Scams

Disclaimer: This post will be very boring for most of you.

One of the greatest college classes my wife took was a class called (I think) "Logic and Critical Thinking." I wish I had had the opportunity to take the same class. The most interesting part of what she learned was the list of fallacies in reasoning.

Fallacies in reasoning differ from factual errors. A factual error simply getting the facts wrong, like saying, "The capital of the United States is Poughkeepsie," or, "There are seven feet in a yard," or, "The moon is flat." These are clearly not errors in reasoning or judgment. They just have the facts wrong.

There is a long list of logical fallacies, and I find them to be very interesting, because many of these fallacies are commonly used in political campaign advertising, in e-mail forwards and scams, and (unfortunately) even in sermons. For example, an ad hominem fallacy is an attack on a person, instead of on his arguments or their premises. For example:

Joe: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque is one of the finest barbeque establishments on the planet.
Mo: You're a dirty liberal environmentalist, so I don't believe you!
Joe: But don't you agree that their brisket is one of the most perfectly-seasoned delicacies you've ever tasted?
Mo: It don't matter. You're a tree-huggin' granola-faced pansy boy, and therefore you're wrong!

The ad hominem fallacy shows up in political advertising all the time. One candidate claims that his opponent cannot possibly be correct on any questions of foreign policy, because she was involved in anti-war demonstrations in the sixties.

Political advertising can blend all sorts of fallacies into one grandiose fallacious cocktail. One advertisement might, for example, use "straw man" arguments, ad hominem arguments, appeals to fear, appeals to emotion, and false dilemma simultaneously. For example:

Candidate 1: Candidate 2 has stated that his biggest priority is the future of our children. But Candidate 2 voted against children last year when he refused to vote for the "No Child Without an Internet Connection" bill. [straw man] Candidate 2's obvious disregard for our children's future makes him a poor choice to be our state's attorney general. [ad hominem] If Candidate 2 is elected, he will destroy our children's future. [appeal to fear] If I am elected, our children's future will be secure. [appeal to emotion] On election day, will you vote for Candidate 2, or will you vote for our children? [false dilemma]

The sappy pseudo-Christian e-mail forward I got just this morning admonished me:

"If you believe in God and in Jesus Christ His Son .. Send this to all on

Your buddy list. If not just ignore it. If you ignore it, just remember that Jesus said. ‘If you deny me before man, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.’"

"If you believe," then send to everyone? If you ignore it, then you're somehow denying Jesus??? What if you have serious problems with the substance of the e-mail and believe it to be based on serious misinterpretations of Scripture? This is a dozen or more logical fallacies at once. Besides, it's just common bullying.

It's even more unfortunate, I think, when preachers, Christian authors, and Christian teachers fall into these logical fallacies. I'm trying to examine my teaching these days to make sure I'm minimizing this. I don't want to be unintentionally scamming anyone.