Welcome back to Logic Course. We are in the main part of our course together, Informal Logical Fallacies, and we're on track. If we keep doing two or three a week, we'll be able to finish in December. And so I'm enjoying the material. I'm glad we're going to get through it here in one semester. Hopefully the workload is something that you're able to keep up with. I thought this week's lessons were a little bit more challenging. Some of the questions were, I don't know, difficult and I had to think through if I agreed with the answer key on some of them. So be interesting as we go through those to see what we come up with. But I want to begin by a quick review of what are the three categories of informal fallacies. We have covered the first category now with the informal fallacies that we've led up to today, and then we just got started into the second category. Somebody tell me what one of the categories of informal fallacies are. Ambiguity, yeah, that's the first one. And in ambiguity, we've got equivocation, we've got reification, accent, and composition or division. So those are the four main ones we've looked at. He also threw in amphiboly, but we didn't focus on that one too much. So we've covered the first major category of informal fallacy. What's a second major category of informal fallacy, or what's another one? Doesn't have to be the second one. You can have an ambiguous argument or part of your argument can be ambiguous. What's another informal fallacy? Presumption. Yeah, good. So we're just getting into presumption and that's today with the hasty generalization, the sweeping generalization and the false cause. Those are all errors of presumption and we'll have some more of those. And then we'll go on and hit the third one. Anybody remember what the third category of informal fallacy is? Good, yeah. So your argument can be ambiguous, it can be presumptuous, or it can be irrelevant. In any of those cases, the formal logic might be fine in the argument, but if it's ambiguous, presumptuous, or irrelevant, and you have an informal logical fallacy, all right? So open up your books to chapter 18, or just pull out your worksheet for chapter 18. That's mainly what we're looking at here. For the fallacy of composition or division. This is basically the same fallacy, just going two different directions. So at the top of the worksheet for chapter 18, you've got the chapter review. And I like what it says there, that it's important to identify the conclusion. I thought that was helpful advice because some of these do seem kind of confusing as to what kind of fallacy is it or if it's a fallacy. So I think that's a good first step. I hope that was helpful for you to identify the conclusion. What I did on my page is I wrote a little C next to the part that was the conclusion and that helped me think through whether it was a fallacy of composition or division. Because the conclusion is going to let you know whether it is a composition fallacy or a division fallacy. If the conclusion is about a part, like this particular whale, then you know if it's a fallacy, it's a fallacy of division, because it's dividing down the part. But if the conclusion is about the whole, then you know, like all whales, then you know that if it's a fallacy, it's a fallacy of composition, the whole thing composed together of all the many whales. Composition and division, you look at the conclusion, and then once you see what the conclusion is about, then you know which one it is. Are we dividing wrongly, or are we composing wrongly? And the fallacies of composition and division have to do with, do the qualities of the whole transfer to the parts, and do the quality of the parts transfer to the whole? And what's challenging about this one is that Sometimes the parts that has the same quality as the whole, sometimes the whole has the same quality as the parts, but sometimes it doesn't. Yeah. This is worksheet 18 and then we're going to do 19 and then we'll do 20. All right. What you have to do then is just kind of use your common sense to see, well, does the quality move from the part to the whole? But there's some instances where it's kind of. Unclear. Does the quality of the part transfer to the whole or not? And particularly in his question number two, I thought that was a challenging one. Every part of the universe has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause. Does the causality of the parts transfer to causality for the whole or does it not? So I thought that was a tough one. We'll get to that one here in just a moment then, but let's start with number one. Airplanes can't really fly. Think about it. They are made of millions of pieces, not one of which flies. Now, of course, nobody would make an argument like this, but there are some pretty ridiculous arguments out there, and I could see somebody making an argument something like this with regard to the lunar landing or something like that. And so it's good to be able to recognize the fallacy of composition in this case. This is a fallacy. It's the fallacy of composition because what's the conclusion? Who can identify the conclusion for me? Yeah. Yep. So the conclusion here comes first. Remember, the conclusion doesn't always come last, like in formal logic. In informal logic, the conclusion can be anywhere. And so he starts off with the conclusion. Airplanes can't really fly. Think about it. So the think about it is an indicator that now he's going to give his argument. They are made of millions of pieces, not one of which flies. And so is the conclusion about the part or all of the group together? It's about the whole thing, airplanes as a class of things, okay? And so since the conclusion is about the whole class, the whole group of airplanes, therefore you know it's a fallacy of composition. So that's how we identify the difference, whether we know, are we going and trying to