Fallacio – the act of debunking false arguments

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I am not a philosopher. Logic and reason were things I mostly figured out on my own. It is only recently, when debating online with fundamentalists of every stripe, be they religious, homophobic, global warming deniers, conspiracy theorists or even some vegans, that I came upon logical fallacies in their official form.

There are hundreds of them, and it seems fundamentalists use a significant proportion. Everything from special pleading, non-sequiters, straw men and ad hominem attacks, arguments of popularity and tradition, sunk cost fallacies, to suppression of evidence, confirmation bias, slippery slope, arguments from ignorance and of personal incredulity, misrepresentation, and bare-faced lying.

Many of the less honourable acts on the Internet are fallacies of some sort – trolling is a form of poisoning the well, quote-mining is a form of misrepresentation, and ad hominem is a well understood phrase in the faceless Web.

Bullshit (American) or bollocks (UK) is perhaps a new addition. A common argument based on bullshit is the infamous Chewbacca defence – it is an argument of attrition, a tide of nonsense put forward with enough vigour and volume that a rational opponent must either exhaust themselves refuting it, or withdraw from the argument, which is claimed as a victory by his opponent.

The Internet has been a phenomenon – I think of it as the Information Revolution. Perhaps it will herald a new Age of Reason. One thing for sure is that it tests our ability to vet and evaluate information in quantities we have never experienced before. Thus we need to learn reasoning skills at a far earlier age, in favour of raw knowledge. The knowledge is all around us – it is now a cheap commodity, though the quality is variable. It is how we assess that information that is now the premium skill.

This brings us back to fallacies. I blogged a few months back about David Cameron’s proclamation that “Britain was a Christian country” – the implication being that Britain should uphold Christian values for no other reason than our ancestors did. This is a fallacy straight out of the list above, the appeal to tradition – a popular one with Conservatives, as a cursory read of the Daily Telegraph or Daily Mail reveals. My usual response to an appeal to tradition is the example of geocentrism, which was considered by most to be the correct model of the Universe until Galileo Galilee put forward evidence for the Copernican heliocentric model, at the cost of his freedom. Just because most people believe something, does not mean it is true.

If our own Prime Minister, a privileged man with the finest education one could hope for in the UK, can commit such basic errors, what hope for the rest of us? Well, learning how to spot false arguments is a good start (here’s a PDF poster of common fallacies). Teaching our children how to think clearly and rationally is another. And perhaps most importantly, we need to rip asunder fallacious argument as soon as they are uttered, by the myriad means we now have at our disposal.

Religious criticism : the importance of not being silent

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This blog is an adaptation of a comment I wrote on the Belfast News Letter in response to a letter attacking Mormons as ‘not true Christians’ by a family of Northern Ireland Protestant fundamentalists.

If my religious criticism offends a religious person, I will not apologise and I will not refrain from repeating it. I will not be silent, so asking me to refrain from commenting on religion simply because I do not subscribe to one myself is pointless.

The mark of any robust system of thought is how it responds to criticism – that religion’s only defence is to discourage, threaten or outlaw dissenters tells me just how sturdy a foundation it has. It should be noted I am not attacking religious people, but their ideology. That their sense of self is so bound to it that to attack it is seen as attacking them is just one of the many failings of religion.

I will admit that I am not particularly well read in the intellectually gymnastic, pseudo-academic discipline of theology. I am content to study science, because unlike theology, it demonstrably works; the test of science is that it can make accurate predictions, which it does.

That many religious people are repeatedly shown to have inadequate knowledge of not only science but their own faith, and that their arguments are fallacious, prejudiced and deceitful is not my fault. Indeed, take Pascal’s Wager, a known fallacy in that it presumes a false dichotomy of Christianity or atheism, when in fact they could both be wrong – Christians will burn just as surely as I if Lord Brahma or Zeus turn out to be the real god!

