Abbreviated Fallacies of Reason
Logical Fallacies
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, July 30, 2020
Introduction
Ever come up
against a worldview, religion, belief, or an argument that you didn’t know how
to deal with? Sometimes you know there is something wrong (i.e., illogical) but
you are just not sure why? It’s
frustrating isn’t it?
Believe it or not, this happens all the time
with people. We are in a sin-cursed world but even so, I’m actually shocked to
see how illogical people often are. I don’t say this lightly. I look
back to my own past and sigh, because there were times I was illogical too!
The sad part is that most people espousing
something illogical don’t realize they are illogical. Even when people are
refuted in today’s day and age, they have no idea they were proved wrong and
continue as though they were never falsified regarding a particular belief
system.
Many of you are probably tracking with me at
this point because you could name dozens of people off the top of your head who
are illogical and accordingly, drive you nuts! But I’m going to ask a simple
and profound question…why are so many people illogical?
Did you ever stop to think about that? The
answer is rather easy…by and large, people today were never taught logic. I was
never taught it at schools for instance. And yet, logic is the basis for proper
logical thinking and reasoning. I had to go out and read books on logic and
study it on my own for my personal benefit. Nevertheless, you can go from
kindergarten to a PhD without a single logic course. How strange.
Some people were taught critical thinking
skills, but most of these courses do not teach formal and informal logic and
associated fallacies, whereas logic is required to have good critical
thinking. Logic used to be an everyday course in schools. So why was it
removed? With caveats about the article itself, the Huffington Post writes:
“The essence of an
education - the ability to think critically and protect oneself from falsehood
and lies - may once have been taught in American schools, but, with few
exceptions, is today a lost art.”[1]
The article goes on to say:
“Governments have always
tried to brainwash children not only by what was taught, but also, and more
subtly, by what was omitted.”[2]
Of course, I think the article misses the
point of why logic courses were removed (they want to blame standardized
testing). The logical answer is that it conflicted with other government-run
school goals and something had to give. What other goals? If you look at
education from an overview perspective, it’s tough to miss.
The History of Why Logic Was Removed From Schools
Modern education was largely a Christian
endeavor going back to English Christian Robert Raikes in the 1700s and his
Sunday School movement that expanded in to weekly schools by churches. Over
time, the English government, which were largely Christianized, help subsidize
these church schools which were radically helping literacy and England in
general.
Before you knew it, many of these schools were
essentially taken over by the government (which was becoming more secularized) because they were funding them. In England, this began in the 1800s. In the
US Colonies, common education was actually earlier but still under Christian
and Biblical teachings though it varied from town to town.
The Bible was used in schools for nearly every
subject, including logic, as God is a logical God, we are made in His image,
and He created and sustains all things in a logical fashion. Due to sin, people
mess up logic and reasoning and hence, they need training on this subject to
correct their thinking.
The Bible subtly came under attack in schools.
In the 1800s, the secular notion of
long ages in geological rock layers was an attack on the global Flood which
accounts for the majority of those same rock layers. Then in the later 1800s, biological
evolutionary ideas began being inserted into government-funded schools under
the guise of science, although no one had ever observed or repeated the
changing of a single-celled organism like an amoeba into a dog.
Finally in the 1920’s, human evolution began
being taught in US schools. This led to the famous Scopes
Trial in 1925, where creationists won, but it set the stage to remove the
Bible, creation, prayer, and other subjects like logic that were reliant upon
Scripture and switch them to the religion of man (i.e., naturalism, secular
humanism, and atheism), which now dominates our school systems.
By the 1950s, kids would go into a class on
biology, earth science, and history which were now dominated by evolution and then
go to a class on logic and see the fallacies of an evolutionary worldview. This
conflict meant something had to go. Without question, logic was then weeded out
and finally omitted with rare exceptions and if by providence, it was at your
school it was usually an elective but not required.[3]
We now have whole generations who are largely
ignorant of logic. In other words, instead of generations being taught “how to
think”, they were told “what to think”. So much for freedom when people are
raised up and trained to be pawns in a larger spiritual war.
For instance, we have whole generations who do
not realize that opinions do not equal truth. Yet our entire court system of
judgments are based on “opinions”. We
have a magazine called “Reason” run by people whose atheistic and materialistic
worldview cannot account for the existence of reason since it isn’t material. And
yet, they fail to realize how inconsistent that is.
When a person calls someone a derogatory name,
the someone in question get offended instead of seeing that it is merely an emotive
language fallacy (specifically epithet fallacies) and has no bearing
on truth. But this is the state of culture we now live in in the Western World.
Logical thought is largely absent. When God gives a nation over to be judged in
Romans 1:18-22, they became futile in their thinking (illogical):
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…(Romans 1:12-22 Emphasis Added, ESV)
What is logic?
