Chapter 0: Introduction
A Prelude to Logic is a Òcritical reasoningÓ or Òinformal logicÓ textbook. In it I do three things:
(1) I present an updated version of what are generally called Òinformal fallaciesÓ—errors of reasoning or conceptual errors. I include material from current studies in psychology and behavioral economics.
(2) I provide a sampler of topics from different philosophical areas including metaphysics, philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics and philosophy of religion. Phil 101 is, after all, a philosophy course. I just touch lightly on each of the topics, hoping to whet studentsÕ appetite for further discussion.
(3) I introduce some of the concepts that we will use in our study of formal logic in what I hope is a reasonably painless way. So, for example, I introduce the concept of logical possibility and related notions of necessity and contingency because we will return to this in our discussion of the logical notion of validity.
(3) is the main thing that interests me.
Logic is the science that evaluates arguments. It provides the machinery for determining whether the premises of arguments imply their conclusions—whether believing the premises justifies us in believing the conclusions. So logic, in the broadest sense, is about what we should believe and why—about whether and when we have good reasons for what we believe.
As we will see from the cases in this introductory chapter, some beliefs that are quite popular are unwarranted.
People believe—or half-believe or quasi-believe—a lot of false and even silly things. Mostly thatÕs harmless: if you knock wood, avoid jinxes or read your daily horoscope for fun, that is not a big deal. But some false beliefs, including some very popular ones, have mild to disastrous bad consequences. So in this chapter, as a preliminary to the discussion of logic, weÕll consider some examples.
The most depressing comment I ever got on a course
evaluation years ago was, ÒWhatÕs the point of being logical if no one else
is.Ó I hope that in this discussion I can give some response to that question.
What do you believe?
About
three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief, according to a 2005
Gallup survey. [1]
|
2005
Jun 6-8
(sorted by "believe in") |
Believe in % |
Not sure about % |
Don't believe % |
|
Psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the
human mind to heal the body |
55 |
17 |
26 |
|
That people on this earth are sometimes possessed
by the devil |
42 |
13 |
44 |
|
ESP or Extrasensory Perception |
41 |
25 |
32 |
|
That houses can be haunted |
37 |
16 |
46 |
|
Ghosts/that spirits of dead people can come back
in certain places/situations |
32 |
19 |
48 |
|
Telepathy/communication between minds without
using traditional senses |
31 |
27 |
42 |
|
Clairvoyance/the power of the mind to know the
past and predict the future |
26 |
24 |
50 |
|
Astrology, or that the position of the stars and
planets can affect people's lives |
25 |
19 |
55 |
|
That extra-terrestrial beings have visited earth
at some time in the past |
24 |
24 |
51 |
|
That people can communicate mentally with someone
who has died |
21 |
23 |
55 |
|
Witches |
21 |
12 |
66 |
|
Reincarnation, that is, the rebirth of the soul
in a new body after death |
20 |
20 |
59 |
|
Channeling/allowing a 'spirit-being' to
temporarily assume control of body |
9 |
20 |
70 |
A
special analysis of the data shows that 73% of Americans believe in at least
one of the 10 items listed above, while 27% believe in none of them. A Gallup
survey in 2001 provided similar results -- 76% professed belief in at least one
of the 10 items. Over the years, USD students, at least judging from the sample
of logic students to whom IÕve administered the survey, have been pretty
similar to the general population surveyed in this Gallup Poll.
Should
you believe this stuff? What should you believe and why? Get out your b.s. Detectors and letÕs rollÉ
ÒThe roots of pseudoscience grow strong near the septic tank of misinformation.Ó
Self-Help: The Secret
Secrets and
Lies[2]
Last year, Rhonda Byrne discovered the secret of the universe. It is based on a principle of quantum mechanics and lies in a force with direct physical effects on matter. If youÕre thinking itÕs odd that such a momentous discovery hasnÕt been publicized—surely it deserves at least a journal article or two?—you clearly havenÕt been spending much time in the self-help section of your local bookstore, where ByrneÕs new book is found. Tantalizingly titled The Secret, itÕs probably the most slickly marketed idea to draw on quantum physics in all of history. Alas, though, it wonÕt be appearing in Science or Nature. ÒThe Secret,Ó it turns out, is a lie.