I will not be silent. As pastor Martin Niemöller regretfully said of the lack of opposition amongst the German intelligentsia during the rise of Nazism:

“First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

I support gay rights even though I am not gay, I support racial equality even though I am not of an ethnic minority, I support women’s rights even though I am not a woman, I support the right to religious belief and worship even though I am not religious.

Yes, I think all religions are based upon doctrines of ancient fabrications, assertions, assumptions, plagiarism and forgery. On that basis, any attempt by members of one faith to smear the belief system of another as somehow lesser, when their own faith has such shaky historical and moral foundations, is an act of naked religious supremacism and should be opposed on the basis of fairness. Thus, it is not only my right not to be silent, but my duty.

There’s no such thing as “it’s too quiet”

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This is a merge of posts written in response to a review in the Belfast Telegraph of Susan Cain’s book Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

My former mentor, a school teacher whom also performed the duties of career advisor, described something he called “the Northern Ireland problem” – it appeared young people from Northern Ireland (and to a lesser extent, Scotland, if I recall) performed worse in the UK job market because they didn’t sell themselves well and lacked confidence in interviews, comparatively to the more populous regions of the UK. In short, we are a small nation of introverts, certainly more-so than, say, SE England.

It’s easy to see why – given that most people here live in rural or suburban places, extrovert behaviour is not encouraged. From my own rural upbringing, I know that someone trying to draw attention to themselves would not have fared well, most likely drawing a terse rebuke from an elder. It always surprises me how noisy the children in Belfast, for example, are compared to my home county.

As a quite extreme introvert myself, I look forward to picking up this book (there’s a video lecture on Youtube by the author, worth a watch).

It should be noted that many introverts, like the author herself, develop strong communication and people skills later in life (I’m probably better on the former than the latter). However, introverts will continue to find such activity exhausting, and need some alone time to recharge our batteries – this is the key indicator of introversion. An extrovert would instead find those activities energising. Introverts generate their ‘energy’ internally, in moments of quiet, extroverts gain it from sensation, from crowds. That the extrovert view predominates is a natural product of extroversion; it makes itself known. Susan Cain is encouraging us, the quiet ones, to better represent ourselves.

One thing I no longer do is be apologetic for my reluctance to engage in extrovert activities. I will, as politely as I can, explain that I’d rather poke myself in the eye than, say, go to a noisy nightclub. Anyone who takes offence at this doesn’t know me very well.

The God of incompetence

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I originally posted this on the Belfast Telegraph’s comment pages, in response to a gay Christian with whom I was on the same side of the debate, but for different reasons. He believed there was no scriptural evidence that homosexuality was a sin. I consider scriptural evidence of any kind as bullshit, and defend his sexual orientation on purely moral humanistic grounds.

“For an omnipotent, omni-prescient being, he does a piss-poor job of making himself known.

And why ‘he’? If he is indeed the only god, and has only ever been (i.e. there are no goddesses to get funky with), then he does not reproduce and would have no gender. God should be an ‘it’ – just another example of the misogyny of religion :P

I’ve heard the possibility that we are an experiment, our Universe sat in a petri-dish in a lab. If so, it seems God just nipped out for a cig* (edited – my original choice of a word for cigarette could have been better chosen in view of the topic!) and some coffee and missed the last 13.7 billion years of our existence while he was dipping his digestive….sloppy :P

I’ve always felt that if I was going to make a Universe, I’d design it with rules that I didn’t subsequently need to violate to make stuff happen – I’d far rather allow stuff to emerge by itself (morality is itself emergent, a natural product of any social species). If I was a gardener, I’d just plant a bit of woodland and let it go ‘au naturel’ – the result would be more beautiful than I could manage.

I recall once pointing out to a bright lad who happened to have taken the 6 day creation for granted – “If I was God, and I was making a Universe, why would I rush? I’m immortal, right?”. I’m not saying you’re a young Earth creationist, GC (I credit you with too much intelligence for that), but religions of all kinds are stacked on heaps of assumptions. I feel on much firmer ground perched on the shoulders of giants, all of them peer-reviewed, their ideas tested to destruction. I allow myself the odd indulgence of my own opinion too, mind.”

