Re: Electrifying Times

["Lee A. Hart" <leeahart@earthlink.net>]

I've met Bruce Meland, and he is indeed a wonderful person. He is
steadfast, hard-working, intelligent, and well-read. However, what he
reads is a bit different than what you might find in the popular press.

Someone once said, "Be careful what you read, because once you get it
into your head, it is damned difficult to get it out." Given bad facts,
even the brightest individual will come to bad conclusions.

Critical thinking is vital. Fiction is easier to write than fact, and it
sells better. *Most* of what you read and hear is likely to be fiction.
It is essential to maintain a healthy skepticism, and treat *everything*
as unproven until gets past your BS filter.

In Carl Sagen's excellent book "The Demon-Haunted World -- Science as a
Candle in the Dark" he gives some excellent rules for critical thinking.
Given the recent events, it is worthwhile for all of us to keep them in
mind. Here is his "BS (Baloney Sandwich :-) detection kit":

1. There must be *independent* confirmation of facts.
   The same "fact" repeated by 10 different sources doesn't count.

2. Encourage substantive debate, by knowledgeable proponents of all
   points of view. That means listening to *both* sides of the argument.

3. Arguments from authority carry little weight. It's not true because
   "X" says so. You want to hear from experts, not authorities.

4. Spin more than one hypotheses. List *all* the possibilities, and
   then try to prove each one false. The hypothesis that survives is
   more likely to be right than your first guess.

5. Don't form an opinion before you have the facts. Those that do tend
   to exaggerate facts that support their opinion, and ignore facts that
   contradict it.

6. Quantify. Numbers are more precise than words. Many arguments
   disappear once the protagonists figure out that "17" is being
   called "many" by one side, and "few" by the other.

7. Faulty logic: There aren't just two possibilities; there are MANY.
   If there's a chain of arguments, every link in the chain has to work.

8. Occam's Razor: When faced with two hypotheses that explain things
   equally well, the simpler one is more likely to be true.

9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be falsified. Is it untestable,
   and impossible to confirm? Then it is little more than an interesting
   idea; not something you can base action upon.

He also gives some common errors to beware of.

1. Argument ad hominem (Latin for "to the man."); attacking the argurer
   and not the argument.

   "The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known biblical fundamentalist, so her
   objections to evolution need not be taken seriously."

2. Argument from authority, not expertise:

   "President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret
   plan to end the war."

3. Argument from adverse consequenses: We must do this because the
   only alternative is worse.

   "God must exist, because if he didn't, society would be even more
   lawless and dangerous than it is."

4. Arguments from ignorance:

   "There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the
   Earth; therefore they must exist."

5. Arguments based on special pleadings to the divine or unknowable:

   "How could God permit such cruelty? Because God moves in mysterious
   Ways."

6. Begging the question; i.e. assuming the answer without evidence:
 
   "The stock market fell today due to profit-taking by investors."

7. Counting the hits and ignoring the misses:

   "Our war on drugs is working because we have put thousands in jail."

8. Lying with statistics:

   "Half of all arabs are of below-average intelligence."

9. Inconsistency:

   "It is prudent to plan for the worst threat our opponents can offer."
   "There is no point in spending money on environmental dangers because
   the threat has not been proven."

10. non sequitor (Latin for "it doesn't follow):

   "Our nation will prevail because God is on our side."

11. post hoc, ergo propter hoc (Latin for "it happened first, therefore
    it was the cause")

   "We never would have had nuclear weapons if women hadn't gotten the
   right to vote."

12. The fallacy of the excluded middle (allowing only the extremes,
    with no compromises):

   "America -- love it or leave it"
   "You're either with us, or against us." 

13. Short-term vs. long-term: Really a variation of the excluded middle
    but so common that it needs special attention:

   "We don't have money to fight poverty; it's urgently needed to
   fight crime on the streets."

14. The slippery slope, also related to the excluded middle:

   "If we let them win in Viet Nam, they'll take over the world."

15. Mixing up correlation and causation:

   "Studies show that more college graduates are homosexual than
   those with less education; therefore college makes people gay."

16. The straw man: Caricaturing your enemy as stupid or subhuman to
    make him easier to attack:

   (endless examples of this one in the news lately)

17. Half-truths: Telling lies by selective use of the facts.

   "I saw him yelling at the woman. She ran away. He chased her down,
   still yelling, and tore off her clothes. Then he threw her on the
   ground, and got on top of her and rolled her around." A detail was
   omitted; her clothes were on fire.

18. Weasel words:

   "Police action. Armed incursion. Pacification. Safeguarding American
   interests. Freedom fighters. Collateral damage."

Sorry if this got a bit off-topic, but I think is is important. We need
to pay more attention to people who show us HOW to think than to those
that tell us WHAT to think.
-- 
Lee A. Hart                Ring the bells that still can ring
814 8th Ave. N.            Forget your perfect offering
Sartell, MN 56377 USA      There is a crack in everything
leeahart_at_earthlink.net  That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen