Smita Pani: [World Malayali Club] Two important fallacies in thinking and debates

Thursday, 28 April 2016

[World Malayali Club] Two important fallacies in thinking and debates

We have seen that the most important things in a proper debate are definition of the terms used in the debate and providing evidence for statements the onus of proof of which falls on the man who makes the statement/s.

Now in providing evidence there are what are called fallacies. There is a comprehensive list of fallacies we commit everyday on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies. Of these fallacies I would like to focus on two which we make too often in our discussion and they are 1. Appeal to Authority and 2. Anecdotal evidence.

1. Appeal to authority: This consists of over dependence on statements in books such as scriptures and on statements and endorsements by well known figures. Film stars endorsing cosmetics and other products belongs to this category. Citations from bible, Koran, Geetha etc as if they are infallible also fall in this category. Statements by famous people also fall in this category. Thus Gandhi promoted the idea of self-sufficient villages which has been discarded as impractical in this modern world of specialization, mutual cooperation and globalization. In the past people depended too much on such personalities or gurus and accepted what they said without any verification. Thus Aristotle who was a super-guru in those days said that heavier things fell faster than lighter things and this was accepted without questioning for over 1500 years until Galileo showed at the leaning tower of Pisa that a feather and a cannon ball fell at the same speed. It was for his promotion of the importance of evidence that Galileo is called the father of modern science. His dictum was 'measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not." Now in the fields of arts, authority still carries weight. On the other hand in science authority and prestige carry little or no weight. Thus Einstein the super-duper scientist proposed that the universe is stationary. But years later Hubble provided evidence that the universe is expanding. Evidence carried the day and Einstein had to swallow his pride though Hubble is nowhere near Einstein in prestige. Einstein had to accept his mistake in the face of overwhelming evidence. But in the field of arts, culture, religion, politics, economics (such as in the case of communism) etc evidence carries little or no weight and things are often settled by uncivilized means such as by abuses and violence citing authorities such as scriptures, godmen, priests, books etc.

2. Anecdotal fallacy: We know about exit polls where a sample of the voters coming out of the polling booth are asked whom they had voted for and drawing conclusions therefrom. Now suppose I were to ask the first 3 voters coming from the booth who they had voted for and all 3 say that they had voted for the congress, can I draw a conclusion that Congress got 100% of the votes from just these 3 surveys? No! This is because this sample of just 3 voters is not representative of the electorate. To start with we have to ask a large number of voters to reach a reasonable conclusion. It is also possible that the 3 voters I interviewed belonged to the same family or to the same caste/religion or to the same sex or to the same occupation or income group or to the same age group etc. Drawing conclusions without taking into account such variables as above cannot be admitted as evidence, as such conclusions involve the fallacy of reasoning called anecdotal evidence or inference – inference drawn from non-representative samples.

Suppose I manufacture soap or tooth paste or computers it would be impossible to check thoroughly each and every item I manufacture. Instead I draw representative samples of my produce and check them. There are established methods for drawing such representative samples.
IS 4905 (1968): Methods for random sampling spells of the established Indian standards and procedures for drawing such representative samples whether it be for poll surveys or for drawing samples of of produce for quality control. But sad to say even educated people among us jump to conclusions without assessing a representative sample. Thus we had a gentleman on one of our fora boasting about the cure wrought by cow-urine or human urine on a relative of his who had cancer. It is obvious that even if his statement is true – which I doubt very much – the sample he had drawn was not representative at all. Instead it was anecdotal like interviewing just 3 voters to determine the outcome of a poll involving thousands of voters. Miracle cures, alternate therapies and superstitious practices, prayers etc resort to this fallacy called anecdotal fallacy to prove their points. It is in context of this fallacy called anecdotal fallacy that Francis Bacon said ""All superstition is much the same, whether it be that of astrology, dreams, omens, retributive judgment or the like, in all of which the deluded believers observe events which are fulfilled, but neglect and pass over their failure, though it be much more common."

We enter into debates with others. But our brain is chattering all the time talking and reasoning to ourselves in what is called self-talk. The principles of defining things, providing evidence and evading fallacies such as appeal to authority and the anecdotal fallacy come into the picture even in such self-talk also, and it would be good for ourselves to analyze whether our self-talk is logical and can stand the scrutiny of an objective body such as a court of law.