.net) and our podcast - Hunting Humbug 101.

More seriously, the ultimate path to skepticism is to avoid, as much as humanly possible, being invested in a particular belief or view. As a seeker after truth and critical thinker, one should be invested in the process of truth seeking - logic and reason, scientific evidence and intellectual honesty, not the "answers". Fundamentally, that is what this book is about.

The type of reasoning we advocate is in the tradition attributed to the Greek philosopher Socrates. He considered himself the "gadfly" that God had attached to the state of Athens. In his view, God had chosen him to interrogate the "pretenders to wisdom". Socrates was adept at asking questions, questions truth" in the historical record. He believed that the search for the truth was of the highest importance. The oracle of Delphi proclaimed that there were none wiser than Socrates. The self-proclaimed "wisest men" of Athens were oblivious to their own sciolism. They were in fact ignorant, but thought they knew everything there was to know. Socrates was wiser than they, not because of what he knew, but because he was aware of his own lamentable ignorance.

Part 1 (c): Skeptical Thinking (How to Apply Humbug!) - Humbug! 2nd Edition

2012-01-03T15:59:00.001+10:00

Most knowledge is provisional, and over the course of time, many "certainties" prove to be false or misleading. Decision makers (such as bureaucrats), keepers of the "Truth" (such as academics), people who paraphrase press releases (such as journalists), and people who comment on blog posts, often have an "axe to grind", or rather, a view of the world which they hope will prevail. When such people write or speak, they often dress up mere opinions as well founded, research based certainties. Be afraid. Be very afraid of dogmatism masquerading as superior insight (see special pleading). We all need to develop our capacity to identify and challenge humbug.

Our best protection against those who attempt to shape our society and culture through their tendentious bloviation or simple-minded sloganeering is healthy skepticism. Healthy skepticism needs to be underpinned by tools of analysis. Being able to identify humbug provides these tools. The "tools" are the informal fallacies in thinking named and described in the book. Once a reader is sensitised to a range of these fallacies, he or she is able to recognise them and is less vulnerable to... (we have to write it, there's no better word, please forgive if it causes offence)... bullshit. Such intellectual skills retain their utility over the long term, and enable new content to be tested, examined critically and placed on a firm foundation.

In his 1946 book History of Western Philosophy, the philosopher Bertrand Russell makes a clear distinction between scientific beliefs and "other ways of knowing": "It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition."

We believe that Russell's view on what characterizes the epistemology of science can be applied as a general exhortation to the seeker after truth. That is, the proper concern of the seeker after truth - the skeptic - is the soundness or otherwise of the reasoning behind an assertion, rather than the assertion per se. Thus, to be skeptical requires us to:

ask for evidence to support a claim before accepting it as reasonable
admit to being uncertain when evidence is lacking and
reject a claim as unreasonable when the evidence does not support it.

The following commentary is intended to introduce the reader to some general principles behind sound reasoning that should help one to pick position 1, 2 or 3.

Two deceptively simple questions
Whether engaged in a discussion, forum, debate, lecture, public talk, seminar, or tutorial – or in reading and writing, the seeker after truth should always keep the following deceptively simple questions in mind.

What are you saying?
Why do you believe that what you are saying is true?

The first question – what are you saying - is about meaning. A common problem encountered when attempting to understand the reasoning behind an argument is the wording of the argument itself. In debates between antagonists, misunderstandings often lead to fruitless and unnecessary conflict. When proponents and opponents of a position are actually talking at cross-purposes, they are not addressing the same proposition. Similarly, when a reader misinterprets a writer's intention, there is no engagement with the substantive ideas in the article or book.

A necessary condition for a rational argument is therefore clarity of expression. If the proponent cannot put a clear argument, the argument does not merit serious consideration. In some cases, an argument is so badly put that the proponent may be engaging in deliberate obfuscation, or at least careless indifference (see Gibberish). Whether in a formal debate, an informal discussion, or in writing an essay, the question: "What are you saying?" (Or what am I saying?) forces the proponent to clarify an argument. Once the nature and terms of the proposition are clearly established, the second question can now be asked.

The second question – why do you believe what you are saying is true – is about justification. In response to this the proponent should now seek to justify his or her position. Justification is the essential difference between a mere opinion and a rational assertion. An opinion is a belief based on untested grounds, and the foundations of an opinion often do not stand up to careful scrutiny (that's even if they are articulated). While it is possible that a mere opinion could be true, the seeker after truth will remain skeptical so long as the opinion remains unfounded. In contrast to an opinion, a rational assertion is a view that is consistent with the known facts and based on reasoned and sound argument. In short, it is justified (and at the very least, the justifying argument should contain no obvious fallacies).

