Crimes Against Logic Read online

  Or perhaps Professor Henry is speaking plainly. Perhaps his research does not warrant more confidence in the 30,000 number than is expressed by saying that it is merely possible. Then you wonder what all the fuss is about. Why should anyone be interested to read about this nonfinding in the newspaper?[6.2]

  But we need not worry too much about the number of deaths caused by smoking cannabis. It is allegedly irrelevant to Professor Henry’s conclusion that cannabis smoking is a major public p. 74 health problem in the United Kingdom. “Even if the number of deaths is a fraction of 30,000 cannabis [is] still a major health hazard.”

  This is a strange opinion. Suppose the fraction is 1/1oo. Suppose, that is, that the annual death rate is only a hundredth of the 0.9 percent Professor Henry assumes, that is, only 0.009 percent. Then the chance that you will die this year from smoking cannabis is the same as the chance that the U.S. government will default on its financial obligations.[6.3] Hardly a major health hazard. By failing to limit the fractions he has in mind, Professor Henry makes his assertion obviously false.

  But not if you remember the weasel words! Professor Henry did not actually say that no matter what the number of deaths caused by cannabis, it is a major health hazard. He said that no matter what the number of deaths caused by cannabis, it would “still be described” as a major health hazard. And on this he is probably right. I would not describe a 0.009 percent chance of death as a major health hazard, but that is irrelevant because Professor Henry doesn’t say who would do the describing. Since anyone can do it, including Professor Henry himself, he seems guaranteed to be strictly right in what he says.

  He is right, however, at the cost of having said nothing informative. What looked like some interesting new finding on the morp. 75tality effects of smoking cannabis turns out to be no more than Professor Henry informing us that, no matter how many deaths may or may not be caused by cannabis smoking, he will insist on describing it as a major health hazard. Which is a curious and interesting fact, but about Professor Henry rather than cannabis.

  Hooray Words

  Are you in favor of justice? I’ll bet you are.

  Do you think it just that those who earn more should be compelled by the government to give a portion of their income to those who earn less? I dare not guess. Many think this redistribution of income essential to a just society; others think it is simple theft.

  Everybody favors justice. They disagree only about what is just and what unjust. Justice is in this sense a hooray word. Declare that you are in favor of it and everyone will cheer his agreement, even when he disagrees with you on every particular question of what is just.

  Besides justice, there is peace, democracy, equality, and a host of other ideals that everyone embraces, whatever they believe these ideals to consist in.

  And then there are the boo words: murder, cruelty, selfishness, and so forth. Everyone agrees that murder is wrong, no matter how much they disagree about which killings are murder. Many of those who earn the disapproval of legislators by beating their children also disapprove of cruelty; they think it cruel to raise children without giving them the discipline of corporal punishment.

  p. 76 If you wish to make your ideas clear, you will avoid using hooray or boo words without first saying how you understand them. For example, it would be worthless for a politician to claim simply that, when it comes to the issue of wealth redistribution, she favors a just policy. We all do. What we want to know is which policy she thinks just.

  Though worthless, this is precisely the approach favored by many politicians. Using unexplained hooray words is an easy way of winning the agreement of the electorate. Say you seek a fairer society. Everyone listening will have his idea of where society is currently unfair and, if he likes your straight white teeth or open-neck shirt, he will be inclined to think that you must be addressing his pet peeve. You can win at least the sentiment of agreement without having to say anything that might be held against you later. Or without even having to know what you mean yourself. A politician may have no specific concept of justice or equality or of anything at all. He has only the hooray words and seeks subsequent guidance on the details from focus groups, public opinion polls, and a process of policy trial and error if elected.

  Tony Blair announced New Labour’s education policy at the 1996 party conference by declaring that his “three priorities in government would be education, education, and education.” Hooray! Education not once but three times! The children are saved!

  Everyone agrees that education is important. People disagree about which policies will lead to the highest standards being p. 77 achieved, consistent with resources being properly allocated to other matters, such as defense, justice, and transportation. Education may well be Mr. Blair’s three priorities but what does he propose to do about it? That is the question any voter should want answered. “Education, education, education” just blows sunshine up our arses.

  A simple test for substance in political statements is whether anyone sane would disagree. If a politician declares it her aim to make the people of Britain healthy, wealthy, and wise, she tells you nothing useful. How will you use this information to choose between her and her opponents, who almost certainly seek the same things? In a healthy democracy, where voters demand the information required to make sensible choices between parties and candidates, political discussion would focus on the difficult and controversial issues where reasonable people disagree. The commitment to justice, peace, and all the rest would, literally, go without saying.

  Quotation Marks

  Suppose I claim that the minister’s refutation of the allegations was feeble. Then I have said something confusing. To refute a claim is to show that it is wrong. If the minister has indeed shown the allegations to be wrong there is nothing feeble about that. I should say that the minister’s “refutation” was feeble. The quotation marks around “refutation” make it clear that I do not intend to claim that it was a real refutation. He did not actually p. 78 show the allegations wrong; it was merely an alleged refutation. If I were speaking instead of writing, I might register my skepticism by saying “refutation” with a sneering tone or adopt the now popular gesture of wagging the first two fingers of each hand beside my ears like a demented rabbit.