Logic is defined by Merriam-Webster’s
Dictionary as,
“Logic, used
strictly in the singular, is a science that deals with the formal principles of
reason.”[4]
Simply put, logic is the study of correct and
incorrect reasoning. It is a tool, but not a tool made of material things (like
atoms) but an immaterial construct. Logic doesn’t have mass; you can’t trip on it
in the middle of the night. Yet all of creation obeys logic, which gives us a
taste of how God uphold His creation in a reasonable way.
The most basic law of logic is the Law
of Non-Contradiction which states that something cannot be “A” and “Not
A” in the same relationship and at the same time. In other words, you cannot
have a drink in your hand and not have a drink in your hand at the same time
and in the same relationship.
A fallacy is when an argument violates sounds logic or sound reasoning. Sometimes an argument can violate more than one fallacy at once. There are informal and formal fallacies. I’ll give listing of these in a moment.
The tool of logic become essential when
dealing with arguments (not yelling matches but exchanges and
dialogues on differing views). An argument can have premises (certain
accepted information), propositions (chain of statements and
premises), and conclusions (using propositions and premises to
lead to another truth claim). Sometimes a premise or conclusion is unstated and
these are called enthymemes.
Arguments can be deductive (the
conclusion definitely follows) or inductive (the
conclusion is likely or probably the case, but not definitely—i.e., leans in
the direction of where the argument is pointing). With an inductive argument the
conclusion can be strong or weak. In a deductive argument, it can
be valid (the conclusion follows the premises) or invalid (the
conclusion does not follow the premises).
There is also propaganda too
(where something is “propped” up to convince you about something but it isn’t
necessarily true through any logical means, yet in some cases commits fallacies as well. Okay I get it—this sounds like a
lot of terminology but you do this and deal with logic all the time whether you
realize it or not. Using concision, let’s look at some Informal Fallacies,
Formal Fallacies, and Propaganda Types. Keep in mind these concise listings are
often the content of entire books, curricula, and lectures on logic.
Listing of Some Informal Fallacies
1. Linguistic (Language) Fallacies
a. Emotive
Language Fallacy (Words lacking defined language – Usually biased to upset
someone) –Question
Begging Epithet; Epithet Fallacies
b. Ambiguity Fallacy (Vague general
words)
c. Equivocation
Fallacy (Using more than one sense of the word, tone, paraphrasing,
multiple interpretations of a word, or incorrect assumption about a word) –Bait-And-Switch
Fallacy
d. Misinterpretation of a Statement
Fallacy (Not just a word – violations of context) –Contextual Fallacy
e. Figure of Speech Fallacy
(Misusing idioms)
f. Composition Fallacy (Using a
statement to judge the whole, using some small thing to illustrate the whole
thing) –Part-to-Whole
g. Fallacy of Division (Dividing
things that are not divisible or using the whole to judge one statement
[opposite of Composition] ) –Whole-to-Part
h. Vicious Abstraction Fallacy
(Changing the argument to something else to try to prove the other point)
i. Either-Or
Fallacy (Making someone choose between two things when there are other
possible options) –False Dilemma; Bifurcation; False Dichotomy; Trifurcation (Like
bifurcation but with limiting to three possibilities when more exist)
j. Double Standard Fallacy (Say one thing and do
another or applying something unequally depending on who is making the case) –Special Pleading
k. No
True Scotsman Fallacy (When one defines a word or argument in such a biased way to
protect the argument from rebuttal)
2. Irrelevant Evidence Fallacies
a. Irrelevance
Fallacy (Introducing and/or jumping to disproving the wrong point) –Red Herring; Irrelevant
Thesis
b. Ignorance Fallacy (Assuming
something is true because one is ignorant to the subject)
c. Pity Fallacy (Pity or looking for
sympathy)
d. Respect Fallacy (Giving heirs to
truth due to prestige, respect, etc)
e. Disrespect
Fallacy (Condemning an argument because of where/how/who began it) – Genetic Fallacy
f. By Force Fallacy (Making everyone
think it is the truth by force and power)
g. Attack the Person Fallacy
(Attacking the person not the point) –Ad Hominem
h. Prejudice/Masses Fallacy (Appeal
to the masses, prejudice of groups) –Appeal to the People
i. Strawman
fallacy (When someone attacks or refutes a distorted view of what their
opponent believes instead of their actual position)
j. Slippery
Slope Fallacy (Absurdly extrapolating)
k. Guilt By Association Fallacy (falsely trying to link one group or set of ideas to another known group or known set of ideas that is false)
3. Material Fallacies
a. Fallacy
of Accident (Apply a general rule because of an obscure event)
b. Converse Fallacy of Accident
(Come up with science rules and laws based on accidents)
c. False Cause Fallacy (Because
something randomly happened by accident doesn’t mean it always will or just
because something happened before something else doesn’t mean it caused the other) –Post Hoc/Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
d. Failed Step Fallacy (Conclusions
do not follow the logic) –Non Sequitur
e. Compound Questions Fallacy (Using
