Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

Affirmations and Denials

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 09 Dec 2005 10:38:13 -0700

We haven’t had a Logical Fallacies Friday in a long time, due mostly to distractions. Here’s a fun one with a twist at the end: Affirming the Consequent. This one runs a little long, but stay with it. You won’t be sorry.

Affirming the Consequent is the logical equivalent of throwing your car’s stick shift into reverse while going forward at 55 mph. (Don’t try this!) A sudden reversal of logic that strips the gears of the mind. Here’s a simple example:

If it’s raining, the streets will be wet.
The streets are wet today,
Therefore it must be raining.

Can you hear the gears clash? Do you feel that nagging little pebble of illogic grinding in the cylinders of your brain? Of course, there are a variety of reasons why the street might be wet. One of them could be rain. Others are melting snow, the neighbor’s sprinkler system, a leaky fire hydrant, a burst water main, etc. While the sentence works in one direction, it doesn’t necessarily work in reverse.

People guilty of a crime always lie under oath.
Harry lied under oath,
Therefore Harry must be guilty of a crime.

(Or maybe he’s trying to cover up for someone else.)

Guns are involved in murder.
Murders increased last year,
Therefore there must have been more guns.

(Baseball bats and kitchen knives also do a good job at killing people, though you don’t see attempts to regulate these.)

God’s Word is inerrant.
The Bible is inerrant;
Therefore the Bible is God’s Word.

(Or it just might be a very, very, very accurate book.)

Confessional Lutherans unconditionally subscribe the Book of Concord
Pastor X unconditionally subscribed the Book of Concord,
Therefore, Pastor X is a confessional Lutheran.

(Maybe yes, maybe no. Pastor X may not have even read the Book of Concord, or understood what was in it. What X says and does would be stronger corroborating evidence.)

Affirming the Consequent is the way of circumstantial evidence in court. Circumstantial evidence speaks indirectly to the case. It isn’t necessarily wrong, but it isn’t necessarily right, either.

The victim’s feet were encased in concrete.
The defendant had concrete in his garage;
Therefore the defendant killed the victim.

(Or maybe he was just pouring a patio. However, the million dollar insurance policy he took out on the victim does make us a tad bit suspicious.)

Affirming the Consequent is a useful slingshot for tossing political mud at your opponent.

Tax and spend liberals love to increase taxes.
Taxes increased under my opponent’s watch;
Therefore, my opponent is a tax and spend liberal.

(Or maybe taxes just went up.)

Here’s one you hear all the time around the creationist water cooler:

Atheists believe in evolution.
Sam believes in evolution;
Therefore, Sam is an atheist.

(There are well-intentioned Christians who also believe evolution is true. One doesn’t necessarily correlate with the other. In fact, people tend to be wonderfully inconsistent in the stuff they believe. Francis Pieper called it “felicitous inconsistency.”)

From the worship wars. Perhaps you’ve said it yourself, or had someone say it about you.

Church growth types love contemporary music.
Pastor Y uses contemporary music;
Therefore Pastor Y is a church growthist.

(Or maybe he’s just an old Baby Boomer Deadhead who thinks a Fender Stratocaster is closer to heaven than a squeaky old pipe organ.)

The twin sister of “Affirming the Consequent” is called “Denying the Antecedent.” It works like: If A then B; not A therefore not B. If the positive is true, the negative must also be true. Right? Well...not exactly.

If I eat a lot, I will get sick.
I don’t eat a lot,
Therefore I won’t get sick.

(Unless someone with the flu coughs in your face.)

If the glove fits on OJ’s hand, then OJ killed Nicole and Ron.
The glove doesn’t fit,
therefore you must acquit.

(The trouble is the victims were killed with a knife, not a glove. Small, but significant detail.)

Denying the antecedent is a great way to defend the status quo. It’s a common conservative ploy to say, “We’ll stick with the old, and things will always be good.” Or maybe things will just be old.

New hymnals always bring disruption and heresy into the church.
We’ll stay with the old hymnal,
Therefore, we’ll never have a problem with heresies.

(Yeah, ask the Episcopal Church about that one.)

Double predestination rests on a fallacy of denying the antecedent. Think about it:

If you are saved, you are elect to salvation.
Some are not saved,
Therefore some are not elect to salvation.

(That’ll teach you to play logical games with God!)

So far, so good. One big problem, however. Affirming the Consequent is a formal fallacy only in “deductive” reasoning, which is the safest, but least interesting, way of thinking, going from rule to conclusion by way of definition.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

All very true, and quite boring. Mathematicians work this way. That’s why they’re generally as interesting as accountants and statisticians. One thing follows another by definition. Scientists, historians, and detectives think in a different direction, called “retroductive reasoning.” Connecting the dots. Here’s an example:

Rule: All men are mortal.
Observation: Socrates is mortal.
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is a man.

Ah hah! you say. That’s “Affirming the Consequent.” Right you are, my deductive friend. Yet without this way of thinking, we’d never be able to come up with reasonable explanations for anything. Here’s a simple example from science:

Water is composed of 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen.
Substance X is composed of 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen.
Therefore, X is water.