Better late than never – my second stab at academia

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“Astronomy? Is that where you do horoscopes?”

This was one reaction to my announcement that I was going back to school with the Open University.

This blog is my attempt to explain why I did that, becoming a university student for the fourth time, in a bid to start afresh in a new field of science from the one I hold two degrees in, biology, in the hope I end up nestled deep in the bosom of academia where, to be frank, I belong.

Why astronomy? As a child, it was one of the first sciences to capture my imagination. As an adult, I know more than most about it, a level I think of as “Enough to thoroughly ruin most of the sci-fi I watch” – where do these shows get their science advisers from?! It’s certainly a last frontier of science, and that’s a big draw for me.

I’ve tried plenty of ‘real’ jobs. Some people can genuinely do a job they don’t care about because it brings home the bacon. I am not one of them. I’ve been there, done that, and instead of returning with said bacon, ended up only with the T-shirt.

What could I do? Retail? Like the anti-malarial drug chloroquine, there are adverse effects from taking it for too long. And I do mean ‘taking’. Or to put it another way, if I ever again have to sell something, as part of my job, to Joe Public, I am very, very likely to call him a ‘fucking moron’ to his face.

Management? As I once told a manager of mine, the day that company promoted me to manager would be he day they slid into administration. In a recent interview for what would eventually be a managerial position, I was asked for 10 qualities of a good manager. When I finally managed to come up with the list, I was asked how many applied to me. At the point were I said “About three”, we both realised we were wasting our time.

Administration? I can organise most things, provided they are not pieces of paper, sums of money, dates or people; it’s also why I’ve not set up as an Ebay trader. Photography? All the arguments against administration apply here too, with the addition that it’s a saturated market. As a fellow photographer friend of mine once said, “It’s dead mens’ shoes”. I.T.? For me, it makes more sense but like retail, you have a shelf-life. Besides, my knowledge is a bit dated and there are a lot of kids to compete with in that market. Any jaded I.T. tech will know what I mean by the phrase “My system would be perfect but for all these damned users”. Thus, it’s entirely possible the ‘fucking moron’ outburst could happen there too…

What about the other degrees? Well, I was younger and stupider back then, didn’t know what I wanted, and so underperformed. To get a PhD, you need a good class undergraduate degree, and a masters doesn’t necessarily help if you don’t have one. I’ve more than once stated that many people are not ready for university before the age of 30 – I was certainly one. Starting afresh is also more likely to hold my interest than going back over well-trodden ground.

And so, academia, and a fresh start. It requires a good brain and sound reasoning skills, a love of knowledge and learning because it sure doesn’t pay well, and in all likelihood, I’ll get to live in different places. Sounds like a plan, eh? Well, it will take 4 years to complete a second undergraduate degree, via distance and part-time, and then the hunt is on for a PhD – I am assured that doing a PhD is one of the most demanding things you can imagine, 3 years of total commitment. I couldn’t imagine doing it 5 years ago, when last the option presented itself. That I can now is partly down to my keener state of mind, and partly down to a lack of options. It should be noted that, to an indecisive procrastinator like myself, a lack of options is not necessarily a bad thing.

David Cameron, Christian morality, and the News Letter

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On 19th December 2011, the News Letter reported on David Cameron’s speech on the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, stating Britain was a Christian country, and ”that the Bible has helped to give Britain a set of values and morals which make Britain what it is today.”

In the Morning View editorial, the author was full of praise for Mr Cameron, though was disappointed he hadn’t gone further. I’ve long viewed the News Letter as a right-wing, neo-conservative rag, a Norn Irish Daily Mail, so I sent them a rebuttal on the whole business of  Christianity’s claim on morals.

I didn’t find it online until 9th January 2012, and when I did, it had attracted two posts. Let us just say that the News Letter’s readership would not be, in the main, Internet-savvy. (i.e. not in their first, or indeed second, flush of youth), so the limited response is understandable.