one or more questions to try to trick the opponent) –Compound Question Fallacy; Loaded Question
Fallacy, Complex Question Fallacy, Fallacy
of the False Question, Fallacy of Many Questions, Trick Question Fallacy
f. Begging the Question Fallacy
(Using itself to prove itself in an arbitrary sense) –Circular Reasoning, Petito Principii
g. Agreeable Fallacy (Agree because
you do it yourself) –Tu Quoque
h. Misplaced Authority Fallacy
(Asking an expert to give an opinion about something he is not an expert in) –Faulty Appeal to
Authority/False Authority Fallacy
i. Genetic Error Fallacy
(Determining if it is true by who is saying it now)
j. False Analogy Fallacy (Using a
similar argument to argue the point regardless of different circumstances) –Weak Analogy
k. Insufficient Evidence Fallacy
(Inadequate evidence and then jump to a conclusion) –Lack of Evidence
l. Contrary to Fact Conditional Error
Fallacy (Alters historical facts and draws conclusions from them)
m. Contrary to Premise Fallacy
(Self-contradicting right from the start)
n. Hasty Generalizations (Generalizing
about a class or group based on a small sample)
o. Reification
Fallacy (Treating abstract concepts, objects, and events of nature as real
things with human characteristics) –Anthropomorphic Fallacy; Anthropomorphism
p. Personification
Fallacy (A type of reification fallacy that treats animals as though they have human characteristics)
q. Pathetic
Fallacy (A type of reification fallacy reflecting human feelings, actions,
or emotions through inanimate objects)
r. The
Fallacy Fallacy (Just because
there is a fallacy, doesn’t mean the conclusion must be wrong—sometimes a conclusion can still be right even when
falsely-argued)
s. The Offense Fallacy (Something is wrong merely because someone is offended by it)
Formal Fallacies
Formal fallacies can be stated in forms and
improper forms lead to fallacies. There are two main type of formal fallacies—Affirming the Consequent and Denying the Antecedent. They are
improper forms of good logical flow called Modus
Ponens and Modus Tollens.
(1) If p, then q. (2) p. (3) therefore, q. Valid; Modus
Ponens
(1) if p, then q. (2) q. (3) Therefore, p. Invalid; Affirming
the Consequent Fallacy
(1) If p, then q. (2) Not q. (3) therefore,
not p. Valid; Modus
Tollens
(1) If p, then q. (2) Not p. (3) therefore,
not q. Invalid; Denying
the Consequent Fallacy
An excellent example of an Affirming the
Consequent Fallacy is:
If
millions of years is true (p), then we should find fossils (q)
We
find fossils (q), therefore millions of years is true (p)
This is one of the most common fallacies I’ve
seen in a secular worldview and it is espoused over and over again. This could
just as easily be reversed for creation (just switch the words “millions of
years” with “Creation and the Flood”) which shows the arbitrariness
of the fallacy.
Propaganda Types
Propaganda is used to get people to act on
something or believe something by simply appealing to something or someone. Advertisements
are mastery at this:
“Get
it while it lasts, supplies are limited!”—Exigency Propaganda
“Everyone
else is doing it, come and join in”—Bandwagon Propaganda
“Get
the latest gadget” —Appeal to Technology Propaganda
“Stop
being old-fashioned and join our movement because we are progressive”—Appeal to
Progression Propaganda
Specific propaganda types:
a. Appeal to Fear (Trying to get people to
do something or else there may be consequences that you don’t want to happen)
b. Appeal to Pity (Trying to get you to do
something out of pity)
c. Bandwagon (Pressuring because many
others are doing it)
d. Exigency (Giving time limits to influence
you)
e. Repetition (Repeating something so many
times that people begin to believe it regardless of the facts)
f. Transfer (Trying to transfer a thought
of one thing/person to another thing/person)
g. Snob Appeal (Trying to get people to
think they are better than everyone else)
h. Appeal to Tradition (Trying to
influence due to tradition or age)
i. Appeal to Technology (Trying to
influence via the latest thing)
j. Appeal to Progression (Trying to
influence through the construct of progress)
Conclusion
Logic is a powerful means of understating truth claims and false claims. It helps us take the “emotion” out of an argument and see the truth for what it is. Logic is predicated on a logical God existing and upholding the world in a logical state. God knows all things and is never wrong on any matter and is the very standard for logic and truth.
We, as beings made in the image of a logical God, are poised to understand and use logic in this sin-cursed world, where people are often illogical, to make sense of things. I want to encourage you to learn proper logic and train yourself to do better at reasoning and not get caught up in “futile thinking”.
[1] Frank
Breslin, Why Public Schools Don’t Teach Critical Thinking — Part 1, Huffington
Post, August 7, 2016, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-public-schools-dont-t_b_7956518.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Textbooks
for logic became a thing of the past like McCall’s Basic Logic from 1947, Ambrose and Lazerowitz’s 1948 Fundamentals of Symbolic Logic, and
Burtt’s 1938 Principles and Problems of
Right Thinking soon only gathered dust in libraries.
[4]
Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logic,
accessed July 29, 2020.