Propelled by the gushing enthusiasm of Oprah Winfrey and a clever advertising campaign, The Secret has topped the best-seller lists and moved nearly two million copies to date. The book has a companion DVD film, whose Òhidden knowledgeÓ themes bear more than a passing resemblance to The Da Vinci Code and the ironically titled What the Bleep Do We Know?É
The problem is that neither the film nor the book has any basis in scientific reality. The Secret, Byrne states, lies in a New Age idea called the ÒLaw of AttractionÓ: that similar things attract each other, so positive thoughts bring positive things and negative ones bring negative thingsÉTherefore, goes the dubious logic, we have only to think very hard about the things we want, and we will get them. If you want to lose weight, Byrne writes, youÕll first have to accept that Òfood is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight.ÓÉ
To make the idea sound less preposterous, Byrne cloaks it in irrelevant but snazzy-sounding scientific terms. Without identifying the Òobserver effectÓ—the idea from physics that observing a process alters its outcome—she leans on its philosophical implications. She also summons up Òquantum entanglement,Ó the little-understood theory that, at the subatomic level, particles influence each otherÕs behavior in ways that arenÕt yet fully clear to scientists. Neither theory applies to weight loss, credit-card bills, or for that matter anything else above the scale of atomsÉ
The roots of pseudoscience grow strong near the septic tank of misinformation, and the Law of Attraction has other pseudoscientific kin as well...New Age bookshelves are overflowing with authors who claim to know and reveal the secrets of the universe. If any of these self-help booksÉreally contained the secrets to success and happiness, the self-help industry would of course be out of business.
After Sweat
Lodge Deaths, Will Self-Help Pause to Reconsider?[3]
Kirby Brown, a 38-year-old decorative painter from Los Cabos, Mexico, followed her self-help guru to a six-day retreat in Sedona, Ariz., last year, hoping for the ultimate in enlightening challenges to help her realize her dreams. Instead, Brown died along with two others on the last day of the event, when a ceremonial sweat-lodge ritual went horribly wrong. The leader of the ceremony, James Arthur Ray, 52, is currently awaiting trial on three counts of manslaughterÉ
Ray's was a fast rise. It began when Oprah Winfrey raved about a 2006 self-help book, The SecretÉSimply put, "The Secret" says that one's wishes can be fulfilled by properly wishing for them. Ray's adherents believed that by following him, and observing the Law of Attraction, they would grow rich. And Ray preached that message throughout his "Harmonic Wealth" and "Million Dollar Mindset" books, DVDs, and seminarsÉ
Brian Essad, who works in event production, was attracted to Ray because he wanted to take his finances to a higher levelÉEssad had to reach deep into his pockets to attend several Ray events, scraping together the nearly $10,000 fee for the Sedona retreatÉ
"I don't actually have enough cash in my account to pay all these bills,'' he told ABC. "So I'm just kinda putting out there what I need to attract the money I need to pay all these."É
[I]n Sedona last October, three of Ray's followers who thought they were joining him in the desert to enhance their lives and fortunes died after the sweat lodge. Twenty others were treated at hospitalsÉThe tragedy wasn't just a physical and emotional trauma. For Ray's followers, it was a philosophical crisis as well. After all, how could such a horrible thing happen to people practicing the Law of Attraction? É
Once charged in February by Arizona authorities, with three counts of manslaughter in the sweat lodge deaths, Ray spent weeks in jail until he was able to get his bail reducedÉAnd while he stopped making public appearances soon after the Sedona retreat, Ray has continued to preach to his followers through regular blogging, videos on his website, DVDs and other products sold through the site. He also peddles a $97 monthly subscription to an Internet radio broadcast. Still, Ray spends most of his time behind the gates of his Beverly Hills home, now for sale for a negotiable $3.99 millionÉ
[D]espite all the controversy surrounding their self-help guru, many of Ray's followers are still listening. Essad, who saw participants break their hands in a brick-bashing exercise at a Ray event in 2008, and who was also at the sweat lodge event, said he would go to another Ray eventÉ
[Steve] Salerno [author of "Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless"] is skeptical.
"You have a lot of people in this culture who are searching for something, they are in the belief that if this doesn't do it the next thing will,'' he said. "There's this notion that if you believe enough if you stay with the program you will someday absolutely get to the Promised Land."É
James Ray's trial for three counts of
manslaughter is set to begin later this summer, on August 31, 2010.
Mars and Venus
Back down
to Earth[4]
No
group of men and women in history has ever been less different, or less at the
mercy of their biology, than those living in western societies today. And yet
21st-century westerners are drawn to a mythology that says that differences
between men and women are profound and unalterable. So what is it that attracts
us to the concept of Mars versus Venus?
