Research Notes #23
Fun with Fallacies
Welcome back!
I hope you all had a Happy Halloween, even though it was on a Sunday. I always find weekend Halloween strange because trick or treating isn’t specific to ‘after school’ hours, so you feel like you have to stay home in case kids start showing up in the early afternoon. Still, it is my favourite holiday - even when I end up with a giant bowl of candy leftover, which was the case this year. Not ONE trick or treater came to our door. One more thing that COVID has ruined.
In this penultimate issue before the winter hiatus, we will be discussing types of fallacies. The final issue will focus on the myths of America, but a review of fallacies will be helpful in that final discussion of 2021. In Research Notes #4, way back in January, I discussed conspiracy theories and hoaxes, but never went into the techniques that theorists use to convince others that these hoaxes are true. So here we are, back at it with another primer on techniques of mis and disinformation. Enjoy!
Thank you for joining me on this journey and, if you enjoy the newsletter, please be sure to share far and wide!
So many fallacies, so little time
Human communication is a funny thing. There are so many venues for interaction nowadays that it can be extremely difficult to remember where or from whom you received information on a topic. Logic often loses due to the overwhelming number of sources and this can lead to confusion. Fallacies abound and we have to be critical of each piece of information that we receive and share. Critical thinking skills are the best defense against mis and disinformation and step one is to determine the type of fallacy being used for argumentation.
Today I’m going to present you with just a few of the many fallacies that exist, with examples to better understand how these fallacies are affecting the world around us. If you want to see a long list (not necessarily exhaustive, but good nonetheless) of fallacies, check out this Wikipedia page for further information: List of fallacies.
Let’s begin with a fallacy that I see being used quite a bit on social media when it comes to conspiracy theories:
Circular reasoning (or circular logic)
A logical fallacy that proceeds as so: A equals B because B equals A. An example of this is clearly stated in the following video from Colburn Classroom on YouTube.
I suppose the adage, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you always get what you’ve always gotten” is an example of admonishing others for using circular reasoning, via circular reasoning. As you can see - this particular fallacy can be harmful in that it confuses the narrative so much that people just believe what they are told. The most effective fallacies work because they are meant to confuse the conversation.
Questionable cause (or causal fallacy)
Circular reasoning almost always leads to one of the most used fallacies on social media. You might recognize it from a thread where one user responds to another with “correlation does not imply causation”. Of course, there are cases where correlation and cause align, but in social media discourse, this is usually not the case.
This post from 2014, on Fast Company, show nine examples of correlations in data that most certainly have nothing to with each other. The best way to debunk a causal fallacy is to simply look at the data.
Red Herring
An argument that uses confusion to shift focus toward a false conclusion. An excellent example of this type of fallacy is the Big Lie. Trump consistently used the red herring technique of ‘poisoning the well’ to shift focus away from what was truly going on in his administration and the idea that he lost the election due to unseen forces is yet another layer of the disinformation campaign. Unfortunately, there are many ‘true believers’ who are willing to ingest and regurgitate the talking points of the right, which is why we continue down this path.
Another favourite of Trump, and his ilk, is and was the Ad hominem attack. Each time he calls an opponent a name, rather than discussing his own policies, he is giving in to this type of fallacy. Red herrings abound in this administration and social media has given new life to this variety of false argumentation.
Stay alert
These are a few of the MANY fallacies that are used in debates across the internet, on television, and in print media, not to mention at dinner tables across the globe on a nightly basis (most especially the holidays.) To learn more about logic in writing, please the Purdue OWL site (owl.purdue.edu) and remember to question everything! Assess before you share! Vet your sources! Keep using those critical thinking skills online and off and we will all be better for it.
Recent links
Podcasts
Conspirituality - A weekly study of converging right-wing conspiracy theories and faux-progressive wellness utopianism.
Sounds Like A Cult - A podcast about the modern-day "cults" we all follow.
The Modesty Files - The goal of The Modesty Files is to "uncover" the stories of former fundamentalist church members. We hope to provide a comfortable and safe space so that people who left these churches are able to make sense of what happened to them and hopefully provide those out there with hope along the way.
Kitchen Table Cult - unpacks all the things Kieryn and Eve learned at the kitchen tables of their childhoods in conservative Christian homeschooling families. Every other week we take your questions and drill down on various topics about Quiverfull, the Religious Right, and our childhoods in high-demand groups (otherwise known as cults).
Articles
How to Debunk Misinformation about COVID, Vaccines, and Masks by Kathleen Hall Jamieson (scientificamerican.com)
Climatological and social fallacies about COVID-19 pandemic by Ambar Farooq, et al (Environmental Sustainability - a peer reviewed journal)
Name the Logical Fallacy - COVID-19 edition by Charlotte A. Moser and Paul A. Offit via Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (chop.edu)
Thanks for reading! Now it is your turn. If you have a comment, suggestion, or just want to chat, drop a comment in the thread below…