The Nevada Sagebrush

Barry Belmont

Whether it’s Harry Reid praising the President Barack Obama’s lack of a “negro dialect” or Pat Robertson claiming that the recent Haitian earthquake was God’s punishment for Haiti’s pact with the devil, recent events caused me to reflect upon the fallacious use of language and how other logical fallacies beset us on all sides.

When someone uses such grating language it results in many of us becoming deaf to the claims being made. Emotive language addresses itself to people’s sentiments rather than to their rationality and causes one to accept or reject a claim simply because of loaded words, such as “negro,” “socialist” or “Nazi.”

If we step back and judge the overall meaning conveyed by Reid and Robertson we can look past their highly charged words and see that one was simply using antiquated language to make rather benign social commentary and the other is a disgustingly ignorant, religiously inspired whackjob.

But those are easy cases. What happens when the language becomes more subtle, when the words become deceiving even in their deception, for example in pseudoscientific claims? Well, then you need Barry’s Handy-Dandy (Slightly-Fallible) Fallacy Detector System. While this system is not all-inclusive, hopefully it will help you evaluate all plausible claims you come across, from the big bang theory to ghosts.

Where lies the burden of proof?

When you hear a claim, first try to establish what needs to be proven and by whom. If you hear a scientist claim that consuming red wine increases longevity, it is up to them to provide convincing evidence to that effect.

Falsifiability

If a claim can’t be falsified, for instance, “there is an invisible fairy that lives in your bedroom,” then it is meaningless. Similarly, be wary if a claimant uses after-the-fact reasoning to rationalize away failures, such as “Well, the fairies can normally be captured on film, but…um, not on Tuesdays.” That claim is likely untenable.

Objectivity is an ideal rarely reached

An easy way to break out of your biases is to realize that you have them. We all should aim to be as objective as possible, but we are fairly stuck in our ways at this point. If you’re a Democrat, try to realize that you see the world through Democratic lenses and compensate accordingly.

Provisionality is the best we can hope for

All of you out there hoping science and rational thinking will give you truth are mistaken. These routes give us enough evidence toward claims to act as if they were true, but we must be aware that our theories can change no matter how well-established they are. Chicken bones found in Mesozoic soil would shatter the theory of evolution and send scientists back to the drawing board.

Defend your position as if it were true, but in the future, if there is sufficient evidence to reject your claim, reject it and take up a position more supported by available evidence.

However, you may ask, why should we believe anything you just said? That is an excellent question I leave for you to decide.

Barry Belmont studies biology and engineering. Reach him at perspectives@nevadasagebrush.com.

Related Posts:

• Taboo on questioning religion, religious beliefs ought to eliminated
• Use scientific method to prove ideas, not just beliefs
• Opinions that are wrong cause harm, should not be respected
• More than one right answer exists to moral questions
• Absurdities plague organizations