Logic and reason
There are two kinds of reasoning processes by which we establish what we know – deductive and inductive. Deductive reasoning is a guarantee of truth, so long as the premises are true. By way of illustration, consider the following statements: "Socrates is a human" (premise) and "all humans are mortal" (premise). If we accept that these premises are true then we must agree that "Socrates is mortal" (conclusion). Deductive reasoning often leads to trivial truths of this sort.

By way of contrast, inductive reasoning leads to the generation of a general law or principle after numerous specific observations have been made. For example, it has been observed that every single time an object is dropped near the surface of the Earth, the object has fallen towards the centre of the Earth (the observation). By inductive reasoning, we conclude that all dropped objects will always fall towards the centre of the Earth (the principle). Given a large number of observations of X, and if all known instances of X lead to Y, then all (known and unknown) Xs will lead to Ys as well. In terms of "watertight" formal logic, inductive reasoning is difficult (some would argue impossible) to establish. After all, we cannot know that all objects will always fall to the centre of the earth unless we personally witness every occurrence of a falling object (and even then, how can we know with certainty?).

This essentially pragmatic book does not therefore concern itself with formal logic. Most beliefs are inductive. Believing the sun will rise tomorrow morning is inductive – but it is not, strictly speaking, logical. It is, however, rational. There is a clear difference between the concepts "logical" and "rational" even though these two words are often used interchangeably. Logical reasoning, in its strictest sense is valid because of the tautological nature of the statements considered. If you are introduced to a bachelor, it follows that he is an unmarried man. Asserting that red is not a colour is logically false, because by definition red is a colour. A rational explanation on the other hand, is one that is justified by a reasoned and plausible argument that is not logically false (self-contradictory).

Identifying unreason and making your case
If an argument is not illogical (i.e., not internally inconsistent) it does not follow that it is rational. A rational argument should not contain any fallacies. Attacking the quality of reasoning underlying a fallacy is at times a commonsense task, given that many fallacies are obvious non-sequiturs (non sequitur is a Latin term which literally means "does not follow"). However a heightened sensitivity to fallacies can be cultivated and developed.

The short descriptions at the beginning of the book allow fallacies to be identified quickly. Once a fallacy is identified it needs to be isolated and nullified. This can be done by demonstrating the error or errors in reasoning. The fallacies which constitute the body of this book collectively provide a large number of "worked examples" for consideration by the reader. Once the reader has considered a significant number of these examples, he or she should be well equipped with an armoury of debunking techniques and skeptical strategies which can be built upon in the future.

How should you go about improving your humbug hunting skills? When you are ready to get serious about improving your hunting skills, you should find a piece of writing (say an article or blog post) which you suspect if rubbish. You should re-read it more carefully, with the Humbug! short descriptions in front of you. When you read a "dodgy" statement, see if you can find a name for it. (That is, does it appear to be one of the fallacies named and described in Humbug!?) Make preliminary notes at first, and then check your initial impressions about the nature of the fallacies you have spotted by reading the more extensive descriptions in the body of Humbug! (It is dangerous to rely on the brief descriptions only. They are necessarily brief and therefore somewhat ambiguous.)

Here is a grossly oversimplified example. Suppose an author (Bonehead, 2007) makes a statement like this: "There is only one reason a student ever comes late to class - a bad attitude".

You could critique this statement by writing: "That's just ****." While Bonehead's statement might in fact be *****, your criticism is disastrously weak. You might "beef up" your criticism by giving a reason for your view. For example, you could write: "This statement is **** because Bonehead is a ****." Unfortunately, this is not much of an improvement on your original response (even if Bonehead is in fact a ****).

An effective critique of Bonehead's statement might be worded as follows:

Bonehead's statement is in error because he is employing the single cause fallacy. In particular, his claim that there is only one reason (my emphasis) is clearly far too extreme. In their book Humbug!, Clark and Clark (2012) describe the single cause fallacy in the following terms: 'Single cause fallacies occur when a person assumes that there is only one cause of a complex problem.' Bonehead fails to recognise that in reality, there are many possible reasons why a particular student may be late to class on a particular occasion.

