It is difficult for me to ascertain when the person I am communicating is using a logical fallacy to trick me into believing him or doubting my judgement, even when I realise it hours after the argument.
I have seen countless arguments in Reddit threads and I couldn’t figure out who was in the right or wrong unless I looked at the upvote counts. Even if the person is uttering a blatant lie, they somehow make it sound in a way that is completely believable to me. If it weren’t for those people that could exactly point out the irrationality behind these arguments, my mind would have been lobotomised long ago.
I do want to learn these critical thinking skills but I don’t know where to begin from. I could have all these tips and strategies memorised in theory, but they would be essentially useless if I am not able to think properly or remember them at the heat of the moment.
There could be many situations I could be unprepared for, like when the other person brings up a fact or statistic to support their claim and I have no way to verify it at the moment, or when someone I know personally to be wise or well-informed bring up about such fallacies, perhaps about a topic they are not well-versed with or misinformed of by some other unreliable source, and I don’t know whether to believe them or myself.
Could someone help me in this? I find this skill of distinguishing fallacies from facts to be an extremely important thing to have in this age of misinformation and would really wish to learn it well if possible. Maybe I could take inspiration from how you came about learning these critical thinking skills by your own.
Edit: I do not blindly trust the upvote count in a comment thread to determine who is right or wrong. It just helps me inform that the original opinion is not inherently acceptable by everyone. It is up to me decide who is actually correct or not, which I can do at my leisure unlike in a live conversation with someone where I don’t get the time to think rationally about what the other person is saying.
I know it sounds dismissive, but I would get an Introduction to Logic and Reasoning textbook, and read it and attempt the problems. The internet is great, and you can get a lot from wikis, but you’re not going to beat the amount of useful info condensed into a book like that. The problems will also help you apply the knowledge. Also, since logic doesn’t generally change much over time, you don’t need to worry about getting the most up to date edition.
The only way to really get good at detecting fallacious arguments is practice.
What helped me: “Rationality Rules” on youtube had a video series (and even a tabletop game) about types of logical fallacies with the focus on religious apologetics.
And as you said: Upvotecount show whose opinion/argument is popular with the viewership. There can be a correlation with how sound the argument is logically.
Generally a good approach is to try learning the rules of logic. Logic is all about proving things to be true using only facts. It can also be helpful to try some logic puzzles or riddles which can only be solved using hard logic. Note that this won’t automatically make you a better critical thinker, but it will help you exercise that muscle.
Also, it’s helpful to play devil’s advocate. If you hear someone making an argument, try to imagine how you would dispute that argument if you disagreed with it. It doesn’t matter if you actually agree or not, just imagine you did and think about what your counter argument would be. This is what high school debate teams have to do; they are given a topic and a position and have to defend their position.
It always helps to be aware of the facts, or at least of how to find facts. If you see a debate happening where you can’t tell who is right, do your own research on a site like Wikipedia and try to see what the truth is for yourself. Not every argument has a correct answer, but you will at least be able to see where each side is coming from.
Logic is all about pricing things to be true using only facts.
I know it’s nit-picky but logic can be (and often is) decoupled from facts and truth. An argument can be logically valid and still untrue. For example:
- all dogs are cats
- this animal is a dog
- therefore, this animal is a cat
An argument can be said to be sound when truth is factored in. Only both a valid and true argument is considered to be sound.
An argument can be logically valid and still untrue.
Only if at least one premise is untrue. If however the premises are true and the argument is logically valid, the conclusion is also true.
Interesting to note that the opposite is not necessarily true - flawed premises and/or a flawed argument do not imply an untrue conclusion. Easy to show with an example:
- P1 - whales are fish (wrong - they’re mammals)
- P2 - fish live only in the sea (wrong - freshwater fish exist)
- C - whales live only in the sea (true conclusion from bullshit premises)
…which leads to the “fallacy of fallacy” - "the proposition is backed up by a fallacious argument, thus it is false is on itself fallacious.
Posts like this have me longing for a Save feature…
Just bookmark in your browser.
There is a save feature.
Not yet on kbin.social which is where that user is participating from.
Though there’s always the good old bookmark.
So I’m not sure how applicable this is - I’m a programmer, and I’m not neurotypical - but here’s how it works for me
If this, then that. When a certain trigger happens, I’ve conditioned myself to stop my train of thought and reevaluate
When I realize I’m uncomfortable or agitated, I first ask myself “am I dehydrated? Am I overheated?”. If not, I look at the situation… If I’m talking to someone and feel agitated, is it because of something that happened earlier today, is it because I’m just in a mood, or is there any other reason this is a me thing, and snapping at them would be unfair.
It’s a lot of introspection, and I’m not sure it applies to someone who doesn’t need coping mechanisms like this… But here’s how it applies to logical fallacies:
If someone says something I feel is wrong, first I ask myself, why do I think that?
Maybe I’ve been taught wrong. I first heard the vaccines cause autism from a parent who said “I think he was susceptible, and the shock to his system from the vaccines triggered his autism”. On it’s face, that made sense - it wasn’t until a coworker sighed and walked away after a comment I made that I googled it, and there was evidence against it and none for it, so I changed my mind immediately. I had no facts, one opinion by someone with a personal stake in it, and so I was wrong.
