Scalzi's Logical Fallacy

I'm going to take just a bit of time to illustrate for you a particularly prevalent celebrity logical fallacy.

If you're old enough, you may remember commercials like this:



"I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV..."

This is called a false appeal to authority. It's when someone presents an opinion by someone else who is in turn presented as a "trusted source"... a source who by education, training, and/or experience can give accurate information. In the advertisement above, Peter Bergman is not a doctor. Whatever the benefits of the product are, he's no more qualified to expound on them than any other paid spokesman or consumer. The qualifications he assert ("I play [a doctor] on TV") are irrelevant.

In the Vicks 44 commercial, Peter Bergman did not make that false appeal: the ad writers did. They chose a spokesman that many people in the audience would have seen in a medical setting, acting like a competent doctor. Bergman is there to gain the trust and acceptance of the audience due to this familiarity. Fundamentally, a false appeal to authority is an emotional appeal, not a logical one.

More and more, we've seen celebrities set themselves up as "authorities" on various subjects upon which they are no more competent than any interested amateur. This is a bit distressing, as it's one thing to point to a false authority, and quite another to set yourself up as one. You should, at the very least, know your own limitations...

...which brings me to John Scalzi:

Now, what he says about healthcare and a space force may or may not be true. It's not the purpose of this essay to determine that. What I am addressing is the fact that Scalzi is no more qualified to say it than you are.  The only part of this statement upon which he's an authority is "I FEEL".

Scalzi is indeed a science fiction writer. He has indeed won a Hugo award. It is not my purpose here to criticize his writing skills. But those skills do not translate into real-world expertise in either healthcare or military matters. Nor does his non-fiction writing give a hint of any hidden qualifications in these matters. And if he'd stuck to his qualifications and simply said, "I feel that the United States needs quality health care for its people far more than it needs a 'Space Force'", I wouldn't be writing this post.

So how can a presumably intelligent human being make such a mistake? I can speculate about two reasons. One is subliminally disingenuous. He is trying to persuade, and if a reader is balancing on the fence, perhaps adopting a false air of authority will pull the reader to his side. The second is that he may actually believe himself to be an authority. Reality can be a dangerous thing for fiction writers. It's not their stock in trade. They make up the technologies they write about. They make up the aliens, the politics, the conflicts, the resolutions. They may write on behalf of characters who are flawed but the authors themselves control those flaws... and strengths. A fictional character achieves what the author wants him to achieve because the author wants him to achieve it. Even the physics of science fiction bend to the will of the author. Whenever a science fiction writer utilizes "technologies" such as faster-than-light travel, he or she displays a willingness to set aside reality for the purpose of telling a story.

That's a lot of control. It's a lot of power. It's certainly seductive to imagine that one has as much control and power over the real world. Unfortunately the real world is not as accommodating as a word processor.

Scalzi does correctly state that his actual qualifications are that he writes science fiction. We know that this indicates a willingness to set aside reality for the purpose of telling a story. We also know that a false appeal to authority is an emotional appeal. And we know that intelligent people know their limits. I'm giving Scalzi the benefit of the doubt when I assume that he chose to step outside those limits. Whether what he says here is correct or not, such "qualifications" cannot gain him non-skeptical agreement on logical grounds.

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By the way, this isn't the only logical fallacy present in this tweet, but I leave it as an exercise to the reader to identify the others. You shouldn't need an expert, as logic is something that can be practiced by any competent human brain.

When 'Slippery Slope' Isn't a Fallacy

Casual logicians often parrot the assertion that "Slippery Slope" is a logical fallacy. It must be... they read it on the Internet. However, repeating what you've read doesn't substitute for thought and proper application, and a Slippery Slope is only a logical fallacy under specific circumstances; those being when the conclusion doesn't follow from the facts. As a fallacy, I'd say it's a special case of non-sequitur (disguised by a series of weak links instead of an immediately stated conclusion that doesn't fit the facts).

At other times, it's no fallacy at all; and that's when the chain of events to the conclusion do follow from the premise... and moreso, when the conclusion is actually demonstrated.

For instance, look at this faulty description of a "Slippery Slope" argument:

"If we allow gay marriage, the next thing we know, people will want to marry their dogs, or their cats, or what about their pigs?"

The problem here is that those -- exactly -- do in fact happen. Here's one website that describes twelve cases: marriage to dogs, cats, horses, cows, goats, a dolphin, and even frogs. You can google more on your own.

Those who employ this particular example are engaging in a more egregious example of their own: the "Suppressed Evidence" fallacy. Because the hard evidence doesn't support their own conclusions, they simply choose to pretend that it doesn't exist. They reject objective reality and substitute their own.

This segues nicely into the topic of dysphoria, which takes us to this article in the National Post:

Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: 'Transabled' people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies

Here we have examples of people who now claim to be "trans-abled"; and who then have elective surgery performed, or mutilate their own bodies, to better fit their self-image of being disabled... lame, blind, etc.

This is a type of delusion: somatic, which is a delusion that the person has some physical defect or general medical condition.

Other examples are those of people who claim to be trans-species, or trans-age.

