How to win an argument (Part 2)

In part 1 we had a look at four problems of reasoning, stemming from generalisations and implications:

1. Destroying the exception - all swans are white... until you find a black one.
2. Disregarding the exception - all surgeons are criminals cos they cut people up.
3. Mistaking the direction of the arrow (confirming the consequent) - clouds mean it must be raining.
4. Mistaking the meaning of the arrow (denying the antecedent) - no rain means there must be no clouds.

In this second part, we will be looking at some more ways to take down an argument; this time by identifying distraction techniques (even when your opponent wasn’t intending to distract).


-- Red Herrings

For some reason, the practice of strongly curing in brine and heavily smoking a kipper has lead to an idiom that means ‘a distraction’. This ‘red herring’ is also a logical fallacy and a debating tactic in which the respondent seeks to divert the opponent. When it’s not done on purpose, though, it’s called ignoratio elenchi. This roughly translates as ‘ignorance of refutation’, which in turn can be better expressed as ‘not understanding what response would correctly refute the argument’.

A ridiculous example might be:
Alice: “Monkeys are intelligent, because they can peel bananas.”
Bert: “You’re wrong, because whales live in the sea.”

Be careful of clever debaters who will employ subtle red herrings to avoid discussing difficulties in their arguments.


-- Scarecrows

Another way you might be duped by a devious debater is via a Straw Man. If you find that your opponent is attacking an argument that is superficially similar to yours, but not quite what you are saying, then they have built up a Straw Man and are attempting (maybe not on purpose) to follow this sort of reasoning:

(1) You present argument X.
(2) They, in what sounds like a refutation of your position, present argument Y that is superficially similar to your argument X, but isn’t the same.
(3) They show argument Y to be wrong in some way and so conclude that argument X is wrong in the same way.

So it looks like they’ve proved your argument wrong, when in fact they just made something up and proved that wrong instead.

Alice: “Monkeys are intelligent, because they can peel bananas.”
Bert: “Just because monkeys eat bananas doesn’t mean they’re intelligent. Bats, parrots, hamsters and mice all eat bananas - and they’re clearly not intelligent.”


-- Mistresses

Our final distraction technique is the loaded question. My favourite name for this fallacy (they all have many names) is the Fallacy of Many Questions. The famous complex question is “When did you stop beating your wife?” To answer this question, whether yes or no, is to implicitly admit to having a wife and having beaten her at some point.

There are three levels of complex question, two of them fallacious, but only one of them counts as a loaded question.

(1) Legitimately complex questions:
“Who is the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?”
To answer this question directly, you would be implicitly accepting that there was such a place as the UK and that it has a queen.

(2) Illegitimately complex questions:
“Who is the present King of France?”
To answer this question directly, you would be implicitly accepting that there was such a place as France and that it has a king - but it doesn’t. So this is a Fallacy of Many Questions.

(3) Controversially complex questions:
“Does your mistress live by herself or with your other wife?”
To answer this question directly, you would be implicitly accepting that that you have both a mistress and a second wife. Not wise. This is both a Fallacy of Many Questions and a loaded question.

The loaded question can be used as a distraction device, but watch out for the more general fallacy when people accidentally use illegitimately complex questions (i.e. ones with false assumptions).


-- Journalists

According to Wikipedia, the loaded question is often mistaken for Begging the Question. I’m not sure why. I think it might be because very few people seem to know what begging the question actually is. Please excuse what is about to be a mini-rant.

I just went to guardian.co.uk and typed into the search box ‘begs the question’. There were 1394 results. Here are the first six (with my italics).
“..hours of dull activity that requires their personal intervention. It begs the question: why do they do it?” (22 Aug)
“...where it conflicts with the "principles of Islam" (which of course begs the question of how the principles of Islam are to be determined)” (5 Aug)
“...by Francis Veber's 1998 French comedy Le Diner de Cons, begs the question – what has happened to mainstream US comedy? “ (2 Aug)
“Even more than most titles based on popular pastimes, it begs the question "why not try the real thing?” (1 Aug)
“That of course begs the question about whether it is strictly necessary...” (28 July)
“Research has shown that boards comprising a variety of people from different backgrounds and experiences are more effective.
This also begs the question why the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, making key decisions about everyone's future, is all male?” (19 July)

I would put a lot of money on ninety nine per cent of “begs the question” on most UK newspaper websites being followed with what particular question is being begged. This is very, very, very wrong. What they mean is something like ‘implies the question’, ‘asks the question’, ‘raises the question’, ‘inspires the question’, or even ‘we should ask’.

If an argument begs the question, the question that is being begged is this - and ONLY this:

“How can you justify your conclusion, when you have already assumed its truth in your argument?”

A very simple example:
(Premise 1) Monkeys are intelligent.
(Premise 2) Monkeys can peel bananas.
(Conclusion) Therefore: Monkeys are intelligent.

This argument begs the question, because its conclusion has already been assumed in the argument. It usually isn’t so easy to spot.