The fallacy occurs when you make the conclusion an absolute statement. A little healthy skepticism is always in order when reasoning retroductively. Good science knows to be skeptical Socrates might be a man, or he might be a cat, which is also mortal. Substance X might be water or it might be something else with the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen. The fallacy can be avoided by use of the phrase “might be,” or if you are fairly certain, “probably is.” Socrates might be a man; Substance X probably is water.

Retroductively speaking, you can never be absolutely certain of anything, just “reasonably certain.” It’s the way it works in court: Beyond a reasonable doubt. Nothing that we observe is absolutely certain. A circumstantial evidence case is built on a series of retroductive conclusions. Any one of them may be questionable, but the sum total paints a picture that is difficult to deny beyond a reasonable doubt.

So parents, while it is generally true that kids who stay out late are up to no good, and it is most certainly true that Sally is out late tonight, it is not necessarily true that Sally is up to no good. You’ll have to talk to her when she gets home. You know the drill.

Irrelevent Humor

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 14:40:41 -0700

Here’s a personal favorite from the logical fallacies list: Irrelevent Humor.

Nothing breaks up a difficult moment like a little levity; and nothing derails an argument better than an irreverent irrelevency.

Aristotle once said, “Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.”

We joke about the things we take most seriously. The British are particularly good at it, with religion and government being their chief targets. A sign that someone is living under the awful burden of the Law is his inability to laugh at the absurdity of life under the sun. Such people need to be lovingly liberated from bondage to sober relevence. Many “blog wars” could benefit from a healthy dose of humor to rescue their zealous writers from the awful burden of having to be right all the time. The same could be said of voters assemblies, synodical conventions, and corporate board meetings.

Irrelevent humor is humor for the sake of distraction, which is great if you don’t have so much as a pair of deuces in your hand. A humorous irrelevency, accurately aimed, can dismiss a tedious opponent and his tiresome argument without so much as lifting a finger. If you’re good at it, and your audience isn’t listening all thatcarefully, you might actually win the day and save your brain energy for important stuff. Trial lawyers use this tactic all the time with sleepy juries, as do adept politicians with sleepy voters, and clever pastors with sleepy parishioners.

Irrelevent humor is really a “logical fallacy” only if you think you’ve proven your point. You haven’t proven a thing; people simply forgot what the argument was because they were laughing too hard.

A classic example of irrelevent humor is the exchange between Bishp Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley over evolution. The bishop brilliantly asked his opponent, ‘You claim descent from a monkey; was it on your grandfather’s or grandmother’s side?” Huxley’s reply, considered a classic rebuttal, was that he saw no shame in being descended from a monkey, but he would be ashamed of an ancestor, who, despite his learning, sought to obscure the argument by means of aimless rhetoric and appeals to prejudice. Touché. (from The Adam Smith Institute)

One of the great benefits of a high-priced liberal arts education is the accumulation of a vast storehouse of irrelevent facts that can be summoned at a moment’s notice, often to great effect. Hey all those caffeinated hours steeped in Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Herodotus, Homer, Cicero, not to mention Locke, Hobbes, and Thoreau, had to have been useful for something. Comedian Dennis Miller made a career out of high-brow irrelevent allusions. The skillful use of humor can often pass off as intelligence in our less than literate culture. Blessed are the wickedly clever, for they shall win the popular mind.

Pres. Ronald Reagan is considered one of the top five funniest presidents in American history. The funniest, apparantly, was Abraham Lincoln. Pres. Bush is very funny too, but he usually doesn’t intend to be. We’re talking intentional irrelevence here.

When he was governor of California, Reagan met with a group of young protestors. Their barefooted spokesman told Reagan, “Governor, it’s impossible for your generation to understand us....You didn’t grow up in a world of instant electronic communications, of cybernetics, of men computing in seconds what once took months, even years, of jet travel, nuclear power, and journeys into space...” To which Gov. Reagan replied, “You’re absolutely right. Our generation didn’t have those things when we were growing up. We invented them!” (from Ronald Reagan Humor)

Martin Luther was a master in wielding wicked humor against his opponents. For a great example, read “Against Hanswurst” (that’s Duke Henry of Braunschweig as Harry Hotdog). Regarding Luther’s often coarse sense of humor, Roland Bainton (“Here I Stand”) notes, “Luther delighted less in muck than many of the literary men of his age; but if he did indulge, he excelled in this as in every other area of speech.” Remember that Luther wrote in a less sissified day than our own dark age mired in political correctness. I think he would have loved the idea of the Higher Things Theological Cage Match. In his day, they were called “Disputations.” Genuine smack-down theology.

Even the apostle Paul couldn’t resist a cutting remark when writing to the Galatians. Recall that some guys from Jerusalem had come to insist that Gentile converts to Christianity had to be circumcized under the law of Moses. Ouch! Paul vigorously opposed this notion (Thankfully! It’s hard enough to get them through catechesis!), marshaling several lines of argumentation in classic rhetorical style. Near the end of his argument, he uncorks this opinion of his circumcision-obsessed opponents: “I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:12) Tell us what you really think, Paul. (OK, so it may not be the funniest line ever uttered in religious rhetoric, but hey, St. Paul wasn’t exactly known for his stand up comedy, either.)

