Fallacies and it Is Important to Detect

¶ … fallacies and it is important to detect fallacious arguments and then form decisions. Below is an analysis of three such fallacies which have been described and examples are described to show why it is important to detect them. FALLACIES Ad Ignorantiam This fallacy is on the principle that in the case there is a lack of evidence to prove it to be true, it is considered naturally to be false. An atheist might claim that as a creationist cannot prove that God exists therefore God does not exist.

Similarly a creationist can say that because the atheist cannot prove that God does not exist, hence God exists. Basically this fallacy deals with the burden of proof and in the absence of any proof it labels the opposite to be absolutely true. This fallacy is used in the judicial systems that are based on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty." Hence the burden of proof is not on the defendant but on the prosecutor to prove him to be guilty.

If he fails to submit sufficient evidence then the defendant is assumed to be innocent and released. This type of fallacy compromises critical thinking because the absence of proof does not necessarily mean the opposite to be true. Disregarding every other argument because sufficient evidence was not put forward is certainly not critical thinking. It is important to detect such a fallacy and remove it from an argument that provides a conclusion based on the appeal to ignorance.

Senator Joe McCarthy used this type of fallacy to support his claim: 'I am only giving the Senate, cases in which it is clear there is a definite Communist connection .. persons whom I consider to be Communists in the State Department ... I do not have much information on this except the general statement of the agency .. that there is nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connections." (Richard H. Rovere, p.106-107) The agency could not disprove Communist connection hence it was assumed that there were Communist connections.

This assumption is not necessarily true and what he should have looked for was any evidence to prove Communist connections. This type of fallacy should not be used to make vital decisions as far as some cases are concerned. However in cases where the burden of proof is put on the prosecutor to prove the defendant to be guilty, this fallacy is well used otherwise the law and order system would get extremely corrupted.

If the defendant was to prove his innocence then law enforcing agencies could put anyone in the trouble of proving themselves to be innocent for whatever alleged crime. It was wrong of Senator McCarthy to accuse anyone of having Communist connections or for Mahathir Mohammad to hold the former Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia as guilty (Interview of Mahathir Mohammad) based on the fact that they have not been able to prove their innocence.

False Dilemma This is a fallacy that is also known as a black or white fallacy where a choice is given to be made between two extremes of a spectrum rather than acknowledging that an intermediate state could also be present. It's more like either black or white without giving the option of a grey. More like, accept either "A" to be true or "B" to be true, where both "A" and "B" could be false. Atheists use this fallacy to prove that God does not exist.

Ask a Christian and he would say God is omnipotent. The Atheist would then ask if God is omnipotent can He make a wall so strong that he cannot break it. This would lead the Christian or any other theologian into a corner with no escape. A classic example was seen by the speech of the President of the United States recently after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. He stated that every nation has to decide "either you are with us or against us" (William Raspberry).

It is not necessary that any nation who would not become an ally to the United States is naturally against the United States. They can also assume a neutral position or due to other reasons they might not want to participate in the war. Making a decision on false dilemma is not right and should be avoided. Everyone who is not with you is not necessarily against you. There are surely other possibilities rather than an "either/or" or a "black/white" situation.

This type of thinking is not logical and was used by President Bush to persuade others to give him support and become an ally in his war on Afghanistan. However where there only exist two options then this type of reasoning would not be called fallacious. For an example one asks "is Joe dead or is Joe alive?" This would not be fallacious because if Joe is not dead then he is obviously alive.

But where more than two options exist then this mode of reasoning is without doubt erroneous as both the options that are put forward could be false with a third or fourth one being true. Therefore when making decision one has to filter this fallacy and realize that between black and white there lies grey. Hasty Generalization Hasty generalization is the formation of an opinion about a population based on a very small sample.

If the sample would be large enough to logically form an opinion then it would not be considered fallacious. Stating that Muslims were involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and therefore all Muslims are terrorists is nothing but fallacious.

An example of this type of fallacy has been reported by Jerry White: "In one incident a drunken 75-year-old man, screaming, 'You're destroying my country,' tried to run down a Pakistani woman in a Long Island parking lot." (Jerry White) Was that woman trying to destroy his country? What was the evidence based upon? The old mad had not any evidence to say that the woman was trying to destroy his city let alone his country.

His actions were based on the hasty generalization that because news media said that Muslims were involved in the attack on the World Trade Center, hence all Muslims are terrorists and as this woman was a.