One of the most famous examples of question begging is with inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning goes from premises to conclusions mathematically and undoubtedly. Inductive reasoning is the reasoning we use in our everyday thinking. I was tempted to delete this whole section, as it goes off into a little history of philosophy, but I think it illustrates nicely some of the pitfalls arguments can fall into. Please feel free to skip it if you get bored, but that does mean you will go straight to the end of the article.


-- Swans

“Every time I have seen a swan, it was white; therefore, I can reasonably believe that all swans are white.”

Inductive reasoning is going from a finite number of observations to a general rule. (For you pedants out there, this is only one kind of induction, called enumerative induction - but it is the easiest to explain and there are lots of academic papers about how the problem of induction can be translated into these other kinds.)

The rotund Scottish philosopher David Hume was the first to note that this kind of reasoning is problematic. In fact, he concluded that it was entirely irrational. If we construct inductive reasoning in a deductive way, we’ll see why:

(1) So far, all swans have been white.
(2) Nature is uniform - i.e. the future will be much like the past; and ‘over there’ will be much like ‘over here’.
(C) Therefore: ALL swans are (and will be) white.

The problem is with (2) - it needs proving, we can’t just assume it. Hume identified that we couldn’t prove it deductively, because that would mean that we couldn’t conceive of it being any other way - but of course we can, we can imagine a black swan. So we have to try and prove it inductively.

So we might say something like “Nature has been uniform so far, so i can reasonably believe that it will continue to be.” But this argument, however you put it, begs the question. It assumes that nature is uniform in order to prove that nature is uniform. You can’t, concludes Hume, prove induction with an inductive argument. It begs the question. (For further discussion on this topic, particularly about the people who say you can prove induction with inductive arguments, go to the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)

That is what ‘begs the question’ means - when an argument’s conclusion is assumed within the argument.


-- End of Part 2

So this time, we’ve seen:

1. Red Herrings - arguments that don’t address the issue.
2. Straw Men - arguments that address a superficially similar, but in fact different issue.
3. Loaded Questions - controversially complex questions that presume things that haven’t been proved.
4. Begging the Question - when the conclusion is assumed in the argument.

In Part 3, plain old laziness and a discussion of verbal fallacies.

How to win an argument (Part 1)

Can you win an argument without any evidence, or without even being right? By the end of these articles, you should be able to.

Think about how many times we have come across someone who is clearly wrong, but seems to have all the answers, all the arguments and absolutely no weak points? They may be suffering from argumentum verbosium, which is when someone

tries to persuade by overwhelming those considering an argument with such a volume of material that the argument sounds plausible, superficially appears to be well-researched, and it is so laborious to untangle and check supporting facts that the argument might be allowed to slide by unchallenged. Wikipedia

So how do we defeat these ‘masters of argument’?

Identifying the problems, mistakes, assumptions and fallacies in an argument can be tricky. This is especially because the symbols usually used to explain them can be very confusing.

Take this for example:

∃x[sky(x) & blue(x) & ∀y(sky(y) → x=y)]

Which means “The sky is blue.”1 Great.

I’m going to put together a list of fallacies (misconceptions as a result of incorrect reasoning) while trying not to use the brain-blending symbolism above. I will use symbols, but they will likely be of breasts or bananas, or other things beginning with ‘b’.

There are two broad categories of fallacy: problems with reasoning and problems with words. The latter is usually to do with the fact that words can mean more than one thing. The former is mainly to do with the fact that our natural reasoning is not as rigorous as true, proper, mathematical, godlike logical reasoning. Well, not necessarily godlike. Or true. But that’s another discussion entirely.

Problematic reasoning stems from generalisations, assumed implications, distractions, circularity or just plain old laziness. Today I will talk about generalisations and assumed implications, because I’m just lazy.

-- Surgeons

Generalisations are the most common mistake people make. We are very good at generalising, it’s hard wired into our brains to look for patterns and generalisations to make our lives easier. The problem comes when we start to construct arguments around them.

We are all guilty of generalising from too little evidence. For a long time people said that all swans were white. Until they found a black one. Then they felt silly. This is known as destroying the exception, because in claiming that all swans are white, you destroy the possibility of there being any black ones (or fuschia ones for that matter).

Another problem with generalisations is disregarding the exception. Cutting people up with knives is a crime. That clearly doesn’t apply to surgeons. So to argue that because surgeons cut people up with knives, they must all be criminals, is silly. And probably wrong.

Which brings me to an aside. The argument about surgeons being criminals is invalid. This doesn’t mean, however, that its conclusion is wrong. All surgeons might be criminals - but they wouldn’t be criminals because they cut people up with knives. Finding fallacies in an argument does not automatically make the conclusion come out false - it just means that your opponent has to find another argument to support their position.

