Truth, Knowledge, or Just Plain Bull: How to tell the difference

by Bernard M. Patten

  Using symbols, this would go something like, if X has a and b, and Y has a and b, then Y must also have property c that belongs to X. That’s not true, of course. Whether Y has c depends on the situation, facts, evidence, and reasons, not on the mere extension of the (possibly false) analogy.

  Even more sophisticated historical analogies often break down because history doesn’t repeat itself. Never exactly. Turn to the past as a possible guide and to discover lessons about human nature, which doesn’t change much. But don’t apply the past situation to the present. Chances are the differences between the past event and the present far exceed the similarities. Indeed, history is filled with misapplications of lessons learned from history.

  World War I was not World War II.

  Because the trenches were so effective in blocking German advances in World War I, this didn’t mean that the Maginot Line would work as well in World War II. There were many deceptive similarities between 1914, when World War I started, and 1940, when World War II began: The fighting started in the low countries; the Germans were fighting France and England again; the economic problems were the same. Yet the situation had changed. In World War II, the Germans had invented a new form of warfare. They called that new form of warfare Blitzkrieg, which made all the difference. Any French argument that failed to take into consideration this new form of warfare suffered from the disastrous defect of pushing a historical analogy too far into a wrong conclusion. Because French thinking was not based in correct reasoning, the French suffered and suffered greatly.

  The official name for the French error in thinking is the fallacy of the continuum. The French based their actions on the false idea that the situation in World War I had not significantly changed in World War II. That is, they thought that there was a continuum from one period of time to the other. Thus, they made an analogy comparing the one time p. 149 with the other, assuming that the two times were the same or similar. Actually, the analogy did not hold. Times had changed, and so had the situation. Those who were not prepared to change would function at a disadvantage and suffer. And they did.

  Recently, I got an e-mail from Norma Rubin, professor of anatomy and neurosciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in which she said, among other things, that the Jews were entitled to the lands that are now the state of Israel because the Jews held the ancient kingdom of Solomon in 1020 BCE.

  Norma failed to mention that Solomon had many foreign wives whom he allowed to set up altars to the gods they worshipped. To maintain his luxurious court, Solomon taxed his subjects heavily. And as his character weakened, so did his hold on the people and the lands. Under his son Rehoboam, who succeeded him, Solomon’s empire was lost, his kingdom divided.

  But facts of history aside, the idea that the Jews own Israel because Solomon controlled it in 1020 BCE is simply wrong because it presupposes that because something existed in the past, it should continue to exist in the present. It ignores the fact that times have changed. Things are different now. Israel today is not the same country that it was under Solomon. Therefore, any analogy that assumes it is the same is false.

  Furthermore, such arguments can be shown absurd because if they were true, then Israel belongs to Italy, since the Romans ruled Palestine as a province. Or the American Indians own America because they were here first.

  In standard form, Norma’s argument, the fallacy of the continuum, might look like this:

  Since X was X,

  X should still be X.

  Pretty circular, right? It’s also an argument that negates and prevents progress. And don’t forget after three thousand years, X is never the same. After three thousand years have elapsed, X is always different. After three thousand years, X is always X plus three thousand years times ∆X∆T (the change in X with the change in T, time).

  The ancient name of this fallacy is the fallacy of the beard. Such a name originated in the ancient debate about “How many hairs would one have to have in order to have a beard?”

  p. 150 We are reluctant, because it appears arbitrary, to state an exact number of hairs needed to make a beard. Obviously, there is a difference between having a beard and not having a beard. Some cutoff point has to be established. Or does it? Why not admit that this is a fuzzy set, a concept that might depend on relative relationships and not on absolute numbers? Lots of concepts that we deal with are fuzzy like this. When is a person tall or short? Fat or thin? We all have a general idea of what is meant by such terms. But why not confess that some people might not be exactly tall or short; they could be neither.

  The same pertains to grades. The difference between a sixty-four and a sixty-five is one point. So, in a sense, there is little difference between a student who has an average of sixty-four in algebra and a student who has a sixty-five. But for practical purposes, there has to be a cutoff point between those who pass and those who don’t. The scale of grades is a continuum, but the breaking point between pass and fail is not. Basically, sixty-four is not the same as sixty-five. Because it is not the same, the analogy breaks down and the kid with the sixty-four fails and the kid with the sixty-five doesn’t.

  Actually, most teachers know that this is a fuzzy set. Teachers will not fail a student who has an average of sixty-four. Usually, they will raise that student’s average to a passing grade and will not apply the fail grade to anyone with an average of sixty or better.

  The same applies to credit card debt. A salesman may persuade the customer to buy a new TV because it will add only fifty more dollars to the customer’s current monthly payment of $215. That sounds innocent enough. The salesman’s argument is that small changes in payments have a negligible effect. Such reasoning, if it leads one to a purchase, need occur only a few times before the customer will be in financial difficulty with the credit card limit. There also will be a point (the cutoff in the continuum) when the customer’s required monthly payment exceeds the available money and credit, and the customer will have no more money and no more credit and consequently cannot pay.