So if I only “know” a thing because I was told or because I assumed it, I immediately pull out my phone and look for evidence. You can do it very quick with practice, and people generally respond well when you take them seriously - either you go “huh, I guess you’re right” and they’re all smiles, or you show them what you found and go into the conversation with sources - either they can refute the source or you know they’re ignoring the numbers
So now, let’s say you’re arguing something not so clear-cut, I have a reason to believe what I do based on facts, but the answer isn’t obvious.
So first off, I don’t care if you’re the surgeon general or an anonymous Lemmy poster - ideas matter, people don’t. The only time you trust authority is when you aren’t able to understand the issue - and that comes up plenty, but it has no place in a conversation about the issue - you should be trying to understand ideas if you’re talking about it. If they bring up a person, that’s not an actual argument… Just ignore the names and the titles.
Hitler was right about some things, George Washington was wrong about some things - pretending otherwise is dumb. I’m on Hitler’s side about interior design… Nazi stuff looks imposing and regal. I’m also Jewish, so I’m not exactly a fan of the guy. Ideas matter, where they come from has nothing to do with anything
Next, is “if I can’t understand why someone would do/think this, I’m missing facts”. If you can’t give me a solid argument for the other side, I take everything you say about the topic with a grain of salt. No one is evil in their own story, no one takes a hilariously bad stance just because they’re dumb… They have a reason to think that way, and if I can’t understand why, then I’m missing something.
And if I’m missing something, it’s foolish to make up my mind before I hear what that is.
Then you get to the actual arguments. I lay it out in my head. I break down the individual statements - do they make sense individually? Are they actually related to each other?
Most of all, it’s important to see the difference between winning the argument and making a point. I’m not a great speaker - i don’t remember specifics well, I remember my conclusions. I lose arguments all the time, and I pride myself on the fact that if I realize I’m wrong, I’ll turn on a dime and own up to it.
But winning an argument and being right are almost unrelated things.
Finally, go back and fact check. The argument might be long over, but the goal should always be to understand better and gain a deeper perspective - follow up for your own sake
So my advice is: stop, reevaluate, and refocus. Every time something doesn’t sound right to you, take a minute. Take a breath, remember your goal, and decide if what you’ve just been told changes that.
It’s easy to get buried in details or lost in the heat of the moment, so make a habit of taking yourself out of it
Read some of the old “Miss Marple” Stories, then some “Hercule Poirot” Stories.
Ah yes. The little grey cells.
There used to be poster you could buy / wallpaper you could download that essentially summarised this Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Otherwise it’s practice (eg critical appraisal training).
You just have to read them like flash cards. Careful not to get caught in the fallacy fallacy though. A fallacious argument doesn’t mean someone is wrong, it just means they suck at arguing.
Logical fallacies and calling them out are just a tool in the tool box. They’re really only useful though when someone is being maliciously fallicious or their entire evidence base hangs on a fallacy. But even then, they may still be correct.
A good example is “the standard model is true because the pope said so.” This is an appeal to authority fallacy, but the stance that “the standard model is true” is correct anyway.
We learned to recognize a lot of them in college Philosophy 101.
Probably learn first order logic (aka boolean algebra). But something important to keep in mind is: just because an argument contains a fallacy doesn’t mean the conclusion is wrong. There might be another logical argument that proves the same conclusion without using a fallacy. So it’s actually a fallacy to assume
Fallacy -> Falsehood.Maybe this helps, it has some good examples on what the various fallacies look like, and combining that knowledge with a hunch of “something here sounds fishy” is basically what I do I think.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/Qf03U04rqGQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Taking a logic course at a university would help.
I recommend using your fallacy is as both a handy reference and a shortcut for explaining it to the person committing one of the most common fallacies as well as anyone else reading.
By using that, you’ll be able to spot a lot of bullshit you might otherwise miss and eventually get to the point where you’re able to spot the ones you come across most often without looking it up 🙂
I taught my daughters the usual logical fallacies from a young age. While doing that I learned that while occasionally, they appear in pristine form (looking at you, Slippery Slope and No True Scotsman), usually, they come rather nuanced, often clustered together, and difficult to identify.
A great way to get good at them is watch Fox News and identify them as they come. You can watch other networks and find them, but for a constant stream, Fox is a goldmine.
The trouble with ‘Slippery Slope’ and ‘No True Scotsman’ is that they themselves are not fallacies. Invoking them without proper justification is the fallacy. The same sort of thing happens all the time with ‘Appeal to Authority’, you can probably trust a scientific consensus about a subject in which they are all experts, but you probably shouldn’t trust an individual expert on a topic for which they are not recognized as an expert.
