Video Transcript: Component Fallacies Part 1

Hi, I'm David Feddes. And this talk is about component fallacies. We're talking about various  fallacies that we want to avoid in our speaking, and in our writing. And component fallacies is  one category of those things. Component fallacies are errors in inductive and deductive  reasoning, or in syllogistic. Terms that fail to overlap. Those are kind of technical terms for  bad arguments. Inductive reasoning is using data. And then reasoning towards probability and deductive reasoning is reasoning towards the way things have to be if you know, some of the  premises, and component fallacies means that at various points in the argument errors have  been made. We'll get into some examples of that. Begging the question is assuming the very  thing that you're supposed to prove, you say you're going to prove it, but it's right there in  your premise. For instance, it is foolish to believe harmful false ideas, like John Calvin's. So  don't be a Calvinist. Well, right there in your premise, you've said the ideas are harmful and  false. And you'd be foolish to believe them. So there's really no reasoning going on there at  all. You've just said, it's bad, therefore, it's bad. A famous argument was from the philosopher  Descartes who tried to prove his existence. By the argument, I think, therefore, I exist. He's  trying to prove his existence. However, in the premise, I think, is the word I, he embedded i in  the premise. So he's assuming his existence already in the premise he's not proving it.  Another form of fallacy is circular reasoning, and it's a lot like begging the question, here's an  example. God exists. Well, why should I believe God exists? Because the Bible says so, well,  why should I believe the Bible? Because it's the inspired Word of God. But why should I  believe God exists? Because the Bible says, so, why should I believe the Bible because it's the word of God, but and so you're arguing a circle. You see, it's not necessarily wrong to believe  that God exists, or to believe that what the Bible says is true. But to argue that the Bible is  true, because it's the word of God and that God exists because his word says so is to have a  circular argument, believe it by faith. But don't necessarily think you've got a great argument  when you're arguing in a circle. There are many forms of circular reasoning as I go through  various fallacies. In these talks. I'm focusing mainly on the kind of fallacies that come up in  discussions about Christianity or religion, or morality, you can see many other examples of  circular reasoning and the other fallacies in the kinds of readings that are readily available on  logic. Another fallacy is hasty generalization, jumping to conclusions. It's the mistaken use of  inductive reasoning when there are too few samples to prove a point and a few forms of hasty generalization are anecdotal evidence, fallacy of accident. And a misleading statistic. I'll give  you examples of each anecdotal evidence takes a few incidents and then generalizes, very  largely on them. I see news reports of Muslim terrorism, it's obvious that most Muslims are  violent, and Islam encourages terror. Now, that's a hasty generalization based on anecdotes.  If you were to watch the news, you might reason this way. I see news reports of car accidents  every day. All Americans are terrible drivers, and just about all of them are being killed in  accidents. So that's the way the news is it if it bleeds, it leads. And so what you see on the  news are the most striking and violent things that happened in a particular day. And it does  not real reveal much about all drivers. And it doesn't reveal much about all Muslims either.  You can't base your belief about a whole group of people. on just a few things that you see  here and there. It's an open question. You may still think that Islam in various ways  encourages terror, but you'll have to make it and make your case on better grounds than  what you happen to see in the news now and then. Here's another hasty generalization. Jesus, Peter and Paul did miracles of healing. So God clearly wants all of his people to do miracles.  Healing? Well, is it really the case that if you know of three persons that God used to do  mighty miracles, that therefore he wants all the millions of believers to do those same mighty  miracles? Jesus, Peter and Paul, were all killed for standing for the truth. Does that mean that  God intends for everyone of the millions of Christians to be killed for standing for the truth?  It's a hasty generalization based on anecdotes to take just a few incidents here and there and  say, and therefore this is true of all people. Jesus, Peter and Paul might have had special  callings, and therefore God gave them particular powers to do miracles, that he doesn't  distribute to everybody who doesn't have those particular callings. There are a lot of reasons  why a few people might have a capacity, but not all. And it's a hasty generalization based on  anecdotal evidence, to read about a few people in the Bible and say, This is what God wants  for all Christians. If the Bible says, This is what God wants for all Christians, and the Bible 