  There is usually nothing confusing about this use of quotation marks. It is an economical device for saying that the so-and-so referred to by the word in quotation marks is only an alleged or a so-called so-and-so. But some writers apply the device so inconsistently or so excessively that it becomes impossible to know what they mean.

  Here is an example of inconsistency from Dr. Miriam Stoppard’s bestselling New Babycare Book. Chapter 2 includes a guide to the reflexes you should expect from a healthy newborn baby. One is the crawling reflex, whereby the baby is apt to pull her knees toward her chest when placed on her belly. In the section’s subheading this is called the “crawling” reflex. The quotation marks, I assume, are intended to indicate that the baby is not really crawling—the movement merely resembles crawling. But, in the text, Dr. Stoppard states that this “reflex” will disappear as soon as the baby’s legs uncurl and she lies flat. Which leaves one wondering whether the crawling reflex is not really crawling or not really a reflex, or not really either—which would make it a peculiar name for the behavior concerned.

  In Dr. Stoppard’s case the inconsistency is a harmless slip. Quotation marks play a small role in the New Babycare Book. But other authors use of quotation marks to express skepticism—sneer quotes—is uncontrolled and bamboozling. It is especially p. 79 common in writers who adopt a critical attitude toward others’ alleged intellectual successes. Sociologists of science, for example, are often reluctant to say that a scientist discovered something or solved some intellectual problem. They prefer to say only that the something was “discovered” or the problem “solved.” The philosopher and historian of science, Imre Lakatos, provides a nice example:

  Using a false theory as an interpretative theory,
one may get—without committing any “experimental mistake”—contradictory factual propositions, inconsistent with experimental results. Michelson, who stuck to the ether to the bitter end, was primarily frustrated by the inconsistency of the “facts” he arrived at by his ultra-precise measurements. His 1887 experiment “showed” that there was no ether wind on the earth’s surface. But aberration “showed” that there was. Moreover, his own 1925 experiment also “proved” that there was one.[6.4]

  The difficulty created by this incessant use of sneer quotes is that the reader becomes unable to tell not what the author does not mean by the word within quotation marks, but what he does mean.

  p. 80 When Lakatos places “showed” and “proved” in quotation marks you assume that he means to imply that the experiments did not really show what they were alleged to. Why not? Perhaps because we now know that the things allegedly shown are not true. You can’t prove what isn’t true, you can only “prove” it. But this cannot explain Lakatos’s use of sneer quotes, because he uses them both for experiments that “showed” that there is no ether wind and for experiments that “showed” that there is. Or, perhaps the experiments only “showed” these things because they were not conducted correctly. This, however, is ruled out explicitly by Lakatos, who says that Michelson’s measurements were ultra-precise and that these issues arise even when no experimental mistake is committed. (Although, again he confuses us by placing “experimental mistake” in sneer quotes.)

  You begin to get the feeling, after reading a few pages of Lakatos, not so much that he does not care for these particular claims to proof, but that he does not like any. Words that imply some kind of intellectual achievement or failure always get put into sneer quotes.

  Why then does he persist in using such words? The reader knows what he doesn’t mean by “proved” or “showed”—namely, proved or showed—but what on earth does he mean by them? I defy anyone to say, after reading the quoted passage, what Lakatos thinks was the logical relation between Michelson’s ether theory and his experimental results.

  Lakatos’s mainly 1970s works were in the avant-garde of sneer quotes abuse. By the 1980s, it had become standard practice among intellectuals keen to distance themselves from the culp. 81tural imperialism of enlightenment rationalism. Nowadays, no decent person would use words implying anything evaluative—improved, normal, mistake, and so on—without hiding their shame under some nice modest quotation marks. They use these words of course; it is almost impossible to discuss anything without doing so. But they don’t really mean them. Or, at least, not the nasty bits.

  7 – Inconsistency

  p. 83 In the days before I left New Zealand for England, my father’s dinner conversation took on a new theme. Every night he would invite me to enjoy the meal, saying, “You won’t get food like this in England. All they ever eat in England is . . .” One night it would be roast beef that the English only ever ate, the next night steak and kidney pie, then meat loaf, and so on: every night a new dish that was the only one available in England.

  After a few days my mother became exasperated with this line of conversation and decided to move on from eye-rolling to a proper refutation. On this night my father had claimed that all they ever eat in England is fish and chips.

  “What about Bisto gravy-mix?” was my mother’s devastating intervention.

  “What about it?” came back the fearless head of the house.

  “Bisto gravy-mix comes from England,” she informed him.