Part 1 (b): Style and treatment - Humbug! 2nd Edition

2011-12-29T14:03:00.001+10:00

The writing style of Humbug! is not disinterested and scholarly, it is deliberately assertive, "over the top" and declamatory. We frequently resort to the use of irony, overstatement and over-simplification in order to emphasize salient features of the fallacy under consideration. For this reason we will no doubt cause offence to most readers at some point. So be it. (It should be noted, besides the real examples, none of the scenarios described or characters sketched or depicted in this book are based on actual persons or real institutions.) For each fallacy, there is a cartoon which relates directly or indirectly to that fallacy. The cartoon should not be regarded as part of the substantive commentary on the fallacy. It is provided as light relief, and it may also function as an aide memoire and serve to prompt recall of the specific flaw.

The goal of the critical thinker is not to "win" an argument at all costs, but to "seek the truth". In this book, the skeptic or critical thinker is described variously as a detached enquirer, a doubter, a reasonable person, a dedicated debunker. All these labels are appropriate in the specific context described. However the commonest alternate label for critical thinker or skeptic used throughout the book is "seeker after truth". This seemingly long-winded usage is quite deliberate. A person claiming to know the Truth about any issue invites endless and unresolved controversy when engaged in argument or debate. A seeker after truth on the other hand, is one who believes that reasoned enquiry can move a debate forward towards a better understanding of an issue. While Ultimate Truth on many issues may be unknowable, we can at least move forward from egregious ignorance and error by using skilled, dispassionate, disinterested reasoning.

In this book we use the generic descriptor "the advocate" to label the proponent who engages in fallacious reasoning. This descriptor is often qualified with an appropriate adjective which captures the type of fallacy put forward by the advocate. Thus we have deceitful advocates, deluded advocates, devious advocates, ignorant advocates, superficial advocates, arrogant advocates, pompous advocates, stupid advocates and so on. Note that according to us, we should not use such terms to denigrate individuals (see Ad Hominem). However we decided to use these abusive terms anyway in order to demonstrate that we are at times capable of breathtaking hypocrisy.

Podcast related to this section: http://huntinghumbug101.blogspot.com/2011/12/very-first-episode-of-hunting-humbug.html

Part 1 (a): Purpose and usage - Humbug! 2nd Edition

2011-12-23T18:24:00.000+10:00

The short title of this book is Humbug! Humbug" may be defined as "deceptive or false talk or behaviour" (OED). Our general aim in writing this book was to create a tool for the detection of humbug. Humbug! is intended to serve two main purposes. 1) A "ready reference" which may be consulted as required during discussions, forums, debates, lectures, public talks, seminars and tutorials, whether such events are part of a formal program of study, or open to the broader community. 2) A guide to be consulted as part of the reading and writing process – particularly by students as they research and write seminar papers or essays for assessment purposes.

Humbug! is more intended as a tool to be consulted as the occasion demands, rather than a book to be read in a linear fashion, from beginning to end. Users may find it to be a useful resource for those occasions when they read or hear a suspect statement or claim, and they want to identify the flawed reasoning in the assertion – and perhaps respond to the claim with informed skepticism. There are other such texts available to the reader that aim to do this too. As Hamblin states: "Most modern writers have their minor preferences of arrangement (of fallacies), but it is almost always the same material that is being chopped about and served up reheated." (Hamblin, 1970: 49). Our approach in chopping up and reheating fallacies is focused on pragmatism and ease of use.

The subtitle of the book is the skeptic's guide field guide to spotting deliberate deceptions and false arguments. (Skeptic: "A person inclined to question or doubt accepted opinions." – OED.) The skeptical enquirer, whether a student, an academic or a member of the public is a person who has the habit of questioning assertions made by others. Skepticism is a desirable trait in any person in any walk of life and it is an essential foundation of scholarship. However skepticism is sometimes confused with cynicism, and it is important to preserve the distinction. A person who is cynical is one who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest. The outlook of a cynic is often contemptuous and mocking. The outlook of a skeptic is by contrast positive and productive. He or she assumes nothing about motives and is focussed on deeper understanding of issues - and on real solutions to real problems.

This second edition of Humbug! has been expanded and includes sections on Skeptical Thinking Tools and Bad Faith. Skeptical Thinking Tools is a small section that provides a brief overview of some simple techniques and rules of thumb we have found useful in the analysis of arguments and in forming one's own position. Bad Faith is based on an article Jef wrote for the Australian Skeptic journal. It outlines the use of critical thinking skills in bad faith.