actually says, God wants every believer to have the power to raise the dead, He wants every  believer to have the power to pray for others and make their sickness go away. If the Bible  said it in those terms, then of course, you would have a strong case. But if you just read about a person doing this or that, then you shouldn't be too quick to generalize based on those  stories or anecdotes. Another form of hasty generalization is a fallacy of accident, something  is just kind of randomly the case and you draw a connection that's not really there. One way  of doing this might be to say, the numerical value of Nero in Hebrew is 666. So 666 in  Revelation 13, verse eight must mean that the beast of the Antichrist was Nero. Now, that's a  possibility, but it's certainly not proved just because you can come up with 666 and connect it with Nero. Here's another case. Ronald Wilson, Reagan is three names of six letters each.  Therefore 666 reveals President Reagan to be the Antichrist, that such formulas have been  used to prove that all sorts of different people are the Antichrist, and they're based on the  fallacy of accident. Another form of hasty generalization is a misleading statistic. 87% of  teens who responded to an online survey said they use drugs, and don't believe in God. What  a tragedy that seven of eight youth in our nation truth choose drugs over God. Now, that's an  example I made up but let's just suppose that that was really the case that 87% of teens on in an online survey said they use drugs and don't believe in God, what would that prove? Not  much? What if it was a survey done on a website of atheists? Well, then you would find when  you run a survey on a website intended, especially for atheists, that a lot of them aren't going to believe in God. What if you were looking at a drug at a website for drug users, there's  websites for just about everything. And this is a website where people love to talk about the  various drugs they use, and the highs they experience. That website invites a survey. And so  you're going to get a high percentage of teens in that particular survey, who say they use  drugs, and maybe don't believe in God. But it's not a random survey of all teens in the nation, you get my point. A misleading statistic, based on a selective survey from one website is very different than a scientific survey that randomly selects from let's say, 1000 teens based on  statistical analysis of random selection. And then you can start generalizing a little bit more  about what's true of teens in the nation. But it has to be a scientific and a randomly selected  survey, not one based on what a particular website asked its users. And there are all kinds of  ways that you can get selective statistics to support conclusions that are not at all faithful to  the facts. Another kind of fallacy is slothful induction. And that's the opposite of hasty  generalization. It's the opposite of jumping to a conclusion, slothful induction is refusing to  recognize abundant evidence, or to draw a conclusion when that conclusion actually seems  very probable based on the amount of evidence that's been accumulated. For instance,  someone could say, maybe socialism has stifled freedom and lead to poverty wherever it's  been tried in the past. Russia got very poor socialism was a disaster in North Korea. It ruined  Venezuela. It ruined the economy of country after country after country and led to  authoritarianism and oppression. And the person will say, yeah, maybe it's done all that. But  this time is different. This time, if we try socialism, it's going to bring freedom and prosperity  for all it's going to lead to that worker's paradise that Marx envisioned. Well, maybe you've  got a case of slothful induction. Maybe socialism has been tried enough times to say, this  approach wrecks economies and destroys freedom. And there are lots of cases where we have to be very cautious that okay, a lot of evidence has accumulated by now and are we going to  still refuse to recognize the evidence and draw the conclusion. Another type of fallacy is false  cause and there are various forms of that a false cause is claiming that there's a cause effect  relationship that doesn't exist, claiming that one thing causes another but there really isn't a  cause. And we'll look at four forms of that the correlation causation fallacy, the non causa pro  causa fallacy, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. First  of all, correlation causation. This is assuming that because two things go together, therefore,  one is the cause of the other. When roosters crow, the sun comes up, therefore roosters cause the sunrise. Some roosters might think that they're strutting a little bit because they've made  the sun come up. But it's possible that the sun didn't come up just because they crowed. But  the two things went together. And so you reason, hey, if one thing happened, then it caused  the other. Here's another claim. Children who watch a lot of TV are more violent. TV makes  children more violent. Is that really so? Well, the argument that's presented doesn't prove it 