  “Yes, but you don’t put gravy on fish and chips!”

  p. 84 It is not clear to me, when I reflect on this dinner banter, whether senile dementia was beginning to get the better of my father or whether he was just having more fun infuriating us. In any event, you will admit that my mother had got him. The statement that they eat Bisto gravy in England is inconsistent with the claim that all they eat in England is fish and chips. It is impossible for both statements to be true. And because it is true that the English eat Bisto gravy, it must be false that all they eat is fish and chips. My father’s reply, that even the English don’t put gravy on fish and chips, though made triumphantly, simply confirmed the refutation.

  My father’s response to the Bisto gravy-mix crisis was willful inconsistency. He could hardly deny the fact that Bisto is English. But he refused to be put off his generalization. He simply maintained an inconsistent position: that all they eat in England is fish and chips and that they eat Bisto gravy in England. His position was hopeless, but if you’ve lived through the depression, World War II, and a 66 percent marginal tax rate, what’s a little self-contradiction to be frightened of?

  Such blatant inconsistency is unusual. When inconsistent statements have been made explicitly, most feel the need to reject at least one of them. Only the infuriating, the mad, or the intoxicated will straightforwardly assert what everyone can see to be an impossible position: one that, since it is internally inconsistent, must contain a falsehood.[7.1]

  p. 85 But when inconsistency is not so obvious, it is common. Consider, for example, the statements:

  Evil exists,

  and

  An all-good and all-powerful god exists.

  Their inconsistency is not immediately obvious, but inconsistent they are. An all-good god would want to avoid any evil he could and an all-powerful god would be able to avoid any evil he wanted. Hence, if there were an all-good and all-powerful god, there would be no evil. So the existence of such a god is inconsistent with the fact that there is evil. (By “evil” I mean nothing metaphysical: toothache, trailer park-destroying tornadoes, or torture will do.)

  Nevertheless, most Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe in both. They have either failed to draw out the implications of their belief in an all-good and all-powerful god, or they have been convinced by one of the many bogus theological attempts to show this belief consistent with the existence of evil.[7.2]

  In this respect, there is nothing special about the religious. We all hold inconsistent beliefs because we have failed to draw out all the implications of some of our beliefs and so failed to see that they are inconsistent with others we hold.

  Recognizing all the logical consequences of everything we believe is beyond the intellectual capacity, and the will, of us p. 86 humans. An extraordinary number of mathematical truths can be derived from just a few basic axioms easily understood by us all. Yet most of us are incapable of making the derivation. And even those mathematicians up to this task will surely fail elsewhere: in the various nooks and crannies of their minds will lurk beliefs inconsistent with one another.

  To demand perfect consistency would be futile. But the impossibility of perfection doesn’t mean we should have no expectations whatsoever. Most of the inconsistency that pollutes popular debate would take the merest effort to identify and eliminate. For example, the inconsistency in the common pair of beliefs—the government should cut taxes and the government should spend more—isn’t very hard to identify.[7.3] It is surely not too much to ask of a voter.

  Especially once the inconsistency has been noticed. This chapter aims to help by identifying two contexts in which inconsistency often goes unnoticed. There is more inconsistency about than fits into these categories, but the rest follows no pattern I can discern.

  Implied Generalizations

  p. 87 Scientists and bold conversationalists state their generalizations explicitly. They come out and plainly say things like “Any object acted on by no force will remain stationary” or “All they eat in England is fish and chips.” This explicitness makes it easy to tell what would be inconsistent with the generalization: an object moving though acted on by no force or an English food that isn’t fish and chips, like Bisto gravy.

  Such explicitness, however, is rare in public or private debate. More often generalizations are only implied. And then it is harder to see when something is inconsistent with them. The inconsistency, like the generalization, is only implicit. Before considering examples of implicit inconsiste
ncy, we should first see how generalizations can be implied.

  Suppose that, when asked why he thinks homosexuality should be illegal, Jack replies, “Because it is denounced in the Bible.” Jack’s reply implicitly invokes a generalization: namely, that everything denounced in the Bible should be illegal. Without this generalization, it would not follow from homosexuality’s biblical denunciation that it should be illegal. If Jack is consistent, he will seek the criminalization of everything denounced in the Bible, including adultery, banking, wearing mixed-fiber fabrics, and eating anything from the sea that lacks fins or scales, such as lobster.[7.4]

  p. 88 This is how generalizations most often occur in discussion. They are the implied underpinning of inferences, from “condemned in the Bible” to “should be illegal,” from “human” to “mortal,” from “man” to “cheating bastard.” Those who have made the inference can usually see and, if they are honest, admit that their inference is undone if they concede a counter-example to the implied generalization: properly legitimate behavior condemned in the Bible, an immortal human, or a faithful man.

  Usually, but not always.

  In 1985, Jack’s argument for the criminalization of homosexuality was often heard in New Zealand. A private member’s bill to decriminalize homosexuality was before parliament and a great national debate on the topic was raging in town halls, newspapers, and on talk radio. At one of these town hall meetings, I asked an evangelical Christian leader of the campaign to keep homosexuality criminal, who had just employed Jack’s argument, if he thought adultery should be illegal because it is also condemned in the Bible. “No,” he replied, “that would be taking things too far.” His moderation won rapt applause from the assembled faithful.