http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPinYzHJeFQ&feature=watch_response
The fallacy I’m going to talk about here is by far the most absurd, yet it makes perfect sense from a scientific standpoint that it should be convincing. Indeed, this is the problem with logical fallacies in general. One of the reasons we all have a vested interest in learning to recognize logical fallacies is that, although not logically sound, they tend to be psychologically convincing.
A few videos back in this series, I talked about the snapshot fallacy. In that pair of videos, I digressed into a couple of Holocaust-denial arguments, one of which entailed a chemical analysis performed on a brick taken from one of the former gas chambers.
I’m not really good with names, and as a result, I’m afraid I can’t for the life of me recall the name of the fellow who had this analysis done, but afterward, he was asked what he found and he responded by pointing out what he did not find: Zyklon B gas residue. He therefore concluded that the brick in question must never have come into contact with such gas, therefore this building must never have been used this way, therefore the entire Holocaust must be a hoax.
I got into the main problem with this conclusion in that video, but many so-called arguments which run afoul of logic and reason do so in more ways than one. This is an example of the snapshot fallacy, and of affirming the antecedent, but also an example of the subject of this video. You see, this character is trying to conclude something, not on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of lack of evidence.
Another example I know of is religious, and it is the basis for all religious and theistic belief. Picture for a moment a prehistoric setting. A band of prehistoric human beings are just walking along, minding their own business and they pass a patch of bushes. Just as they’re walking past, the bushes rustle. Maybe it’s the wind. Maybe it’s some kind of rodent digging a hole. Or maybe it’s a predator preparing to pounce.
Since these people don’t know which is the case, which assumption is the most prudent for them to make? The third of course. Better to err on the side of caution. Better to inadvertently take an unnecessary precaution than an unnecessary risk.
Given the recurrence of this kind of scenario in a state of nature, we can conclude that, in prehistoric times, human beings who automatically made this assumption were favored by natural selection and survived to produce offspring who made the assumption as well, while those who didn’t fell victim to the predator in question and did not survive.
Thus, evolution has spawned a race of humans who respond to the unknown by inferring a potentially-dangerous agent of some kind. This is why children tend to fear the dark. The dark conceals things from our reckoning.
The unknown can be terrifying. One side-effect of this is that we feel compelled to invent elaborate canons to superimpose over it in order to convince ourselves that it’s not really unknown. Having done so, we take comfort in the canon, and so this behavior is reinforced.
As I recall, I was seven or eight years old at the time and I broke the news to the little girl living next door that our dog had died.
She immediately demanded to know who had killed him. Because she didn’t know the cause of his death, she assumed it must have been deliberate. Here we have this instinct at work.
This is why ancient astrologers and holy men drew up constellations. This is also part of the reason many people enjoy watching clouds and discussing what they resemble. Fear is not a part of this particular pastime, and for that reason, most of us understand that the clouds are not actually what they resemble, but here the same inclination comes into play.
Cartographers from centuries ago often wrote the words “Here there be dragons” on unknown parts of the map. Were there really dragons there? Of course not.
Recently, I was exchanging e-mail with a Muslim fellow who tried to demonstrate god-existence to me by pointing to metabolic processes. When death occurs, all of one’s metabolic processes don’t halt at the same time. Some can take a few seconds, like lower brain activity. Others can take several minutes, like the processes in the intestines. There are even a few which can continue for days, like the growth of fingernails, toenails, and hair. He asked me why this was the case.
Now I have no doubt that a physiologist or a doctor could answer this question but I can’t. Apparently, his answer to this is that God does it.
Consider though. What if all these processes did halt at the same time? What would that indicate? How would that be explained? Observe that this “explanation” would work just as well in this case.
Every fact in our possession is a fact we once did not possess. Every question we are now able to answer we once couldn’t, and every question we don’t currently have the answer to we probably will one day. But in the process of finding those answers, we will find more questions. Such is the nature of answers; they raise more questions. Being human means never running out of questions; never having every answer; and that’s a good thing. Because the moment we have every answer, the moment there are no answers left to seek, is the moment there are no discoveries left to make.
But before one can find an answer, one must seek it. Before one can seek it, one must admit that one does not already have it. In order to do that, one must avoid argument from the gaps. That’s what this fallacy is called.
Evidence is a basis for extrapolation, not lack of evidence. Not knowing one thing does not mean knowing another.
Not knowing why the brick from a gas chamber lacks any Zyklon-B residue does not establish that the Holocaust is a hoax. Not knowing the cause of a beloved canine’s death does not indicate murder. Not knowing why the engine won’t run doesn’t make it gremlins. Not knowing what’s on a certain part of the map doesn’t mean it’s dragons. Not knowing the processes which brought the Universe into existence does not consign us to accept the conclusion that it must be a god of some sort.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with admitting it when you don’t know something. There is something intrinsically wrong with denying it. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with not knowing something. All it means is that you’re human. There’s nothing wrong with treating the unknown as the unknown. Such, while not instinctive, is completely reasonable.
Not knowing something neither requires nor justifies the act of accepting the stories some folks just made up centuries ago. Lack of knowledge equates to lack of evidence which can only be used to establish further lack of knowledge. No structure may be erected on a foundation which consists of nothing more than a hole in the ground. No sky-scraper can be built on thin air.
But let’s look at the psychology of it for a moment. I’m a citizen and denizen of the United States of America
What does it mean if one’s pupils are dilated, one’s heart is racing, and one has broken out in a cold sweat? Is one experiencing fear, excitement, or some combination of the two? Based on just this information, it’s impossible to tell for certain. Often, the difference between the two is unmistakable, but other times, it’s indiscernible.
The unknown can be terrifying, but also quite exciting. Coming face to face with the limits of one’s own knowledge, with the edges of one’s own paradigm, means coming to the brink of discovery.
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