because what if violent kids happen to enjoy TV more, maybe their violence leads them to be  more focused on TV. So there are there can be different directions of causation, and you  haven't proven it. Even if two things go together, maybe they're totally unrelated. Maybe the  one doesn't cause the other or even influence the other, they just happen to go together.  Many poor people use drugs or alcohol, therefore, poverty causes addiction. Well, a lot of poor people do use drugs or alcohol. Hey, but so to a lot of rich people. So you haven't proved that  the cause of alcohol or drug use is poverty, because a lot of people who don't have any  problem with poverty are also using drugs or alcohol. It's possible you know that addiction  causes poverty for some people. Maybe that's why poor people using drugs and alcohol are  poor, they've been drinking too much. They haven't been able to hold down a job, they  haven't been able to be responsible with their money, and so their addiction is causing their  poverty. Now, I'm not trying to make a case one way or the other here. I'm simply saying that  it's a bad argument, to say that if you know that many people who use drugs and alcohol are  poor, therefore the drugs and alcohol are causing the poverty or the poverty is causing the  use of drugs and alcohol. It may be that neither causes the other they just happen to be  together in some situations that you've looked at. That's the correlation. Causation fallacy.  Don't assume that roosters crowing and sun coming up just because they go together the one causes the other. Another form of false cause is non causa pro causa. Latin for not the cause  for the cause. Here's a few examples. From spiritual life, one from the Bible. Jesus came  across a man who had been blind for a long time, in fact, he was born blind. And the people  said, This man is blind now. Either he was bad, or his parents were bad. And they asked Jesus  now who said this man or his parents that he was born blind? Well, just because he was blind,  did not mean that he was bad or his parents were bad. There were assumptions made that if  you're a good person, bad things don't happen to you. But that was a lie. And so the assumed cause was not really a cause. There's another example. We prayed and we won the game.  Our prayers are the reason we won. Are you sure? Is it possible that if you were playing  basketball, you had taller, stronger, faster, better shooters, and you won because you had a  better team? And not because you prayed? Or is it possible that you were playing and the  other team had three of their top players injured and the rest were favoring you? It's possible  that there were other causes, besides your prayers, for your victory that just the fact that you  prayed, and then it turns out that you won, does not mean that your prayers are the reason  you won. You might say, boy Dr. Feddes is Sure rough on prayer, he sure doesn't see the  power of prayer. No, I'm just pointing out that argument I believe in prayer, I just don't  assume that every time that a game has been won that God favored, the team that prayed  the most, we can assume false causes. And so sometimes it's not the cause for the cause.  Another mouthful in Latin, post hoc, ergo Propter, hoc, which literally is after this, therefore,  because of this, when something happens after something else, then we assume that the  thing that happened first caused the thing that came later. That's the post hoc fallacy, the  notion that if it comes after the thing, then it was caused by that thing. I'll give you an  example, in politics, the economy was strong before that person became president. But now  the economy is much lower. Therefore, the president caused this economic downturn. That's  the way a lot of voters tend to think that's the way the opposition party tends to argue.  Maybe it's true that the President caused the economic downturn. But it's certainly not proven that just because after his election, things went downhill, that he's the cause of it. What if  there was a huge banking crisis that the President had nothing to do with? What if there was a war on the other side of the world that interrupted supply lines and caused a downturn in the  American economy? What if the Federal Reserve Bank decided to Jack interest rates really  high and really fast, and it caused the recession then the Federal Reserve would have caused  the economic downturn during the time that somebody happened to be president, but had  very little to do with it? So it's a mistake to think that just because something happened first  the election of a particular man, therefore anything happened after him was caused by him?  Here's another example of the post hoc fallacy. Churches declined after rock music came  along. So rock music caused church decline. Well, maybe one did come after the other, but  that's no proof that one caused the other. So again, don't assume that just because one thing  comes first, and then something else comes later, the first thing caused the second one. 