  The classic false argument based on the fallacy of the continuum is that it is impossible to walk from here to there because one would first walk half the distance, then walk half of the remaining distance, then half the remaining, and so forth, never reaching the destination. Such false arguments are easily refutable by getting up and walking there. The physical act of transit is strong evidence contradicting the false argument.

  “Did you hear the news that’s going round? Pat O’Grady is running p. 151 for the Senate. I knew that dodo in sixth grade. No way am I going to vote for him.”

  If O’Grady is running for the Senate, he is now an adult over age thirty-five. To assume that O’Grady is the same person he was in the sixth grade is to make the error of continuum. It is making a false analogy that O’Grady today is the same person that O’Grady was in the sixth grade. As kids grow up, they change, often maturing and acquiring wisdom and knowledge. O’Grady could have changed, too. He might be much better. Or he might be much worse than he was in the sixth grade. A more reasonable way to decide about voting for O’Grady would be to evaluate O’Grady’s present status and study his positions on the issues and his qualifications for office.

  Many continuum false arguments relate to diet or withdrawal from drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. What person who is on a diet or who is trying to cut down on smoking has not been deceived by the argument that one little doughnut or one more cigarette surely can’t make any real difference?

  The less the better and the more the better are both bad continuum arguments.

  If too much cholesterol is bad for you, it does not mean that no cholesterol is good for you. Cholesterol is a natural body chemical needed in the construction of cell walls and many essential hormones. Too much cholesterol is bad, but too little is bad, too. What is needed is just the right amount.

  Vitamin A is good for you, and without it you will get sick. But too much vitamin A is toxic. Way too much vitamin A is fatal. Too little vitamin A is b
ad, but too much is bad, too. What is needed is just the right amount. Some salt or pepper might improve the taste of a food, but too much or too little might not.

  Closely related to less-the-better and more-the-better fallacies is the tyranny of numbers and size.

  Big numbers may not lead to the truth and can lead to big errors.

  Large numbers tend to impress people more than small numbers do. Add this to the fact that most Americans don’t understand statistics, percentages, and fractions; it is usually more persuasive to quote the large number rather than the percentage. Such large numbers might obscure the truth and mislead the naive. For example, in the 2000 presidential election, the winner, George W. Bush, got fewer votes than did the loser, Al Gore, because of the operation of the electoral college and p. 152 the US Supreme Court. Therefore, the winner’s total votes are often quoted (in the millions) to obscure the fact that more than half the voters voted against the winner. Conversely, just as large numbers may be unreasonably impressive, so small numbers tend to be overlooked. For example, in discussing international politics, Saddam Hussein pointed out that America has only two parties, whereas Iraq has one. He implied that this was an insignificant difference because it was a difference of only one.

  Big people are not necessarily right. A tall person is not necessarily right and a short person is not necessarily wrong. Yet size makes a difference in how we view people. This is unreasonable. J. Edgar Hoover stood on a raised platform, kings sit on thrones, judges sit on a bench—all to exploit the unreasonable assumption that height makes right. For the same reason, you can’t buy a small egg. The smallest eggs that are sold in American stores are called medium.

  Many government programs are sold to the public by false analogy.

  Still not convinced about false analogies? Consider some analogies that are truly absurd:

  “This 72-billion-dollar farm subsidy program generates food. Food is like money. You can’t have too much of it,” said a legislator from a farm state. My apologies. I am sorry I don’t know this legislator’s name, but that is what he said on NPR one afternoon as I walked into the kitchen.

  Whether the $72 billion farm program generates food should be proven, not just asserted. Since the program actually pays farmers not to grow food, it is hard to imagine how the program would create food. Mere assertions are errors because they tend to lead us away from the truth and toward falsehood.

  What about the analogy? Is food really like money?

  You can eat food, but only psychotics eat money. Food spoils. Money does not spoil. And why can’t you have too much food? Wasn’t the farm program created to stabilize the production of food so that there wouldn’t be too much food around to lower prices paid to farmers? You can certainly eat too much food, and if you do eat too much, you get fat.

  Politicians say the dumbest things. This statement is just another example of how dumb some politicians can sound.

  Scientists can and do say dumb things, too, many of which are predicated on false analogies. Consider this from Desmond Morris, the p. 153 famous zoologist who wrote The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo: “Behind the façade of modern city life there is the same old naked ape. Only the names have changed: for ‘hunting’ read ‘working,’ for ‘homebase’ read ‘house,’ for ‘pairbond’ read ‘marriage,’ for ‘mate’ read ‘wife’ and so on” (The Naked Ape, [London: Corgi, 1968], p. 74).

  The idea of this analogy is that if we evolved from apes, then we must really remain apes. The analogy is false. Hunting and working are two different things. Can you think of some differences? Most modern houses look quite different from the caves of our very ancient ancestors. Can you name five differences? In fact, to say we evolved from apes implies that we are now different from apes, not the same. By the way, civilized people are not apes. And because modern humans wear clothes, modern humans are certainly not naked apes.