So the next time you come to the debate table empty-handed, or your opponent needs to be lowered a notch or two and swatted like a pesky fly, try firing off an irrelevent humor bullet and see what happens.

Be careful, though. Some of us can be pretty quick on the draw.

Guest Professor

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 10:56:39 -0700

I've been having a little too much fun celebrating the Reformation this week, and found myself unprepared for class today. Actually, I had a fallacy piece written, only to discover that the piece itself was fallacious! Happens to the best of us. So I've arranged for a substitute teacher today on Logical Fallacies Friday. (No cutting class! Attendance will be taken!)

Let me introduce you to: The Adam Smith Institute.

(polite applause)

You fans of free market capitalism and enlightened self-interest will immediately recognize the name and take delight. They have a great index of logical fallacies. Click on one and you'll get a brief article with some very funny illustrations and droll parenthetical comments wrapped up in wonderfully dry, cynical British humour.

Slip Sliding Away

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:40:56 -0600

“Give him an inch, and he’ll take a mile.” Well, not necessarily. Maybe he’ll just take a foot or two. There’s a big difference between an inch and a mile.

Welcome to the “Slippery Slope” Fallacy. Another name for this fallacy is the “Camel’s Nose.” Let the camel stick his nose through the door of your tent, and pretty soon you’ll have a lot more camel than you bargained for.

The Slippery Slope fallacy is a favorite among folks with extreme positions or extreme personalities. The far left and right, along with zealous religious types of all stripes, love to employ the threat of the slippery slope to defend their cliff-hanger conclusions. Here are a few examples:

“If we legalize marijuana, pretty soon we’ll be legalizing heroin, crystal meth, and crack cocaine.”

“If I make an exception for you, then I have to make an exception for everyone.”

“If we question the six 24 hour days of creation in Genesis, we’ll soon be questioning every verse of the Bible.”

“If we take “under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, we’ll be a nation of atheists.”

“Let a guitar accompany a hymn on Sunday, and before you know it, there will be a praise band and projection screen in the chancel.”

“National health insurance is the first step toward socialism.”

“If we allow physician-assisted suicide, pretty soon doctors will be killing burdensome patients who do not want to die.”

“Requiring parental notification for a minor girl’s abortion is the first step back to the days of back-alley abortions.”

“Displaying a cross on government property amounts to state sponsored religion.”

Even the famous attorney Clarence Darrow slid down the slippery slopes at the Scopes Monkey Trial:

"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public school, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools, and the next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers. Soon you may set Catholic against Protestant and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the minds of men. If you can do one you can do the other. Ignorance and fanaticism is ever busy and needs feeding. Always it is feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers, tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lectures, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After while, your honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots (burning torches) to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind." (Scopes Trial, Day 2)

Remember that the issue at stake in the Scopes trial was whether evolution could be taught in the public schools! Today the evolutionary shoe has shifted to the other foot, as has the slippery slope. Consider this op-ed comment from the York Dispatch:

"If the ID campaign is successful in court, it will lead the nation down a dangerous, slippery slope. If science classrooms are opened to their teaching, fairness requires that the views of countless other religions and denominations be taught as well. This would make a hash of science education, confusing our students and undermining the process of objective scientific research that has brought so much benefit to so many people." (Alan I. Leshner, Oct. 5 op-ed piece in the York Dispatch)

The Slippery Slope fallacy sounds reasonable because it mimics a valid line of argumentation called “reductio ad absurdum” (reduction to the absurd), in which you show how one thing inevitably leads to an absurdity. (“If that’s true, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.”) The famous apologist JW Montgomery once noted in a debate with an atheist, who questioned the reliability of the NT documents, that if the NT texts are not reliable historic documents, you may as well close the entire classics department at the university because no ancient text is reliable. At this point, the chairman of the classics department jumped up and shouted, “No!” This was not a slippery slope, but a valid argument to an absurd conclusion. If we can’t trust the new testament documents as reliable, 1st century historic documents, we have no basis to accept any text from antiquity.

With the slippery slope fallacy, the conclusion you’re trying to avoid has no necessary correlation with the premise. It plays on fear, ignorance, and defensiveness. I raise it here because well-intentioned Christians often slip onto the slippery slope when confronted with arguments that threaten a cherished belief. Being passionate about our beliefs, we sometimes fail to check the logical connections of our defenses. One thing doesn’t always, inevitably lead to the next, and our sharp-penciled opponents are quick to point out the less than felicitous inconsistencies.

The way to get logical traction on a slippery slope is to ask yourself, “Does A necessarily lead to B?” Do guitars inevitably lead to praise bands? Does legalization of marijuana inevitably lead to crack? Does the exception always become the rule? You’ll find, more often than not, that the answer is, “Not necessarily.” Usually, the camel is just sniffing around the tent.