That's the post hoc fallacy. And then there's the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. What's the Texas  sharpshooter fallacy? Well, it's based on a tale of a Texan who takes out a gun and fires away  at the side of a barn. And then after he's made a bunch of bullet holes in the side of the bar,  and he goes to wherever there happens to be the most bullet holes and paints a target  around those bullet holes and says, Wow, am I a good shot? You should see what a great shot  I am. Well, when you fire first and paint the target later, it doesn't prove that you're an  excellent shooter. And there is a form of argument that does that that takes data clusters, and says that this supports the argument or that sees a pattern where no real pattern existed.  And this can be done in various statistical forms. It can sometimes also be done with  prophecy. For instance. Nostradamus was a Frenchman who wrote 1000s of predictions and  prophecies in very strange language in the 1500s. One of his prophecies was this beasts wild  with hunger will cross the rivers the greater part of the battle will be against Hyster he will  cause great men to be dragged in a cage of iron when the son of Germany obeys no law.  Wow. Nostradamus foresaw the coming of Hitler and the rise of Nazi Germany and people  being dragged around in railway cars, or in tanks of iron Well, maybe not. Hyster does that  sound kinda like Hitler? Well, at the time Nostradamus was writing Hyster means the Danube  River, which is a big river in Germany, and the French which Nostradamus was, didn't ever  like the Germans, and the French, and the Germans were often at war with each other. So it  didn't take prophetic insight to talk about a war that might involve the Danube River at some  point. But looking at it afterward, after Hitler, and after some things happen, then you do the  Texas sharpshooter fallacy and you draw the target of Hitler back on Nostradamus' prophecy  and say, well, he used the word Hyster even though it had nothing to do with a guy with a  funny mustache, but rather described a river. You know, that's the prophecy now. So again,  don't be a Texas sharpshooter, don't fire away first, or see where there's a data cluster and  then draw your own conclusions around that data cluster. Another fallacy is to be very  selective about your evidence, and they leave out any evidence that doesn't suit your case.  This is a danger for us who are trying to understand what the Bible says about various  matters. Here's an example of selective evidence. I Corinthians 14, verse 34, says women  should remain silent. In the churches. This plainly shows that women should not pray out loud in church, they shouldn't offer testimonies in church, they should not speak in any public  gathering of the church, the women should remain silent. Well, just a few sentences before  that, in I Corinthians 14 itself, it says that when a woman prophesize, she should have her  head covered. Now, they're right there a few sentences earlier is a statement about women  speaking, and prophesying in gatherings of the church. I remember once getting a letter  where someone quoted at length from I Corinthians 14, where it said a woman should not  prophesy without a head covering, it went on to say women should remain silent in the  church, and then ask this question, Does your church believe this? And I scratched my head  and I wondered, well, what are they asking? Are they asking whether I think that church  services should not just have one speaker who's a preacher, but rather should open it up so  that lots of different people can prophesy, including women? Or are they asking whether I  believe that women should always be quiet in every circumstance in the church, because both statements were made right within the same passage. And so you had to try to understand  what they were for the Apostle Paul saying, He's obviously not saying that women should  always be quiet, because he's just spoken of them prophesy a few sentences earlier, but it's  selective evidence, to quote only the one that suits your case, I don't want a bunch of women  talking in church. And so I'm going to quote that part, but not the part about prophesy. Here's  another case of selective evidence from kind of the opposite. And the arguments Galatians  three, verse 28, says there is no male or female in Christ. Therefore, women may preach  because there's no male or female, and same sex marriage is, okay? Because there's no male or female. Well, when it's taken that way, then what about other passages that speak about I  don't permit a woman to preach and have authority over a man or passages that warn against a man lying with a man or a woman lying with a woman in a sexual way? The those passages  are in the Bible, too. And it's selective evidence to take a passage that says, hey, when it  comes to the matter of salvation, it doesn't matter whether you're a man or a woman, Christ  saves all. And in Christ, it doesn't matter whether you're a boy or a girl, or man or a woman, 

he saves them all. That's what it means to say that there's no male or female in Christ. But if  you're arguing from selective evidence, you're saying, I'm going to take one sentence out of  context, and use it to support my case about women preaching or about same sex marriage,  

or what have you. And so be very careful. It's the selective evidence fallacy and, and all of us  are guilty of it on multiple occasions when we're making it obvious that our side in an  argument is absolutely correct, because we've got two verses that prove it. And then we  conveniently overlook verses that might qualify our conclusion, or say something that sounds  quite different and we'd have to really think our way through it to come to a correct  conclusion.