  Language analogies are often wrong because language depends on custom, not on reasonable or reasoned relationship, for its proper and established use.

  Because mice is the plural of mouse, hice must be the plural of house. Because slough rhymes with cow, ought should rhyme with cow, too.

  Obviously, false. The trouble is that the words are similar in only some respects, but they differ in others. Words with ough are spelled alike, have that same combination of the four letters, but that does not mean they are pronounced alike. That these words have ough is related to their history. Although the words look similar, their origin is quite different. Their pronunciation is quite different, too. Mouse and house share four letters, but the plural of house is houses, not hice. Ought rhymes with caught and not with cow.

  Recently, I attended a neuroscience lecture at Rice University. The lecturer demonstrated a case of a Canadian surgeon who had Tourette’s syndrome. The surgeon has a mass of tics and shouts and barks and curse words throughout his waking life, except when he is in the operating room, where he never has any abnormal involuntary movements, nor does he make any abnormal vocalizations there. The lecturer claimed that this surgeon had some kind of brain disease that accounted for his abnormal behavior, but the lecturer could not account for the complete remission of signs and symptoms of the disease during operations.

  My explanation was that the surgeon didn’t do those things in the operating room because if he did, he knew they would jerk his license and he would lose a significant source of income. My explanation was p. 154 rejected out of hand. The lecturer, who had no idea that I was a board-certified neurologist on the full-time academic staff of the local medical school, implied that my understanding of this complex brain disease was simple and unschooled. The lecturer implied that I was unsympathetic and possibly biased against this poor, sick patient, the surgeon.

  When people attack me personally and not my argument, I know that I hit a sensitive nerve and that I am on the right track. Arguments that attack the person and not that person’s argument are called argumentum ad hominem, which is Latin meaning “argument about the man.”

  Argumentum ad hominem, like argumentum ad verecundiam, is a diversion, totally irrelevant to the rational consideration of the issue. Whether I am simple or unschooled has nothing to do with whether I am right or wrong. About a particular issue, a simple and unschooled person can be right or he can be wrong, just as an intelligent and educated person could be right or wrong about a particular issue. Calling me names or subjecting me to abuse is totally irrelevant. In the same way, whether I am sympathetic, unsympathetic, or even biased toward the surgeon does not demolish my argument. Prejudiced, unsympathetic people can be right, and impartial people are sometimes wrong. Calling me names is just another attempt to distract attention from the real point at issue, which was the weakness of the lecturer’s argument.

  There is a maxim in trial law that relates to this: “No case: Abuse the plaintiffs witnesses.” That might work in front of a gullible jury, but it should not work in front of us.

  The next day, a reporter from the Houston Chronicle called:

  “Are you the person who questioned the integrity of the Canadian surgeon who has been struggling against Tourette’s syndrome for years?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Don’t you know that people afflicted with this disease are able to suppress their tics and vocalizations for a while?”

  “Of that, I have no doubt. The surgeon is a case in point. My question questioned the reason the symptoms stopped in the operating room, not the fact that they stopped there. I suggested one reason they stopped in the operating room was that if they didn’t, the licensing board would pull his license. The selective milieu of the cessation of symptoms raises the possibility that there is no disease whatever and that the surgeon’s behavior is under voluntary control. The selective milieu of the cessation of symptoms proves that the symptoms are at least in part under voluntary control.”

  p. 155 “After the lecture, all that was all explained very simply,” said the reporter. “There is a physiologic
build up of tics and foul language which can be held in temporarily. Eventually, it all must come out. It’s like having a full bladder. You can hold it for a while, but eventually you have to empty the bladder. The urine has to come out, the way the foul language and the tics have to come out.”

  Pause here and try to refute the reporter’s argument. In what way is the reporter’s argument a false analogy? The bladder analogy was offered to explain the surgeon’s signs and symptoms. How do we know that that cannot possibly be true? Think about this for a while. List your answers on a piece of paper so that you can compare them with mine.

  Before we start with my answers, let’s strike down the reporter’s statement for the usual reasons. What’s the evidence that holding urine and holding behavior are equivalent? That idea is too simple. That idea is an unsubstantiated assertion for which no evidence is offered. That idea assumes facts not in evidence. Such facts must be put into evidence and examined for their credibility. Furthermore, where does that thinking lead? Couldn’t we excuse any abnormal behavior, even criminal behavior, on the same basis? If so, where would society be? Where would it all end? Someone has to decide what is reasonable and correct behavior.

  After you have struck down the lecture’s assertion on general grounds, concentrate on the false analogy. Tell why it is an analogy. Tell why it is false. Prove it false. Prove that even if it were not false, it still wouldn’t excuse the surgeon’s postoperative behavior.

  Here’s how I would approach the problem:

  It’s an analogy because the surgeon’s tics and other symptoms are compared to a full bladder that must be emptied sometime.