http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kchUxqSrxQA&feature=watch_response
Reality is internally consistent. That is, it agrees with itself. If two statements are in disagreement, it means they cannot both be correct. Therefore, any piece of evidence in support of one is evidence against the other.
They can however, both be incorrect. Any piece of evidence against one is not necessarily evidence for the other. The act of proving one claim true proves any incompatible claims false by default, but the act of proving one claim false does not prove any incompatible claims true by default.
Premise: “Statements A and B are incompatible.”
Premise: “Statement B is proven correct.”
Conclusion: “Therefore, statement A is proven incorrect by default.”
This argument is logical.
Premise: “Statements A and B are incompatible.”
Premise: “Statement A is proven incorrect.”
Conclusion: “Therefore, statement B is proven correct by default.”
This is argument is not logical. If you had additional premises enabling you to guarantee, somehow, that one of the two must be correct, then it would be, but otherwise, the act of proving one statement incorrect does not rule out the possibility that several incompatible statements are likewise incorrect. By the same token, if a wrench is the wrong tool for a certain task, it does not necessarily establish that a set of nail clippers is the right tool for it.
When two statements of fact are in disagreement, either only one is correct or neither is.
“Look at all the terrible, subversive things being done in the name of religion X. Do you see how that religion is? So turn to religion Y instead.”
“My best evidence that creationism is true would be the complete impossibility of the contrary.”
“Evolution cannot be true. Therefore creationism must be. The evidence I have that creationism is correct is this evidence that evolution (allegedly) isn’t.”
“Candidate such-and-so is campaigning for insert public office here. But what do we really know about candidate such-and-so? He says this, but he has done this, this, and that. His subversive actions have had all these negative consequences. So vote for me instead. I’m candidate Whosits and I approve this message.”
Never mind that candidate Whosits may have a record that’s even worse.
Michael Jackson overdoses on prescription medication. Deepak Chopra seizes on this as a chance to cast categorical aspersions on all “mainstream” medicine and to promote alternative pseudo-medicine in its place, as if the tragic misapplication of one somehow amounts to a resounding success of the other. Never mind that it was modern, so-called mainstream medical science which figured out the cause of death. So I guess, if mainstream medicine doesn’t work, we should hold these findings in abeyance until “alternative” medical science has a chance to conduct its own autopsy and provide us with more firmly based conclusions.
This fallacy is called the False Dilemma. Given the fact that we are now going into election season in the United States
I’ve been hearing this argument a lot, nowadays, among certain political talking heads. They regale us at length with an emphasis on all these ways that government bureaucracy has gotten in the way and let people down. This is done to cajole us into giving serious consideration to private organizations that serve the same functions, or to arguments for reassignment of those functions to private organizations. Now I don’t know about others, but these arguments tend to fall pretty flat with me, because the last couple of years, I’ve been let down and screwed over plenty of times by both. The act of making the case against one falls far short, on its own, of making the case for the other.
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