Lecture Notes: Fallacies and Critical Thinking

Introduction

• Speaker: Dr. Johnson Haas
• Topic: Logical fallacies and their impact on critical thinking, using examples from environmental issues and other domains.

Appeal to Fear

• Definition: Convincing someone by threatening them into obedience.
• Example: Extreme claims about climate change (e.g., "Climate change will end the world.") are unsupported by evidence.
  • Such fallacies exaggerate to scare people into compliance.
  • Real issues: Climate change leads to problems like refugee migrations and coastal city flooding.
  • Solution: Accurately describe the problem without resorting to fear tactics.

Cherry Picking

• Definition: Selecting specific facts to support a claim while ignoring contradictory evidence.
• Example: Climate change denial claims that it stopped 15 years ago based on selective data.
  • Data Misuse: Choosing specific years (1998-2008) to show a misleading downward trend in global temperature.
  • Reality: Overall climate data shows a clear upward trend.

Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

• Definition: Claiming a pattern exists by selecting specific examples that fit the pattern.
• Example: The "27 Club" myth about musicians dying at age 27.
  • Ignores numerous musicians who did not die at 27.
  • Misleading by focusing on recognizable names while ignoring broader data.
  • Science Application: Misinterpreting life’s adaptation to Earth's conditions as "fine-tuning" of the universe.

Confusing Correlation with Causation

• Definition: Assuming that because one event precedes another, it caused the latter.
• Example: Incorrect claims like "Women’s suffrage led to nuclear weapons."
  • These are unconnected events used misleadingly.
  • Valid Correlation: Multiple independent studies showing tobacco causes cancer.
  • False Examples:
    • "ISIS developed only after Jar Jar Binks appeared in Star Wars."
    • Correlations like "Age of Miss America with murders by hot objects" are coincidental.
  • Pattern Recognition: Random data can show apparent correlations, but they are often meaningless.

Conclusion

• Critical Thinking: Importance of recognizing fallacies to avoid being misled.
• Evidence-Based Reasoning: Trust in multiple independent sources and correlations rather than singular misleading data.
• Logical Integrity: Avoid extending single correlations to full-fledged conclusions without substantial evidence.