Winner of the coveted, if not infamous,
Golden Aardie Award

Amphiboly

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 16:19:10 -0600

I decided we needed a fun fallacy for Logical Fallacies Friday - Amphiboly. I really like the sound of that word. Am-phib-o-ly. It comes from the Greek amphibolia which means something that is indeterminate. It’s a “fallacy of ambiguity” resulting from a word that means more than one thing or from poor sentence structure that leaves participles dangling and pronouns hanging. The sign in the bathroom reads: “Save water and waste paper.” Well, I was only planning to use a couple of sheets, but seeing the sign, I did my patriotic duty and emptied the whole roll. Didn’t flush, though.

Amphibolies leave us scratching our heads and wondering exactly where the thought went wrong. When we hear that a panda “eats shoots and leaves” we’re not sure whether to marvel at the panda's sturdy digestive system or run for cover before the bullets fly. Amphibolies are a stock in trade in comedy, such as Abbott & Costello’s classic “Who’s on First?” routine.

Amphiboly revels in ambiguity. The Greek historian Herodotus tells of King Crosius of Lyda who made inquiry of the Oracle at Delphi concering his military campaign against the Persian King Cyrus. The Oracle informed Crosius that if he went to battle against the Persians, “he would destroy a great empire.” What the king didn’t realize was that the empire he would destroy would be his own!¹ Watch out for those oracles! Ambiguity is what keeps the paying customers coming. Just ask the Psychic Hotline.

Shakespeare, in his Henry VI, has this famous amphiboly: “The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose.” Is it the duke who will depose Henry, or will Henry depose the duke? Inquisitive rulers need to know.

Puns work by amphiboly. Here in Los Angeles, our first-place Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have an ace starting pitcher named Bartolo Colon, whose last name is pronounced like the word “cologne.” Of course, this gives rise to some delightfully amphibolous headlines in the sports section such as, “Colon Gives Up Early Runs” (happened to me once on a trip to Cancun) or “Colon Yanked in 4th Inning” (Yikes, and you thought a colonoscopy was bad).

News headlines are marvelous sources of amphiboly, since headlines always try to say too much with too few words:

“Volunteers Needed to Help Torture Survivors”
Go ahead, kick ‘em when they’re down.

“Teacher Strikes Idle Kids”
That’s one way to deal with lazy students.

“College Students Turning to Vegetables”
Dad always said I had the IQ of broccoli.

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant”
It’s a lot cheaper than a jury trial.

Classified ads are another mother lode of amphiboly, which Jay Leno often mines. Two lines, four days for five bucks don't always get the point across clearly. For example:

“FOR SALE - Complete Solar System - works well & efficiently. Used only 8 months. Reduced to $15,000.” (From "The Fallacy Files")
Hey, if it includes Pluto and that new planet, I'd consider it a bargain at the price!

"FOR SALE: Car driven by elderly lady with new body and spare tire.”
I wonder if her transmission is any good.

“DOG FOR SALE. Eats anything. Especially fond of children.”
I don’t think that’s what they had in mind when they invented “Kibbles & Bits.”

Street signs can suffer from a case of amphiboly because they tend not to use punctuation. That’s how we get such signs as: “Slow Children Crossing.” (The speedier ones go around the block, I guess.)

Overworked church secretaries and inattentive pastor-proofreaders are always good for the amphibolous “bulletin blooper” to keep you entertained on a slow Sunday:

“The audience is asked to remain seated until the end of the recession.”
Hopefully the economy will take an upswing by the end of the year.

“For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.”
You might also want to tell your current wife.

The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.
Yes, I hear that one a lot.

The world of politics remains one of the world's richest storehouses of amphiboly. Politicians simply can’t help themselves but say things like: “Women prefer Democrats to men” (Tony Coelho, Congressman from California, quoted in Copi & Cohen, 11th ed. p. 165) I don’t know whether to be amused or appalled.

No discussion of amphiboly would be complete without a few gems from the most amphibolous president in US history: George W. Bush. When it comes to amphiboly, our esteemed President holds a 3rd degree black belt. For the sake of brevity, I must limit myself to four:

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.
That’s the last time I let my wife go to the doctor alone.

"That's why I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental—supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts and ammunition and fuel."—Erie, Pa., Sept. 4, 2004
Perhaps the military needs to do a bit more R&D on that armor and ammunition.

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."—Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
No wonder we can’t find Bin Laden!

"I didn't join the International Criminal Court because I don't want to put our troops in the hands of prosecutors from other nations. Look, if somebody has done some wrong in our military, we'll take care of it. We got plenty of capability of dealing with justice."—Niceville, Fla., Aug. 10, 2004
I’ll bet we do! (From “The Complete Bushisms”)

The way to deal with amphiboly is to identify the ambiguous word or phrase that causes the sentence to veer off like a wayward rocket. But then, that would take all the fun out of it. Usually the best thing is to have a good laugh over how our words sometimes don't work out quite the way we intended, as when we read that "Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge" or "Kids Make Nutritious Snacks" or "Blind Bishop is Appointed to See" (From "Headline Humor").