The core of the second edition, as with the first, does not concern itself with the structure of good arguments, or with models for enquiry. Rather, the content focuses on error. The underlying premise is that if individuals become astute at identifying and critiquing flawed arguments, they will become more skilled at identifying sound arguments presented by others and in formulating sound arguments of their own. When students, journalists, writers and participants in discussions and debates know what not to do in presenting an argument, they will develop a more sound perception of what they should do.

From our perspective, the elimination of flawed reasoning is the most important foundation of a sound argument. This book is therefore analogous to a scalpel. A surgeon uses a scalpel to remove diseased tissue – the skeptical enquirer can use this book to remove diseased arguments. A biologist uses a scalpel to remove extraneous tissue from a specimen in order to expose the essential structure of the specimen to scrutiny. In the same way Humbug! may be used to identify and remove poor reasoning from the reader's own arguments, and to allow the reader to examine and expose poor reasoning in the arguments of others.

Part 2: Deliberate deceptions and false arguments - is an expansion on the first edition. There are forty-eight specific deceptions and false arguments named and described. It should not be assumed by the reader that our list is exhaustive, or that there is a general consensus on the number and nomenclature of the types of deceptions and false arguments in the "body of literature" on fallacies in thinking, critical thinking and informal logic. These were selected because they are commonly encountered in published writings on contentious issues, topics of interest to skeptics and in student writing for assessment purposes. The expansion covers fallacies we have found further examples of since the first edition, including some "new" fallacies of our own coinage.

We use the terms fallacy, flaw, humbug and deception interchangeably. Technically a fallacy is an “argument gone wrong”. A logical fallacy is very specific – it is a deductive argument that is in an invalid form. An informal fallacy covers all the “wrong arguments” that may have a valid deductive form, but are based on erroneous premises. Humbug covers all this but includes deliberate deceptions, such Moving the Goalposts and Stacking the Deck.

Each fallacy has a primary label (the heading). Other terms and/or related concepts are listed below the heading. The primary labels given were chosen over other possible labels for clarity of meaning. We have opted for vivid and memorable terms over less emphatic alternatives. Some of the primary labels and other terms/related concepts are very widespread and would be encountered in almost any book on critical thinking or informal reasoning. Some of the fallacies described will not be encountered in any other books as the fallacy and its label are our own coinage (e.g.Argument by Artifice, Burden of Solution, Sanctimony, Simple-Minded Certitude and WTF? Fallacy).

We decided not to organise our treatment of fallacies in thinking around a taxonomy of fallacies - as is often the case in other books and websites on fallacies (and as has been requested of us by some readers). We simply list fallacies in alphabetical order by name. Our justification at the time the decision was made was in part a function of the blurry edges between fallacies (e.g. Stacking the Deck and Observational Selection may be difficult to distinguish at times) and the fact that that there is as yet little consensus in the literature on the names of fallacies and taxonomic groupings. While there is no agreed-upon standard set of fallacies, the naming and describing of fallacies is a necessary step in the development of humbug-hunting skills.

For this edition, we gave the idea of classifying fallacies serious and scholarly consideration. For example, Hamblin states:

A fallacious argument, as almost every account from Aristotle onwards tells you, is one that seems to be valid but is not so... Of those who invent their own classifications... their most noteworthy characteristic is that they disagree not only with the Aristotelians but also extensively with one another, and have quite failed to establish any account for longer than the time it takes a book to go out of print... Despite divergences of arrangement, there is considerable overlap in raw material as between one writer and another: the individual kinds of fallacy are much the same, even down to their names. (1970: 12, 13)

As such, we decided our original decision should stand. (For a taxonomic treatment of fallacies see, for example, Gary N. Curtis site: (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/taxonomy.html)

Podcast related to this section: http://huntinghumbug101.blogspot.com/2011/12/very-first-episode-of-hunting-humbug.html

Hunting Humbug 101 v2: Hunting Humbug 101 01 - Podcast update

2011-12-20T14:18:00.000+10:00

Hunting Humbug 101 v2: Hunting Humbug 101 01 - Podcast update: An update to what's going on with the podcast and why I'm re-publishing it.

Direct download: http://www.archive.org/download/HuntingHumbug101Episode1-WhatIsHumbug/HuntingHumbug10101-PodcastUpdate.mp3

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iPhone - you get it or you don't

2011-12-18T21:57:00.000+10:00

The following Samsung commercial takes the **** out of people who line up for iPhones and the like. I find it to be both highly amusing and true to life.

My favorite line: "I could never get a Samsung. I'm creative".