For an example of Slippery Slope: Fascists will absolutely try to demonize the most available target, and then because they always need an out-group, they continue cutting at what they consider the ‘degenerates’ of society until they are all that remain. (And then they find some new definition of degenerate)
“No True Scotsman” is valid in that there is at some point by definition after which you are no longer talking about something. “No true vegetarian eats meat” is valid, as this is definitional. “No true member of Vegetarians United eats meat” lacks proper justification, and refers to an organization, not a proper definition. This gets really messy when people conflate what group people are in with what they ‘are’ or what makes them a good example of a group. Especially when religion is involved.
No true Scotsman is a fallacy, more specifically ad hoc while defending a generalisation about a group defined by another criterion. Easier shown with an example:
- [Alice] Vegetarians don’t eat cheese.
- [Bob] I know plenty vegetarians who eat cheese. They just don’t eat meat.
- [Alice] Those who eat cheese are not true vegetarians.
If we accept the definition of vegetarian that you implied (someone who doesn’t eat meat), “not eating cheese” is at most a generalisation. As such, when Alice says “Those who eat cheese are not true vegetarians”, she is incurring in the fallacy.
The slippery slope is an interesting case, because it’s both a fallacy and a social phenomenon. And evoking the social phenomenon doesn’t automatically mean that you’re using the fallacy.
As a fallacy, it’s failure to acknowledge that the confidence in the conclusion is smaller than the confidence in the premises - so if you’re chaining lots of premises, your trust in the conclusion will degrade to nothing. Here’s a simple example of that:
- if A happens, then B will happen 90% of the time. if A doesn’t happen, B never happens.
- if B happens, then C will happen 90% of the time. if B doesn’t happen, C never happens.
- […C then D, D then E, E then F, in the same fashion as above]
- if F happens, then G will happen 90% of the time. if F doesn’t happen, G never happens.
So if A happens, what’s the likelihood of G also happening? It is not 90%, but (90%)⁶ = 53%. Even with rather good confidence in the premises, the conclusion is a coin flip. (Incidentally, a similar reasoning can be used to back up Ockham’s Razor.)
As a social phenomenon, however, the slippery slope is simply an observed pattern: if a group, entity or individual does something, it’s/they’re likely to do something similar but not necessarily identical in the future. That covers your example with fascists.
The same sort of thing happens all the time with ‘Appeal to Authority’, you can probably trust a scientific consensus about a subject in which they are all experts, but you probably shouldn’t trust an individual expert on a topic for which they are not recognized as an expert.
The reason why appeal to authority is a fallacy (more specifically, a genetic fallacy) is because the truth value of a proposition does not depend on who proposes it. If an expert said that 2+2=5 (NB: natural numbers), it would be still false; and if the village idiot said that 2+2=4, it would be still true.
We can still use authority however, but that requires inductive reasoning (like the one I did for the slippery slope), that is considerably weaker than deductive reasoning. And it can be still contradicted if you manage to back up an opposing claim with either 1) deductive logic, or 2) inductive logic with more trustable premises.
‘Appeal to Authority’, you can probably trust a scientific consensus about a subject in which they are all experts, but you probably shouldn’t trust an individual expert on a topic for which they are not recognized as an expert.
That in itself is the ad hominem fallacy: you need to judge the claim based on its merits, not the merits of the person making the claim.
For example when David Suzuki talks about climate change and people say “well he’s just a biologist, he’s not qualified!” That may be true but it doesn’t invalidate his statements.
I think part of it is they’re logical fallacies. For instance, the scientific consensus on climate change is not technically proof of climate change; rather, it’s all the observations, statistics, etc. that are the evidence for climate change. Thus, it is true that claiming an argument is true solely because of scientific consensus is indeed a logical fallacy, as logical fallacies are relating to, well, logic.
For all practical purposes, however, we live in a complex world with lots of uncertainty, and we can generally trust expert consensus if for no other reason than they’re more likely to understand the facts of a certain technical matter better than us, and thus more likely to be able to ascertain the truth. And when discussing complex, technical concepts, I’m generally going to trust expert consensus so long as I am reasonably assured that they are indeed experts and that they have no systemic conflict of interest.
A great way to get good at them is watch Fox News and identify them as they come. You can watch other networks and find them, but for a constant stream, Fox is a goldmine.
Honestly a great way to learn them is to argue with people online in places like Lemmy / Kbin. When people argue against you on something you know to be right, it forces you to either a) reconsider your own stance or b) think about why they’re wrong or why their argument is invalid and how to point that out, either way it often leads to logical fallacies, and the more you intentionally try to identify examples of them, the easier they are to intuitively recognize.
All news is a goldmine, you just find them easier to identify on Fox because you disagree with them, which sets off your alarm bells. It’s A LOT harder to identify fallacies that support your own biases.
Your final statement is very true, however there is a reason that Fox News had to defend themselves by claiming they are entertainment. Anyone who believes that Fox News does not have more logical fallacies than most other news really needs to assess their own cognitive biases. I can see logical fallacies on topics I agree with and they piss me off more because I believe that they throw discredit on the perspective that can be argued on it’s own merits.
I would suggest getting a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, and reading it slowly and deliberately, less than 5-10 pages a day. It not only tells you how to find these kind of fallacies but also why you’re likely to fall for them and how.