Wanna Bet?

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 23 Sep 2005 09:10:47 -0600

You flip the coin ten times, and ten times in a row it comes up heads. How much do you want to bet that the next time you flip it comes up heads? Or will it be tails? If you are convinced that the next toss has a better than 50/50 chance of coming up heads (or tails) because of the previous ten flips, you are guilty of the "Gambler's Fallacy" or "Monte Carlo Fallacy."

Don't feel bad; you're not alone. A whole city is built on the Gambler's Fallacy; it's called Las Vegas. In fact, there's an entire country called Monoco that's underwritten by this fallacy. We're suckers for a sure bet.

The Gambler's Fallacy is a fallacy of cause (a retroductive fallacy of soundness in the major premise, in case you're keeping track). We think we see a pattern in independent events, and so we assume that the events are not independent after all, even though there is no demonstrable connection. We are prone to explain things, especially things that are rare or highly improbable. We look for patterns and then assume the pattern will continue into the future. If a slot machine hasn't paid off in a while, we're inclined to say it's "due." Or we might conclude it's a loser. But in fact, if the machine is honest, it is pre-programmed to pay out at a certain level of probability. It is no more or less likely to pay out on one pull of the lever than on the next.

Here are some common examples of the Gambler's Fallacy:

"Lightening never strikes twice in the same place."
Actually, lightning strikes many times in the same place all the time, otherwise lightning rods would be useless.

"I just knew I was going to win the Lotto. I've lost so many times, I knew I was due."
Every lotto ticket has exactly the same statistical chance of losing as any other.

"Bad things always happen in groups of three."
Actually bad things just happen; we tend to stop counting after three.

"If anything can wrong, it will."
You'll recognize this as a variation on "Murphy's Law," the pessimist's creed. Given that Capt. Edward A. Murphy worked for the government, you can understand his pessimism. However, when you stop and think about it, you'll realize that everything has a finite probability of going right or wrong. We tend to notice the wrong more often than the right, hence we make a "law" out of things going wrong.

"I always feel safer flying after there has been an airplane crash. What are the chances of another crash happening the same day?"
Answer: The same as a day when a crash doesn't happen.

"Luck" is kind of a dirty, four-letter word among religious types. To wish someone "good luck" at a pastor's conference will usually draw a constipated look, if not a quick corrective. Luck used to be considered something holy before the gambler's got a hold of it and turned it into a religion. Holy Luck. The Divine Hand hidden under randomness and chance. Luther's Deus Absconditus. Einstein opined that God doesn't play dice, but He sure doesn't seem to mind a few rolls at the cosmic craps table.¹

The OT book of Esther is about "holy luck." A decent subtitle for the book would be: It Just So Happened. It just so happened that a sharp-looking Jewish gal catches the king's eye when he's looking for a queen. It just so happens that the king has a case of insomnia one night and has his servants read some bedtime stories to him about a guy named Mordecai who saved the king's neck from a court conspiracy. It just so happens that Mordecai is being targeted by a guy named Haman who hates the Jews and wants to kill them. And it just so happens that Haman winds up hanging from the gallows he built for Mordecai. God is never once mentioned in the entire book of Esther. Holy Luck! At the festival of Purim, which commemorates the events of this book, the Jewish people play a little gambling game with a kind of dice thing called a pur. Very appropriate. The hand of God hides behind holy luck.

When the church needed to fill the vacancy in the Twelve left by Judas, they chose two qualified men, prayed, and drew straws. Rocks, paper, scissors. The lot fell on Matthias (Acts 1:26). Lucky him! That approach to filling pastoral vacancies never really caught on. Now we have call committees.

You can't predict the future by patterns of independent past events. So if you're having a run of good luck lately, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, not to mention thankful to the Giver of every good and perfect gift. But I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

¹ On "holy luck," see Robert Farrar Capon, Health, Money, and Love & Why We Don't Enjoy Them (Eerdmans, 1990)

Round and Round We Go

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 10:33:22 -0600

It's another Logical Fallacies Friday here on Blogosphere. You grab the loose basketball at center court. You're spun around by the point guard. You recover your balance and streak down the court, do a 360 windmill slam, toss up your hands in triumph. And then you realize that you threw the ball straight into your own basket. The logical equivalent of that is called "circular reasoning." This is where you assume the truth of what you're trying to prove while you’re trying to prove it. It's enough to make your head spin, and often does. If you find yourself getting dizzy in an argument, you or your opponent may be arguing in circles. The fallacy is called “petitio principii” or "begging the question."

Here are a few examples just to get your head spinning:

"You can't go out on Wednesday night because you're only permitted to go out on Friday nights."
Do you get the feeling that wasn't much of an explanation?

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaida is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida." (George Bush)
They don't call it "spin" for nothing.

"There is no such thing as knowledge which cannot be carried into practice, for such knowledge is really no knowledge at all." Wang Shou-Jen, Record of Instructions
Huh?

Here’s an enlightened dialogue:

"Why?"
"Because!"
"Why because?"
"Because because!"
"Why because because?"
"Because I said so!"