The
idea that men and women metaphorically "speak different languages" -
that they use language in different ways and for different reasons - is one of
the great myths of our time. Research debunks the various smaller myths that
contribute to it: for instance, that women talk more than men (research
suggests the opposite); that women's talk is cooperative and men's competitive
(research shows that both sexes engage in both kinds of talk); that men and
women systematically misunderstand one another (research has produced no good
evidence that they do).
There
is a great deal of similarity between men and women, and the differences within
each gender group are typically as great as or greater than the difference
between the twoÉIf these points were acknowledged, the science sound bites
would be headed "Men and women pretty similar, research finds", and
popular psychology books would bear titles like There's No Great Mystery About
the Opposite Sex or We Understand Each Other Well Enough Most of the Time. Of
course, these titles do not have the makings of bestsellers, whereas the
"men and women are from different planets" story is a tried and tested
formula.
ÉFor
the past 15 years, the myth of Mars and Venus has told us what is normal for
men and women in the sphere of language and communication. Its generalizations
about male and female language use have come to influence our expectations and
our judgmentsÉ[T]his is not just harmless fun. We see its less benign
consequences when employers view women as better candidates than men for jobs
that demand the ability to chat (and men as better candidates than women for
jobs that demand verbal authority and directness). We see them when parents and
educators expect girls to be better at languages, and boys to be better at
mathsÉ
The importance of being different
Sex
differences fascinate us to a degree that most biological differences don'tÉ[T]o
my knowledge, there has never been a bestselling popular science book about the
differences between right- and left-handed people.
Handedness
makes an instructive comparison with sex, because it too is associated with differences
in the organization of the brain. In December 2006, for instance, an article in
the journal Neuropsychology reported that left-handed people were quicker and
more efficient than right-handers at tasks such as computer gaming that
required the simultaneous processing of multiple stimuli. If that had been a
sex-difference finding, it would surely have got the same attention as the
"men have trouble listening to women" study, the "men are better
shoppers" study, and the "women talk three times as much as men"
claim. But it wasn't, and it didn't.
If
handedness generates fewer sound bites than sex, it is probably because
findings about it cannot be slotted into any larger narrative about the
difference between right-handed and left-handed peopleÉHandedness, in short, is
not significant for the organization of human social affairs: it does not
determine a person's identity, role, or status in society. An account of how
left-handers differ from right-handers would therefore lack one of the crucial
ingredients that draw us to accounts of how women differ from men: it would not
serve the purpose of justifying institutionalized social inequality by
explaining it as the inevitable consequence of natural differencesÉ
Change and the problem of couple
communication
The
target audience for Mars and Venus material is prototypically a middle-class
one, and the main theme is the difficulty middle-class men and women have
communicating with one anotherÉBut that raises the question of why male-female
(mis)communication does not seem to be such a problem in other societies and
communities. More puzzling still, if its cause is indeed social segregation,
the communities in which it is seen as a major issue appear to be those where there
is least segregation.
In
her classic 1962 study Blue Collar
Marriage, the sociologist Mirra Komarovsky reported that the working-class
American women she interviewed did not generally expect to have extended
conversations with their husbands. In their community, sex segregation was
extensive: for everyday companionship and emotional support, they relied on
female friends and kinÉThis attitude is typical of traditional societies and
traditional working-class communitiesÉ
Today,
far fewer westerners live in communities like the one described in Blue Collar Marriage. Economic and
social changes - greater mobility, smaller families, increasing rates of
divorce - have weakened the bonds that held traditional families and communities
togetherÉIn these conditions people expect more from communication with their
spouse or partner. When it falls short of their high expectations, the stage is
set for communication between men and women to be perceived as a serious social
problem. There are other reasons
for that perception. The more similar men and women become, the more they are
in direct competition for jobs, status, money, leisure time and personal
freedomÉ
[M]iddle-class
women's aspirations and attitudes [are] becoming more like men's, focused on
individual achievement and individual freedomÉThis change has not been
compensated for by any reciprocal shift in men's attitudesÉ Women are still
doing most of the caring, but - unsurprisingly, given how much else they now do
- they are more inclined to question why it should fall to them alone. That is another
source of conflict in contemporary male-female relationshipsÉThe genius of the
myth of Mars and Venus is to acknowledge the problems many people are now
experiencing as a result of social change, while explaining those problems and conflicts
in a way that implies they have nothing to do with social change. The solution,
it follows, is to do nothing: we should accept what cannot be altered, and
suppress any urge to apportion blame. In practice this tends to result in women
being made responsible for ensuring that communication flows smoothly. Once
again, "personal stuff" is assumed to be women's business rather than
the business of both sexes.