(Incidentally, I also saw a letter on gay marriage of such outrageous homophobia, I posted a comment describing it as “a vile piece of borderline-criminal hate speech” – the comment was not posted, but instead the whole letter was pulled! Result!)

Nevertheless, I set about with a staunch defence of my letter, which I’ve reproduced below should it ever vanish from the News letter’s site.

What followed was a fairly one-sided debate where I slapped around an at first fairly reasonable, but eventually pop-eyed religious nut, whom in turn kept coming back like Monty Python’s Black Knight. As I kept bludgeoning his arguments, he one by one distanced himself from his fellow Christians (the ones who had strayed), the Jewish origins of the Christian church, the Old Testament, the Roman Catholic church (he was a Protestant) and eventually the original argument altogether.

I thought my invention of the philosophical position of amarmitism was the highlight of the exercise…

I eventually, reluctantly, had to stop replying because while I had won the argument, it was quite apparent there was no reasoning with the loon. It’s not like there was even an audience.

 

Christianity did not ‘create’ morality

Published on Thursday 22 December 2011 09:31

IN response to Morning View (December 19) I felt compelled to challenge the assertion that the UK needs greater emphasis on the ‘Christian’ moral code.

The article says that the ‘overwhelming majority of citizens in the United Kingdom’ are Christian. According to a 2011 YouGov survey of Great Britain, a bare 55 per cent of respondents described themselves as Christian – of these only 38 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds are Christian, while 70 per cent of over-55s are Christian. In other words, while Christianity is in the majority, just, it soon won’t be.

I note the News Letter failed to report Dr Richard Dawkins’ response to David Cameron’s speech, which described Christianity as ‘an appalling moral compass’. Some Christians may be shocked by this statement.

Let me explain: a cursory reading of the Bible reveals genocide, slavery, treatment of women as little more than property, rape and stoning of people for adultery and other lesser crimes condoned in the Old Testament.

More recently, we have the Inquisition, and in modern times, we are witness to the paedophile scandal engulfing the Catholic church, their campaign to discredit the use of condoms in developing countries in the face of an HIV epidemic, and their complicity in the Holocaust in the signing of the Reichskonkordat.

Protestantism doesn’t get away scot-free either; the record of racism and homophobia by Protestants, predominantly in the United States, is a poor one.

I’ll omit our own Troubles, as nearly everyone, religious and political, comes out looking bad.

I am not saying that Christians are bad people – many of them are loving, kind and generous. You will, however, find that this is also true of non-Christians.

To quote Steven Weinberg, ‘Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things, that takes religion.’

Christianity did not ‘create’ morality; it subsumed it from pre-existing society. This is true of other religious moralities, too. Given this was a bronze-age civilisation (Old Testament), or if you prefer iron-age (New Testament), things have moved on in the Zeitgeist (‘spirit of the age’) – the 20th century saw the introduction of equality in gender, race and sexual orientation. These are increasingly considered ‘good’ morals, and have absolutely no basis in religious doctrine.

If you want an idea of what a secular society looks like, largely unfettered by Christianity or any other religion, look to Scandinavia. It should be noted that the Scandinavians have amongst the best social standards and life expectancy in the world.

To finish, I agree that there should be no legislation preventing Christians publicly expressing their faith; I know of no legislation that attempts any such thing, and I think it’s disingenuous of the editorial writer to insinuate that such things are afoot.

I would, however, wish the same thing for all faiths, and those with none, so long as they do not oppress or harm others. As a secular society, free speech is a central pillar of our culture.

Colin Morrison

Fermanagh

worldinfocus.net launches

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After many years of pointedly avoiding doing a website, I’ve finally got my thumb out and made it happen.

What will this site be about? Good question – it’ll likely accumulate articles on photography, science, politics, hobbies, humour, rationality, general geekery and anything else that takes my fancy. I have more interests than I could pursue in 10 lifetimes, so I roam from pasture to pasture, musing as I go.

Feel free to leave comments on my posts – I’m rather fond of a good argument. As the link suggests, going ad hominem will be considered a concession, so don’t go there.