Last week well known Apple evangelist, and blogger at Daring Fireball, John Gruber provided a great example of special pleading when citing a quote in a review of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in comparison to the iPhone 4S.

You either see it or you don’t. If you don’t, that’s cool, enjoy your Nexus. But I think the reason Apple Stores are so crowded, and getting so big, is that there are an awful lot of people who do see it.

An advocate generally reverts to special pleading when they have no other way of justifying their position. The beauty of special pleading as a rhetorical trick is it gives the opponent no room to maneuver. Gruber has argued that his opponents, Android users, cannot possibly comprehend the subtleties and beauty of Apple's iOS operating system. They are simply unable to attain the level of insight available to Gruber. "You either see it or you don't." He has a deep insight into and empathy with technology that cannot be evaluated by Android users who, by definition (they use Android), lack the capacity to make any valid judgement. How does one respond to that?

This excellent article at Gizmodo points out the irrationality of brand loyalty.

______________
(Note that I'm a happy iOS user - I wrote this on my iPad which I lined up to buy... For a full gadget disclosure, see my gdgt profile.)
Image source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gruber.jpg
Via The Verge: http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/15/2638611/horseshit

Writing in Public - 2nd (ebook) edition of Humbug!

2011-12-15T08:30:00.000+10:00

I have been, very slowly, working on a second edition of Humbug! The skeptic's field guide to spotting fallacies in thinking, which I intend to release as an ebook for Kindle, iBooks and all the other relevant ebook platforms.

In an effort to spur myself onward, to make a better product, and to do something more with this site, I am going to post drafts of the second edition as I write them. This also follows a "business model" advocated by people like Cory Doctorow - free. That is, all of the second edition of the book will be available online for free. But if anyone wants it in a coherent whole, they'll be able to purchase the ebook (for a small price). The original ebook will still remain freely available. Part 1 (Purpose and usage) posted soon.

Three ways of examining brain claims Part Three - learning styles

2011-12-12T23:21:00.002+10:00

In Parts One and Two I examined the 10 percent brain myth and the educational program 'Brain Gym'. I applied the LMGTFY test and the Plausibility test to these claims (which they respectively failed). In this final post I will look at learning styles.

The term ‘‘learning styles'' refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction or study is most effective for them. of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common—but not the only—hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the learner (e.g., for a ‘‘visual learner,'' emphasizing visual presentation of information). (Pashler, H. et al. 2009 - pdf)

As with Brain Gym, when you google learning styles, it is not immediately dismissed or accepted. Moreover, at first glance its claims seem more than reasonable.

There are many variants of learning styles, for the sake of this examination I'll look at the most popular model, Visual-Auditory-Kinasthetic (VAK).

Let's consider this model and its claims a bit more closely. From http://www.ldpride.net/learningstyles.MI.htm:

Visual Learners:
These learners need to see the teacher's body language and facial expression to fully understand the content of a lesson. They tend to prefer sitting at the front of the classroom to avoid visual obstructions (e.g. people's heads). They may think in pictures and learn best from visual displays including: diagrams, illustrated text books, overhead transparencies, videos, flipcharts and hand-outs. During a lecture or classroom discussion, visual learners often prefer to take detailed notes to absorb the information.

Auditory Learners:They learn best through verbal lectures, discussions, talking things through and listening to what others have to say. Auditory learners interpret the underlying meanings of speech through listening to tone of voice, pitch, speed and other nuances. Written information may have little meaning until it is heard. These learners often benefit from reading text aloud and using a tape recorder.

Tactile/Kinesthetic Learners:Tactile/Kinesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration.

I first came across VAK learning styles when I was doing my undergraduate degree in Education. I was immediately skeptical. Perhaps it was because I found I liked to learn with all three styles, and I generalized my own experience to be a universal one.... Or more likely, it relates to that expression, “If it smells like bullsh*t, it probably is bullsh*t”.

The claim was that optimal teaching and learning required diagnoses of my students' learning styles and tailoring my lessons to those individuals accordingly. I had no interest in teaching the same content in three different ways to my three different types of students based on this. When I was teaching, say, Newton's laws of motion, I varied my approaches anyway, to keep the lessons interesting and to give students every opportunity to understand a reasonably difficult concept. There were notes on the whiteboard, diagrams that I'd explain, they would conduct experiments, practice questions etc. I.e., all the students would learn about Newton's laws using all three learning styles. The mode of instruction depended on the content.