But this
isn't just personal stuff: these problems are symptomatic of deeper social
dislocations. ÉIf we want real understanding to take the place of mythology, we
need to reject trite formulas and sweeping claims about male and female
language use. The evidence is more in line with what it says on a postcard
someone once sent me: "Men are from Earth. Women are from Earth. Deal with
it."
Alternative Medicine: The
Healing touch[5]
Two
years ago, Emily Rosa of Loveland, Colo., designed and carried out an
experiment that challenges a leading treatment in alternative medicine. Her
study, reported today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, has
thrown the field into tumult.
Emily is
11 years old. She did the experiment for her fourth grade science fair.
The technique she challenges is therapeutic
touch, in which healers manipulate what they call the ''human energy field'' by
passing their hands over a patient's body without actually touching the
patient. The method is practiced in healing centers and medical centers
throughout the world, and is taught at prominent universities and schools of
nursing. Tens of thousands of people have been trained to treat patients
through the use of therapeutic touch. Practitioners insist that the human
energy field is real and that anyone can be trained to feel it.
But Emily asked a sort of ''emperor's new
clothes'' type of question. Could therapeutic touch practitioners actually
detect a human energy field? Her method was devilishly simple.ÉEmily designed
an experiment in which the healer and Emily were separated by a screen. Then
Emily decided, by flipping a coin, whether to put her hand over the healer's
left hand or the right hand. The healer was asked to decide where Emily's hand
was hovering. If the healer could detect Emily's human energy field, he or she
should be able to discern where Emily's hand was. In 280 tests involving the 21
practitioners, the healers did no better than chance. They identified the
correct location of Emily's hand just 44 percent of the time; if they guessed
at random, they would have been right about half the time.
Emily wrote her study with her mother, a member
of the National Therapeutic Touch Study Group, a group based in Loveland that
question the method. The study's authors included Larry Sarner of the
Therapeutic Touch Study Group and Dr. Stephen Barrett, board chairman of
Quackwatch in Allentown, Pa., a nonprofit group that is putting information
about questionable medical practices on the Internet. The report on the study
is accompanied by a note from Dr. George Lundberg, the journal's editor. In it,
Dr. Lundberg says that ''practitioners should disclose these results to
patients, third-party payers should question whether they should pay for this
procedure, and patients should save their money unless or until additional
honest experimentation demonstrates an actual effect.'' Dr. Lundberg said the
journal's statisticians thought the study was well done. ''They were amazed by
its simplicity and by the clarity of its results,'' he said.
More alternative
medicine: Chiropractic
Chiropractic
School Angers FSU Professors[6]
A growing number of professors in the Florida State University College of Medicine are saying they will resign if FSU administrators continue to pursue a proposed chiropractic schoolÉ
The threatened resignationsÉreflect a belief among many in the medical establishment that chiropractic is a "pseudo-science" that leads to unnecessary and sometimes harmful treatments. Professors are even circulating a parody map of campus that places a fictional Bigfoot Institute, School of Astrology and Crop Circle Simulation Laboratory near a future chiropractic schoolÉ
In recent weeks, more than 500 faculty members have signed petitions against the chiropractic school, including about 70 in the medical college, said Dr. Raymond Bellamy, an assistant professor who is leading the charge against the proposal. The medical college has more than 100 faculty members. Some of them say they're willing to do more than sign a petition.
"I teach wonderful medical students from Florida State University here in Orlando," Dr. James W. Louttit wrote in an e-mail to Bellamy, who shared it with the St. Petersburg Times. "If they decide to start a chiropractic school I would no longer be able to support this program."
"It should come as no surprise that no major medical institution in this country, public or private, has embraced chiropractic medicine," wrote Dr. Henry Ho, a Winter Park physician and FSU assistant professor, in another e-mail. "If Florida State University were to do so, its fledgling attempt for credibility as a medical institution of stature would be severely jeopardized."
Why
Chiropractic Is Controversial
William T. Jarvis, Ph.D.[7]
Chiropractic is a controversial health-care system that has been legalized throughout the United States and in several other countries...Although it has existed for nearly 100 years, the chiropractic health-care system has failed to meet the most fundamental standards applied to medical practices: to clearly define itself and to establish a science-based scope of practiceÉ.