That pretty much settles it, don't you think?

A classic, and very funny, exercise in circular reasoning is the little drama called "Kissing Hank's Ass". (If Mom is looking over your shoulder and is offended by colorful language, click on "Kissing Hank's Butt" for the PG-13 rated Sunday School version.) It’s written by a clever atheist who delights in spinning the bad logic of well-meaning Christians who come a’knocking at his door. Be forewarned. Quite a few Christians turn a sickly shade of grey when they read this dialogue or hear it performed because they recognize their own fallacy, which goes something like this:

"You should trust in Jesus."
"Why should I trust in Jesus?"
“Because I trust in Jesus.”
“Why do you trust in Jesus?”
"Because the Bible says so."
"Why should I believe the Bible?"
"Because it's true."
"How do I know the Bible's true?"
"Because the Bible says it's true."

That's why we don't begin with an inspired, inerrant Bible or our own believing, but with the virgin-born Jewish carpenter from Nazareth and His historic death and resurrection. You can prove from historic evidence that the Bible is historically reliable. But you can't prove from the Bible that the Bible is true, since that would presuppose the truth of the Bible before you proved it and will make you and your hearers very dizzy. Another way of saying this is that the authority of the Bible is established by the authority of Jesus who died and rose from the dead; the authority of Jesus is not established by the authority of the Bible. That's one reason you'll never see Lutherans referred to as "Bible-believing." We are Christ-believing, of whom the Bible bears reliable witness.

David Hume (1711-1776), the skeptical philosopher and logician of the Enlightenment, showed that the claim "The future will essentially be like the past" is circular reasoning. Why should the future be like the past? Because in the past, the future has always been like the past. I bring this up for a specific reason. The same David Hume who refuted the "back to the future" argument wrote this about miracles in the very same book:

“A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.” David Hume - An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

He thought he'd slam-dunked Christianity’s belief in miracles. By now, you should be able to detect his petitio principii:

Laws of Nature are based in unalterable experience’
Unalterable experience is inviolate,
Therefore, the laws of nature are inviolate.
Miracles violate the Laws of nature,
Therefore, miracles are impossible.

In other words, miracles are impossible because miracles don't happen. Even the great ones fumble the ball once and a while.

The petitio principii often fools the person making the argument more than his or her opponent. You’re so passionate about your point, you fail to realize that you haven’t proven it, you just restated it. Politicians, pundits, huckster evangelists, and anyone trying to pull the wool over someone’s eyes may try to pass off a petitio principii like a counterfeit twenty dollar bill when they know they are empty handed in the evidence department.

To call the hand on a petitio principii, you need to show that the conclusion must be presumed to be true before you can accept the premise. Like my cat when she’s being playful, the tail she chases down and catches winds up being her own.

Coincidence or Cause?

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 11:35:00 -0600

If it's Friday, there must be a logical fallacy. Do Fridays cause fallacies, or do fallacies cause Fridays? Given the hurricane in the headlines and the inevitable speculations, we're going to talk about two fallacies dealing with cause, correlation, and coincidence: Non Causa Pro Causa (non-cause for a cause) and Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (after this, therefore because of this). Don't you just love the sound of those Latin names? They're almost as much fun as those old names for the Sundays: Quasimodogeniti.

We love to explain "why" things happen. It's what drives science and history. Our minds love to connect the dots, often in strange, illogical ways. We naturally look for the causes of things - disease, depression, destruction, wars, hurricanes. A fallacy occurs when we confuse a coincidence for a cause.

Non Causa Pro Causa confuses a correlated event with the cause of the event. Just because one thing happens at the same time as another thing, doesn't mean that thing has anything to do with cause. For example:

"Fevers cause itchy red bumps. I had a fever, and immediately broke out in itchy red bumps." (There are fevers with no itchy red bumps, and itchy red bumps with not fevers. Actually, both are caused by the measles' virus.)

"Welfare increases poverty. Whenever we increase welfare, more people go on the welfare roles." (While the observation may be true, the conclusion about cause is not. More people go on welfare because more welfare is available.)

Superstitions are built on the non causa pro causa fallacy:
"I failed my logic test today because I wasn't wearing my luck charm bracelet." (You failed your logic test because you didn't study.)

So is moralism:
"Immorality causes hurricanes. The homosexual Southern Decadence Festival was scheduled for New Orleans the week after Hurricane Katrina hit." (Hurricane Katrina was caused by the movement of air over water, not bad morals. There are plenty of immoral events that don't have hurricanes.)

And political rhetoric:
"George Bush is personally responsible for the destruction of New Orleans. He has consistently refused to sign the Kyoto agreement on global warming." (Even if hurricanes are the result of global warming, the Kyoto agreement would not have changed the environment sufficiently to prevent Hurricane Katrina.)

And bogus medical claims:
"Magnets cure migraines. I strapped rare earth magnets to my head and my headache instantly went away." (OK. But you might want to run a few controlled variable experiments to test whether this is a coincidence or a cure. Ever hear of the "placebo effect"? And in the meantime, watch out for flying metallic objects!)