This is not to say differentiation for individual students isn't appropriate. It's the method by which we 'diagnose' who is having difficulty and why, that is important. I would diagnose which students were having difficulty and differentiate accordingly. I would do this by observation, collecting work, asking questions etc. I'd also take into account any medically diagnosed learning difficulties and act on them as appropriate.

That being said, so long as one doesn't make the claim that visual learners, for example, can only learn visually, at first glance, these claims seem plausible. People, when asked, do have preferred ways of learning. Moreover, people may be better at retaining visual, auditory or kinesthetic information. E.g. some people are natural musicians, or 3-D designers, or better at tennis.

This is the reason I think VAK seems plausible. We can all relate to being better at one style of of these or another. However, being more natural at one of the VAKs, is not the same as learning any kind of information through one of the VAKs. Conflating these two ideas is where proponents have gone wrong.

Be that as it may, let's take it as a given that the claims of VAK proponents are plausible. We now need to apply the Empirical Evidence test.

In 2009, Psychological Science in the Public Interest published an analysis of learning styles practices, evaluating their claims and reviewing the academic literature. From their summary:

A credible validation of learning-styles-based instruction requires a very particular type of experimental finding:

Students must be divided into groups on the basis of their learning styles.

Students from each group must be randomly assigned to receive one of multiple instructional methods.

Students must sit for a final test that is the same for all.

I.e. we need to see the results of a randomised controlled trial. If learning something in one's preferred learning style leads to improved learning, we should see that in the results. A valid learning styles hypothesis would mean students who learn with their preferred learning style should, on average, out perform students who do not.

Their literature review found that:

Children and adults will, if asked, express preferences about how they prefer information to be presented to them.
People differ in the degree to which they have some fairly specific aptitudes for different kinds of thinking and for processing different types of information.

This is pretty non-controversial. People have preferred ways of doing things. However, the literature review also found virtually no evidence for the interaction pattern mentioned above, which was judged to be a precondition for validating the educational applications of learning styles:

Although the literature on learning styles is enormous, very few studies have even used an experimental methodology capable of testing the validity of learning styles applied to education. Moreover, of those that did use an appropriate method, several found results that flatly contradict the popular meshing hypothesis.

We conclude therefore, that at present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice. Thus, limited education resources would better be devoted to adopting other educational practices that have a strong evidence base, of which there are an increasing number. However, given the lack of methodologically sound studies of learning styles, it would be an error to conclude that all possible versions of learning styles have been tested and found wanting; many have simply not been tested at all.

The paper, "Learning Styles - Concepts and Evidence", 2009. Association for Psychological Science. can be found here: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/pspi/PSPI_9_3.pdf

Here's a good short YouTube video about learning styles.

Three ways of examining brain (or any other) claims - Part Two - Brain Gym

2011-11-26T16:26:00.001+10:00

In Part One I outlined the three broad tests I apply for examining a claim:

1. LMGTFY (let me google that for you)
2. The Plausibility Test (is it really even plausible?)
3. Empirical evidence (Okay, google wasn't definitive, and it sounds plausible, so what does the evidence say?)

I applied these to the 'we only use 10 percent or our brain' myth, which immediately failed the 'lmgtfy' test. This post will examine the claims made in a reasonably popular education program called 'Brain Gym'.

When you google Brian Gym, you do not get a black and white answer as to its efficacy. You get some official websites and a wikipedia entry. Brain Gym passes the lmgtfy test, so we move on to consider its plausibility.

From the aforementioned wikipedia entry:

The Brain Gym program is based on the concept that learning challenges can be overcome by carrying out certain movements, the use of which will create pathways in the brain. The repetition of the 26 Brain Gym activities (each of which takes about a minute to do), is said to "activate the brain for optimal storage and retrieval of information."

Already my skeptical hairs are beginning to stand on end. But, it's still not clear cut. Doing some form of physical activity always wakes me up and makes me feel more alert, thus 'optimizing' my brain. Exercise is good for you. No problems with that. However, there clearly is more to it than this.

It's at this point I ask 'what are they saying?' A common problem encountered when attempting to understand the reasoning behind a claim is the wording of the claim itself. A necessary condition for further investigation of Brain Gym is therefore clarity about their explanatory framework. Brain Gym is more than just 'exercise breaks'. They make explicit claims, that particular exercises effect specific regions of the brain and thus prepare students for specific types of learning. Let's consider some examples. If a picture says a thousand words, a video must say three, 'dumb, dumb and dumber'.

Okay, I've seen enough. This is just embarrassing.