To be clear, such people are mentally ill. Keep in mind that calling this a "delusion" has nothing to do with fear or hatred. There is no emotion in the recognition of facts. A delusion is readily defined: As phrased by Wikipedia, "a delusion is a mistaken belief that is held with strong conviction even when presented with superior evidence to the contrary."

Superior evidence could include the following:

• You have a full set of working limbs; therefore you are not a paraplegic.
• You are a human, right down to the DNA; therefore you are not a cat.
• You have an X and a Y chromosome; therefore you are not a woman.

Delusions are often harmless. A person with delusional disorder can be high-functioning; holding down a job, paying bills, socializing normally (except for their sometimes quirky idosyncracies). They shouldn't persecuted, because persecuting someone makes you a dick. But being free from persecution doesn't mean they're not still delusional. Nor does it mean that it is "the right thing" to force other, non-delusional, people to enable their dysfunction. I'd say "the right thing" is self-evident: to help them over their difficulties, if possible.

No, I'm not a psychiatrist. You don't have to be a psychiatrist to recognize dysfunction when you see it, or to employ logic, or to to recognize the difference between a person's claims about their "identity" and the overwhelming physical evidence to the contrary. And as psychiatrists go, I think you'd have to be a pretty damned poor one to ignore that evidence yourself. And let's look at those claims, please... although every strand of DNA in a body shows the person to be one thing, this is discarded in favor of a pattern of behavior. Get that? Rather than conclude that the pattern of behavior is the issue, the conclusion is that every cell of every organ in the body is wrong. That's not even rational.

And while there are cases where hormonal imbalances exist, and other organs play a part; the conclusion drawn by enablist psychiatry is that the behavior is the deciding factor. Once this decision is made even once, and because the initial step itself ignores overwhelming evidence to the contrary, it's not possible to justify a distinction between one kind of dysphoria (which is "ok") and other kinds (that are not). Hence, the slippery slope is real, and we do see people marrying their pets, and we do see people cutting off their limbs, and we do see medical professionals who stepped onto that slope not merely rationalizing mutilation and bestiality; but performing mutilations themselves; and we do see people who want this "normalized".

A "Slippery Slope" is not a fallacy when it's the news.

"But he hasn't got anything on!"

My favorite author of all time is Hans Christian Andersen (and it pained me to see "The Little Mermaid" bastardized by Disney). 

As evidence of his prophetic genius, I present for your consideration "The Emperor's New Clothes", a story of a multitude of "wise" people who proclaimed the existence of things not in evidence and spouted utter bullshit in the face of plain and obvious truths, simply because it served their vanity to do so. 

And though these views were popularly accepted by an easily manipulated public, eventually a younger generation saw the truth... that despite the impassioned claims of those who thought themselves enlightened and learned, there was in fact nothing there. 

I leave it to you to ponder the applicability of this morality tale.

But George Washington says...

"People can, as they will have the advantage of experience on their side, decide with as much propriety on the alteration(s) and amendment(s) which are necessary." "I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or posess more virtue, than those who will come after us." --George Washington, 1787

Now, this is a lovely quote, and the Constitution has been amended many times on this very principle. Indeed, it was barely out the door before the Bill of Rights added the first ten amendments. Even the repeal of an amendment has happened, so we can take it as generally agreed that not every amendment is a good idea, even though the vast majority of people thought so at the time.

It amuses me to no end, though, when people take this very general statement as some form of "proof" or "evidence" that their own specific position is correct. It's positively funny when they fall into logical fallacy and suggest that they themselves (rather than their opponents, or some third party ignored by both sides) must therefore be the ones possessed of more wisdom and virtue than the founding fathers.

Let's be clear. George Washington didn't know you or the rest of your generation. Any reasonable man could completely change his mind due to experience; we can only guess at what the result would be were President Washington to visit this century. The only thing that's certain is that this is not a magic prophecy endorsing your position, whatever it might be.

So... nice try. Nevertheless, the arguments still have to be made and evaluated on their own virtues; and if the Constitution is amended, it must be done through established means. And that means clearing a very high bar. It's absolutely intended to pose an inconvenience to those with the hubris to shove their ideology down your throat. Even when we've passed a bad amendment such as the 18th (Prohibition), the repeal has to clear the very same high bar (the 21st amendment did so).

The Constitution is absolutely intended to trump every law and edict, because the rights within are considered basic, and all of them have cleared that very high bar that mere laws and decrees (styled as "Executive Orders") have not. So anytime you imagine yourself or your chosen White Knight to be smarter or wiser than those who came before, and decry the fact that it is so very difficult impose your genius on the world due to this roadblock of a dusty old document, remember that your parents and grandparents managed to have the civil discourse and patience necessary to clear the high bar that your own argument has not even faced. Then it's time to perhaps re-evaluate your approach, as well as your opinion of yourself.

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Note: I've been presented with this quote a number of times, from different sources, and was reminded of it today. If you've PERSONALLY SPOKEN to me on this subject, then this post may be for you.

Another Note: For some time now I've found myself posting rather long missives on Facebook and ignoring my blog. I'm going to stop that.