And religious behavior:
"Going to church must be good for your health. People who attend church regularly statistically live longer than people who don't." (Some church goers actually die pretty young; some church non-goers live almost as long as Methuselah. The fact is, church goers probably have better life habits that promote longer life. But the act of attending church does not cause long life. Good life habits along with long life genes are the cause of long life.)

"Singing in choir may be good for your health. People who sing in choir have lower blood pressure and less stress." (Actually seen in a newspaper article! The act of singing in a choir has nothing to do with blood pressure and stress. In fact, if the choir is bad, the opposite might happen. Controlled breathing might have something to do with it, as might the positive effect of music. But there is no necessary connection to choir singing. Singing in the shower might have the same effect, and we don't have to listen to you.)

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (after this, therefore, because of this) is another common fallacy of causation. It has to do with the timing of things. Because one thing came after another, we conclude that the first thing must have caused the second. It makes sense: I pushed the button, and the door bell rang, therefore pushing the button causes the door bell to ring. The rooster crowed every day before sunrise, therefore the rooster caused the sun to rise. Hmmmm.

The "one thing after the other" fallacy is tempting because an effect follows its cause. The trouble is, you may not be seeing the actual cause, but a coincidence, or two effects of a common cause, or you may be confusing cause with effect: Cancer causes smoking. Roosters cause the sun to rise.

Examples:

"Marijuana use leads to heroine abuse. Nearly all heroine addicts started with marijuana." (But there are marijuana users who never go beyond dope. And there are heroine addicts who never smoked pot. Another explanation is that the same cause for marijuana use also causes heroine abuse.)

"Prayer has healing powers. I prayed last night and this morning my cold was gone." (Lots of people with colds pray and their colds aren't gone the next day. Some people with colds don't pray, and their colds disappear anyway. Actually, believers pray for the cold to go away and thank God for the cold (Philippian 4:6). Go figure.)

"US lack of support for Israel is dangerous. A week after Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, a hurricane hit a major US city." (Actually heard! US foreign policy, like bad morals, does not cause hurricanes. Hurricanes are caused by air moving over water.)

The way you flush out fallacies of cause is to show that the effect and the proposed cause do not have that relationship. Usually a counter example or two does the trick. Good, controlled variable research is designed to weed out false causes and coincidences.

Watch out especially for the "God caused this because..." argument. Short of a direct, clear, prophetic word from the Lord Himself, this would be mighty presumptuous. It is also an "argument from silence." when we are dealing with the "hidden God," whose ways are not our ways, the Ultimate Final Cause of all things remains completely hidden "in, with, and under" His creation, and is therefore not up for discussion or speculation.

Repentance, as always, is in order, but never as cause for an effect! God isn't into bargaining.

The Straw Man

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 08:23:12 -0600

It's Friday, and that means another logical fallacy here on Blogosphere. Permit me to introduce you to The Straw Man

You've likely already met him, even if you didn't know his name. He hangs out at political campaigns. Talk radio is so full of straw men, you'd think they were broadcasting from a Kansas cornfield. The Letters to the Editor section of newspapers and magazines are loaded with them. So are internet forums and blogs.

The straw man is to a real opponent as an air guitar is to a Fender Stratocaster. It's a misrepresentation of the opposition. Instead of dealing with the actual argument of your opponent, you set up a lesser softball argument and then knock it out of the park and hope no one notices the old switcheroo. Set up a straw man, a caricature of your opponent, usually amplifying some negative trait, light him on fire, kick his burning butt around the room, and then do a victory dance as though you've just won the heavyweight championship of the world. Hey, it's a lot easier than having a real argument. We all love to be a winner, even if it's only in our own minds.

Let's face it. We like simple arguments. Extreme positions are easy to argue with. The more extreme, the better. And besides, caricatures are fun, fact checking is hard work, and most people don't have the time or the will to do it. We just assume the caricature is a true portrait and run with it. That's why the straw man does so well at the public opinion poll.

An open letter from a collection clergy supporting the teaching of Evolution in the science classroom produces this whopper of a Straw Man:

"To argue that God's loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris." (From "An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science")

I couldn't agree more. The trouble is, no one actually takes the stated position. In fact, many Christians, operating with the full use of their reason and all their senses, still think evolution falls short of the standards of sound, empirical science. In trying to discredit those who disagree with the theory of Evolution, the authors make a scarecrow out of those who disagree with them and then shoot him down. Now that's what I call an act of hubris!

Here's one from the other side that I've been guilty of using:

"I don't see how anyone could think we descended from apes!"

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. The truth is, no one actually thinks that. Evolutionists teach that man and modern ape come from a common ancestor. That's takes a little more thought to refute, don't you think?