Pressing "Brain Buttons" activates the brain for sending messages from the right to the left hemisphere, increases the flow of electromagnetic energy and is good for reading.

"Energy yawns" increase circulation to the brain and increases sensory perception, helping reading aloud and creative writing.

"Hook ups" connect the body's electrical circuits for emotional centering and help students take tests and work at the keyboard.

The claim that a specific exercise relates to improvement in a specific learning area or type of cognition is implausible. It contradicts what we know about how the brain works.

To the credit of Brain Gym, compared to say astrologers, they are specific enough that a blinded trial could easily be conducted to confirm or falsify their claims. To their discredit, as they state on the Brain Gym website, they only have anecdotal evidence and observational studies, which by definition are inherently flawed.

This post is not a critique of Brain Gym per se. This is about applying some basic skeptical principles when initially examining any claim. With a claim, such as those made with Brain Gym, we can see it immediately contradicts well established facts about how the brain works. It is, to use a technical term, pseudoscientific bullsh!t. At this point we do not need to keep on investigating Brain Gym. It is implausible; there is no need to look for any evidence of its efficacy. We can dismiss the claims of Brain Gym without much of a fuss.

In order to change my mind about Brain Gym, the known facts would need to change, or, I would need to be provided with some extraordinary evidence of its efficacy. This evidence absolutely must be more than anecdote and observational studies.

Just in case you still weren't sure that Brain Gym was a bunch of made up crap, I'll enlist the aid of Jeremy Paxman who induces this third party facepalm from Brain Gym's creator Paul Dennison "PhD". He's from California...

Occasionally you'll hear people discuss the nervous system and the brain, using the idea of circuits. Hell, I often refer to myself as a meat robot. But clearly when doing this we are speaking metaphorically. Dennison is being literal.

When describing a difficult scientific concept to lay people, it's perfectly acceptable to use analogy. However, it's unacceptable to not also describe what is actually going on. The analogy should be used for illustration only. This is even more important when being directly challenged about an explanation for a claim, as Dennison was in the clip above.

Note he also brings in the usual non-specific and meaningless term 'energy', 'midpoints' etc., all throwbacks to 'vital force' / 'life force' used by people ignorant of biology. That is, his educational pseudoscience is an extension of medical pseudoscience.

Why am I picking on Brain Gym ? Isn't it just harmless exercise? If that's all it was, that would be fine. But, it's a commercial program that schools waste good money on. More importantly, its explanatory framework is pseudoscientific bullsh*t. The job of a teacher is to tell children about how the real world works. To teach children how to think critically. Ironically, the harm being done to children's brains by this almost certainly outweighs any good the exercise does.

The clips above are from BBC's Newsnight and were sourced via Bad Science. There you will find links to the complete and unedited Newsnight clips on YouTube. For further critiques of Brain Gym see:

- Bad Science

- Skeptic Dictionary

Three ways of examining brain (or any other) claims - Part One

2011-11-18T19:44:00.001+10:00

Over the years, I've been exposed to many claims about how the brain works and how this knowledge can be applied in education. This is clearly true. Learning occurs in the brain. However, this fundamental premise does not lead to the conclusion that all claims about the brain and how it applies to education are true.

How are we to decide what to believe?

I'm only a layperson when it comes to neuroscience, but one of the good things about learning to think skeptically is being able to apply a few simple tests in order to decide whether a claim is worth believing or not. The three broad tests I apply are:

LMGTFY (let me google that for you)
The Plausibility Test (is it really even plausible?)
Empirical evidence (Okay, google wasn't definitive, and it sounds plausible, so what does the evidence say?)

The first two "tests" are different, but equal. Depending on the background knowledge you have about a claim, you'd pick one or the other. That is, some claims might seem plausible to people without much background knowledge. In this case a quick google might be the best course of action. Other claims would be immediately dismissed as implausible by someone with the required background knowledge, so a google search is unnecessary.

The third test only comes in to action when the first two tests are passed. If a quick google doesn't resolve the truth of the claim, or it sounds plausible, then deeper research is required. We need (high quality) empirical evidence.

If only there was some way of easily searching for information... here lmgtfy

I'm constantly amazed at the seeming inability, or unwillingness (if I'm being fair), of people to google. There are some claims that are checked with a 30 second google search. Take, for example, the factiod that we only use 10% of our brain.

Snopes (check), Wikipeda (check), Scientific American (check), and boom, myth busted. No need to move on.