Spinal Manipulative
Therapy (SMT)
An estimated 80% of adults will experience a severe bout with back pain and dysfunction at some time in their life. There is substantial evidence that spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) has value in relieving back pain and improving the range of impaired spinal motion at least temporarily. Although SMT is probably no more effective than other modalities in the long term, it appears to offer faster relief in about one third of patients. Further, because SMT involves the laying on of hands, a technique widely employed throughout history by folk and faith healers, it enhances suggestibility and the placebo effectÉ
Chiropractic is commonly thought to be synonymous with SMT. In reality, SMT's history goes back at least to Hippocrates (400 B.C.), while chiropractic's roots go back less than 100 yearsÉToday SMT is employed by medical specialists (physiatrists, orthopedists, sports medicine practitioners), osteopathic physicians, physical therapists, and athletic trainers, as well as by chiropractorsÉ
Chiropractic's Unique
Theory
Chiropractic's uniqueness lies not in its use of SMT, but in its theoretical reason for doing soÉThe word chiropractic literally means "done by hand." The term was adopted by chiropractic's founder, Daniel David Palmer. Palmer was a layman with an intense interest in metaphysical health philosophies such as magnetic healing (Mesmer's "animal magnetism"), phrenology, and spiritualism. In 1895, he claimed to have restored the hearing of a nearly deaf janitor by manipulating the man's spine.
Obsessed with uncovering "the primary cause of disease," Palmer theorized that "95 percent of all disease" was caused by spinal "subluxations" (partial dislocations) and the rest by "luxated bones elsewhere in the body." Palmer speculated that subluxations impinged upon spinal nerves, impeding their function, and that this led to disease. He taught that medical diagnosis was unnecessary, that one need only correct the subluxations to liberate the body's own natural healing forces. He disdained physicians for treating only symptoms, alleging that, in contrast, his system corrected the cause of disease.
Palmer did not employ the term subluxation in its medical sense, but with a metaphysical, pantheistic meaning. He believed that the subluxations interfered with the body's expression, of the "Universal Intelligence" (God), which Palmer dubbed the "Innate Intelligence." (soul, spirit, or spark of life). Palmer's notion of having discovered a way to manipulate metaphysical life force is sometimes referred to as his "biotheology."
Scientific
Shortcomings
ÉPalmer can be forgiven for his nineteenth-century misconceptions, but his followers cannot be excused for failing to avail themselves of the scientific advances of the twentieth century to test chiropractic theory and practiceÉ
In the mid-1960s, an official delegation of chiropractic representatives, including a radiologist of their own choosing, failed to identify a single subluxation on a series of 20 x-ray films that had been submitted for insurance reimbursement to the National Association of Letter CarriersÉ
Chiropractors not only find subluxations as elusive as the mythical unicorn, but they also disagree wildly about how to go about treating themÉAnyone visiting a number of chiropractors will be confronted with a bewildering variety of pseudoscientific diagnostic procedures. In 1981 Mark Brown, a reporter for the Quad City Times, spent five months visiting chiropractors in the Davenport, Iowa, area (the birthplace of chiropractic). Diagnostic methods included placing a potato on his chest and pressing down on his arm (applied kinesiology) projecting lines on his back to read body contours (Moire contour analysis), reading the iris and comparing markings with a chart (iridology), measuring leg lengths for unevenness (one chiropractor said Brown's right leg was shorter, another said his left leg was shorter), measuring skin surface temperature differences, and palpation. Other dubiousÉ methods used by some chiropractors include pendulum divining, electroacupuncture, reflexology, hair analysis, herbal crystallization analysis, computerized "nutritional deficiency" questionnaires, a cytotoxic food allergy test, and the Reams urine and saliva testÉMagnetic therapy (placing magnets on the body), homeopathy, herbology, colonics, colored-light therapy, megavitamin therapy, radionics (black box devices), bilateral nasal specifics (inserting a balloon in the nose and inflating it), and cranial manipulationÉ
One thing chiropractors excel at is satisfying their patients. Patients rank them above medical doctors in the concern exhibited about their problems, understanding their concerns, amount of time spent listening to a description of their pain, information provided about the cause of their pain, making them feel welcome, and other factors related to the art of fulfilling human needs. Although it is important for physicians to differentiate between mere patient satisfaction and true clinical effectiveness, it seems that they could learn something from chiropractors about meeting the emotional needs of suffering patients.