-- Clouds

Another natural mistake in our everyday reasoning is assuming implication. If it is true that one thing implies another, we implicitly allow for the possibility that the implication works the other way round. It is true that rain implies clouds, but not that clouds imply rain. But we do get the feeling that clouds imply rain. We’re wrong, clouds imply rain maybe occurred or maybe is occurring or maybe is going to occur. Rain implies clouds. Straight, bang, just like that - no wishy-washy maybes.

In symbolic logic, an arrow is used to describe this relationship. The arrow goes from rain to clouds, but not from clouds to rain. It is unfortunately called confirming the consequent when we assume that the arrow goes the other way. Like this:

(1) “If it is raining, then there are clouds.”

- Setting up the arrow from rain to clouds.

(2) “There are clouds.”

- Confirming the consequent (the bit after ‘then’).

(3) “Therefore, it is raining.”

- Mistaking the direction of the arrow.

It might not be raining. In fact, I just looked out of the window and there are clouds and no rain. Ha. Mistaking the direction of the arrow.

You can also mistake the meaning of the arrow. To be more specific, the arrow means that the existence of rain implies the existence of clouds. It does not mean, as is assumed in the next example, that the non-existence of rain implies the non-existence of clouds.

(1) “If it is raining, then there are clouds.”

- Setting up the arrow from rain to clouds.

(2) “It is not raining.”

- Denying the antecedent (the bit before ‘then’).

(3) “Therefore, there are no clouds.”

- Mistaking the meaning of the arrow.

As we saw in the previous example, we can have clouds without rain.

So far we have seen four fallacies: two from not being careful with generalisations and two from not being careful with implications (or conditional relations).

1. Destroying the exception - all swans are white, until you find a black one.
2. Disregarding the exception - all surgeons are criminals cos they cut people up.
3. Mistaking the direction of the arrow (confirming the consequent) - clouds mean it must be raining.
4. Mistaking the meaning of the arrow (denying the antecedent) - no rain means there must be no clouds.

Next time...

Distractions, circularity and plain old laziness.

---
Footnotes:
(1) Take a deep breath... “There exists a thing, such that the thing is a sky AND the thing is blue AND for all the stuff that might not be the thing, if it’s a sky, then it’s the thing.”

In bed with information

Could you tell me what the GDP of Azerbaijan is? Could you explain to me what an axolotl might be? Could you possibly show me how to disengage the ignition retard mechanism on a Suzuki SV650 motorbike? Of course you could. Just click the links. Now you are an expert.

We have well and truly entered the information age. We are deep between her thighs and thoroughly enjoying ourselves. This moment of rapture, we are told, is what we've all been waiting for; the more we plough this enchanting furrow of information, the better off we we'll be.

It would be easy, however, to get overexcited. We don’t want to lose control and find ourselves overwhelmed.

Information has become cheap and easy. We’ve all been there, though, and we know that road leads to poor quality and a bad feeling the next morning. We have the world of knowledge at our fingertips; with our smart-phones (our WiFi-enabled brains), we’d put the QI elves to shame. No longer does someone ask in the pub “I wonder what the hottest chilli in the world is...”, only to inspire two hours of hot (sorry) debate. Now it’s a competition to see who can get Wikipedia to work faster, or who knows the best site to turn to for Scoville-related advice.

So what happens when this question is asked?

“Should Wikileaks have released all those Afganistan documents?”

Well, most people will vomit up the received opinion they’ve dutifully memorised from The Sun or The Guardian (depending on which pub you’re in) and then everyone will agree with whatever they think is socially acceptable (again, dependent on the pub) and then go home, thinking they’re engaged in political debate and are thoroughly good citizens.

But we’re not, are we? We’re not politically engaged. We are passive consumers of opinion, withering away at our computers; not active members of international democracy, all hands on hips, inflated chests and billowing capes. We stand rank and file in the servitude of the popular media. Political scientists across the Western world are despairing at the thunderous decline in political engagement, particularly in our youth. And what do they recommend we do about it? The Internet of course!

It is hardly surprising, ten years into the 21^st century, that our panacea is digital; even less so that it is on-line. So what is my radium-infused solution for our lack of engagement? It is called Debatewise.org and it should be taken once a day at minimum.

Debatewise, for those of you that haven’t spotted the clever pun, is a debating website. This is a very simple and quite misleading description. For a start, it doesn’t stand across from you and tell you that you’re wrong. Instead, debates are created, added to and edited by anyone. In a wiki-style, crowd-sourcing, gathering of communal knowledge and opinion, Debatewise is the daddy of argument. You want to make your mind up on an issue? Go to Debatewise. You want to tell other people what you think about an issue? Go to Debatewise.

Take a look at the debate about Wikileaks and Afganistan. No really, even if you just go to have a look at the format. Red on one side, blue on the other. FOR and AGAINST, YES and NO. This is not impartial, this is not just facts and figures; this is opinion and argument and persuasion. This is where to make decisions.

So, lost under the sheets with our cheap and easy information, we can be sated and spent, knowing that we didn't get overwhelmed and disappoint. We can be smug in the knowledge that we took the information just as we wanted it and gave it the time of its life.