Even reputable, objective, fact-oriented science types aren't immune from the Straw Man, as this statement from Natural History magazine shows:

"At heart, proponents of intelligent design are not motivated to improve science but to transform it into a theistic enterprise that supports religious faith." (Barbara Forrest, "The Newest Evolution of Creationism")

Ms. Forrest is certainly entitled to her opinions, but the fact is that proponents of Intelligent Design believe that the presuppositions of Evolution make for bad science and are trying to show that design can be objectively detected. A clear tip-off of the straw man is when someone states she knows the "real" reason why someone holds a position, in this case to turn science into a "theistic enterprise." What gives Ms. Forrest insight into the hidden motives of her opponents? Is that burning straw I smell?

The Straw Man frequently makes an appearance when religion is the topic:

"The Christian faith is a habit of flouting reason in forming and maintaining one's answer to the question whether there is a god. Its essence is the determination to believe that there is a god no matter what the evidence may be." (Richard Robinson, "Religion and Reason" Critiques of God. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1997. p. 121)

The "essence" of the Christian faith rests not on some leap of faith regarding the existence of God, but on the historic fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. ("If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.")

A common objection to the authority of the Bible goes something like this:

"I don't see how anyone could take the Bible literally. Does anyone seriously believe that the earth is 6000 years old?"

Well, there probably are some people who actually do believe that, but the Bible doesn't literally say that anywhere. And the vast majority of Bible-believers don't believe that the earth is 6000 years old. There's often a big difference between what people think the Bible says and what it actually says. A good response would be, "Could you show me where in the Bible it says that the world is 6000 years old?" It always helps to read the book.

Let's face it. Kids aren't above inviting the Straw Man home for a visit when they say something like:

"I just don't understand my parents; they don't want me to have any fun at all."

In truth, your parents don't want you to get pregnant, addicted to drugs, or arrested, none of which are any fun at all.

And yes, parents are just as guilty of entertaining Mr. Straw Man when they say:

"Kids today are lazy; they just want to watch TV and have everything handed to them on a silver platter."

Actually, kids today are fairly busy and active, it just may not be the activities their parents want them to be doing. And in a pinch, paper plates will do just fine.

The straw man is easy to deal with once you've spotted him. Just show that the actual opposing argument is different than the one presented. You need to know the facts if you're going to put the Straw Man in his place. That takes time and effort. If you're in a gambling mood and are dealing with a known spinner of straw, you could just try calling the hand and say, "Show me the evidence!" Chances are, he'll probably come up with nothing but straw.

Watch out for those straw men! They win unsuspecting hearts, minds, and elections.

Sticks and Stones

Rev. William M. Cwirla — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 09:47:19 -0600

It's Logical Fallacies Friday here on Blogosphere. Class is in session. I hope you enjoyed last week's reading assignments; I appreciated all the comments.

The Logical Fallacy for the week is called argumentum ad hominem, or the "argument to the person." Forget the point, go for the person. Irrelevant information. Static. Stink bombs. The stuff of mud slinging and politics as usual. You hear it all the time in political campaigns and on convention floors, usually when people are unreasonably passionate about something.

I call it the "stick & stones fallacy" because it throws stones at the person rather than shooting arrows at the target. Ad hominems are a sure sign that the debate has taken a turn for the stupid. They usually precede tempers flaring and fists flying.

An ad hominem attacks the person's character or challenges his or her circumstances. Name calling would be an example. Suggesting that a person doesn't practice what he preaches and therefore his argument isn't worth considering is another.

Here are some examples of ad hominems:

"Only a Bible-thumping religious fanatic would fail to see that Evolution is the only possible scientific explanation for the diversity of life."

"Anyone who believes in Evolution is an atheist."

"If they don't have the guts...I call them girlie-men." (Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2004 reference to the Democratic legislators of California.)

"The only reason pastors preach about giving is because their paycheck depends on it."

"The war in Iraq is immoral; Bush is only in it for the oil."

"Church growth is a theology of glory; they just want to build empires."

"That's certainly a legitimate point, and I can see how someone who doesn't know all the facts might easily come to that conclusion." (Called "Damning with Faint Praise" - a favorite among smooth-talking, manipulative, weasel types.)

"One can certainly admire church growth's fervent, albeit misguided, zeal for missions." (more Damning with Faint Praise)

"That congregation is liberal; they use guitars." (Guilt by Association)

"Pastor C. can't be truly confessional; he went to St. Louis."

"Traditional Lutheran worship is irrelevent for today's worshipper; it's too Germanic."

"Christians have no right to speak about sin; they are some of the biggest sinners around." ("Tu quoque" or "you're another one" meaning "Look who's talking!")

"The Bible can't be trusted; it's full of errors and contradictions." (Called "Poisoning the Well")

"You have no idea what it's like to be a teenager!" (Called "Special Pleading" - sound familiar?)

"A man can't possibly comprehend the issue of abortion."

Ad hominem's are pretty easy to deal with. Just show that the person's character or circumstances have nothing to do with the point of the argument. Test the connection. What does the morality of the Iraq war have to do with the morality of George W. Bush? Nada. E still equals MC2 even if Albert Einstein was a womanizer and a drunk. And Jesus Christ is still risen from the dead, even if all Christians and their clergy are hypocrites, scoundrels, and Oakland Raiders fans.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but ad hominems can never hurt me. Or prove a point. Happy fallacy hunting!