I know a bit about brains, biology and evolution

As the Snopes article and the Wikipedia entry explain, the claim that we only use 10% of our brain is a biologically implausible. If I had a background in biology, I’d have already known, for example, that brain imaging shows all the brain is active, brain injuries lead to a loss of function, and evolution by natural selection is a merciless process that would eliminate such a wasteful inefficiency.

Thus my background knowledge allows me to dismiss this claim as implausible without heading to google.

These two ways of evaluating a claim are very simple, and work well for claims that have a black and white answer. Of course, many claims aren't so black and white.

In two more posts I’ll apply the same logic to claims about the brain and learning that are not as easily dismissed. Part two will look at “Brain Gym”, which lacks plausibility, but isn't immediately dismissed when doing a quick google. In Part three I will look at “Learning styles”, which again, isn't resolved with a quick google, but compared to Brain Gym, seems very plausible.

Update. Here's an example of what can happen to you if you don't check your facts...

(face, meet palm)

Big Tobacco's Self-Defeating Position

2011-06-05T20:58:00.000+10:00

The Australian Federal government is well on the way to introducing legislation requiring plain packaging for cigarettes. Not surprisingly, tobacco companies are not happy. From the Sydney Morning Herald:

British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) has attacked the federal government's cigarette plain packaging plans, saying there's no proof it will reduce smoking rates.

I know their arguments are more nuanced than simply "it won't work", and they claim it will effect their ability to market their brand against competing companies in the marketplace, etc. But fundamentally, the fact they are campaigning so feverishly against plain packaging contradicts their claim it won't work. If they really believe it won't work, then why bother campaigning? A position that is fairly Self-Defeating.
BATA chief executive David Crow went on to say:

We don't want to see a situation where taxpayer dollars are being wasted.

Wow. Thanks for you concern for the waste of government funds David... How much money, time, energy is being spent on combating smoking related illness? The hypocrisy of statements like this is almost admirable; the Bad Faith breathtaking.

Amazon's artificial barney with the nook

2011-05-27T21:55:00.002+10:00

The battle for supremacy in the world of ebook readers took a turn for the silly this week. When Amazon released the Kindle 3 last year, they claimed one month battery life. Barnes & Noble released the Nook Simple Touch Color Reader and claimed it has up to two months battery life on a single charge. An impressive feat.

"Phft" says Amazon, makers of the Kindle. "Well ours lasts two months too!" From CNET:
...the product pages for the Kindle WiFi and Kindle 3G (along with their discounted Special Offers counterparts) have been updated with new battery life numbers. "Long battery life - Up to two months," reads the promotional copy.

So when released the Kindle 3 had up to one month battery life on a single charge, but now it's two? Did Amazon all of a sudden double the capacity of the Kindle battery?

Nope. It turns out all they did was halve the value for the amount of time they assumed one was reading per day. Specifically, only read for half an hour per day and turn off the WiFi radio, you'll get two months battery life. If you read for an hour a day, you're back to the one month battery life... A great example of an Argument by Artifice.

Gay marriage, euthanasia and the free market

2010-11-08T23:14:00.001+10:00

If you support the idea of the free market, you should also support the euthanasia and gay marriage.

This statement popped into my head when watching tonight's episode of QANDA. This might be a non-obvious combination at first, but hear me out. It's actually a pretty straightforward argument.

Generally speaking, those on the right / conservative side of politics, claim to be against big government, pro individual freedom, pro free market. Yet, generally speaking, they are against euthanasia and gay marriage.

When I put these two views together, one sentence after the other, it should be pretty clear these are contradictory positions. Or if not directly contradictory, it shows a fundamental philosophical inconsistency.

Being for small government, I would have thought, would mean you believe governments should stay out of people's private lives unless they can give a good reason to interfere. E.g., we agree to pay taxes to the government so we can have roads and live in relative safety. What's the argument against gay marriage, from a secular government's point of view besides, 'I don't like it.'

Nevertheless, this position is typical of the hypocritical, self contradictory right on such issues (the left has their own different self contradictory positions). My imaginary conversation with a civilized tea partier goes something like:

"I'm all for the small government, for the free market where individuals can choose for themselves!"

So what about euthanasia and gay marriage, can people chose for themselves here?

"Oh no, that's where the government should tell people how to behave. The free market works for iPods and Prada, but not for any 'moral' position different to mine."

If you're for small government, for the government staying out of people's lives as much as possible, then consider applying this principle consistently, not just to the free market. Try these two premises on for size.