take the quality of the parts and make them the quality of the whole or vice versa? And if so, are we doing it in a way that is presumptuous? It is presumptuous to say, that just because none of the parts of an airplane is able to fly on its own, that therefore airplanes can't fly. Have you ever heard the statement, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So when you have a lot of parts coming together, they're able to do things that the parts can't do individually. And I could preach a whole sermon on that. I am a preacher, so that would make a good church illustration. When the body of Christ comes together, we can do things that we can't do individually as parts of the body. So the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. There can be emergent qualities that come when you bring many parts together, a quality that the parts don't have but that the whole has. Getting philosophical here. I love the idea of emergent properties and one of my favorite emergent properties is consciousness. And is that one of the ones that he has in here about the brain and consciousness? Yeah. So number 10 gets to the emergent property of consciousness. But here's an emergent property of being able to fly. When you put all the parts together in just the right way, then there emerges this new property that the parts don't have in themselves of being able to fly, right? Number two, this was the one I thought was kind of challenging. Every part of the universe has a cause, therefore the universe has a cause. What's the conclusion? Conclusion, one of the guys, Aidan? The universe has a cause, yes. When you see the word therefore, that's indicating a conclusion, okay? Therefore, the universe has a cause. Now, is the universe the part or the whole in this case? This is the whole. Now, if you were doing multiverse garbage, multiverse is garbage. I want you guys to know that. There's no scientific basis for belief in a multiverse. If you're doing the multiverse garbage, then the part would be the universe and the whole would be the infinite number of universes. But there is no infinite number of universes. Instead, what we actually have in reality is the parts of the universe and the whole universe. If it's a fallacy, is it a fallacy of composition or division? You guys have your answers right in front of you. Yeah, composition, because the universe is the whole. And so you're taking from the parts to the whole. It's a fallacy thinking that the composition has the same quality as the parts. However, I don't think this is fallacious. This is one of those where it's like common sense doesn't tell you whether or not the part and the whole share the same qualities, because it gets pretty philosophical as far as does the universe have a cause. Now, the universe does have a cause, however, maybe not because of the way this argument is phrased. The universe doesn't have to have a cause just because the parts have a cause, but it could. And how would you prove, how would you change the argument so that it was more deductively, what's the word? I always get my deductive and inductive confused. Deductively valid or sound, How would you get your argument to be more valid or sound in this case? How would you change the first part of it there, the premise? All right, so this is the cosmological argument for the existence of God, and it goes like this. It says, everything that begins has a cause. Everything in the universe, every part of the universe has a beginning and every part of the universe has a cause. Therefore, the universe also has a beginning and therefore the universe also has a cause. And the cause of the universe is God, the only one who exists outside of the universe, the only one who is powerful enough and wise enough. to create the universe out of nothing, and therefore this is the cosmological argument for the existence of God. And it's based on cause and effect, so you could talk about false cause or true cause arguments here, but it does relate to the part and the whole as well. And so Jason Lau didn't like this argument. He said this was a fallacious argument, a fallacy of composition. So if you have fallacy of composition, you get credit. If you say it is not fallacious, I will also give you credit because I think that We don't know for sure whether or not the universe has the same qualities as the parts of the universe. And I think a good argument could be made that it does, and therefore I'm not going to say it's necessarily a fallacy. Although I could see it being a fallacy if it was not well thought through. Any questions on number two? So you can either have not a fallacy or a fallacy of composition. But if you have fallacy of division, it's wrong. Number three, people say the way to reduce our fossil fuel consumption is for more people to take the bus to work instead of driving their car. But that's absurd. Buses use a lot more gasoline than cars. This one's challenging because what's the conclusion? Can anybody identify the conclusion here for me? Yeah. No, no, that's part of the argument. What's the conclusion? No, no, you're getting close, but you're not quite saying it right. Somebody want to try again? Yeah, that's one way to state the conclusion. Basically you have to combine the first two sentences to say it's absurd to believe or you could say it is not the case that people will reduce fossil fuel consumption by taking the bus to work. That's the conclusion. Then you look at the conclusion and it's stated as a generality. If in general people take a bus to work instead of driving their car, they won't save fuel because buses use a lot more gasoline than cars. So what kind of fallacy is it by looking at the conclusion? Is this a composition or a division fallacy for number three? Yeah, I thought this one was confusing too. Yeah. Would you like to change your answer? You sound like it. Because yes, it is in fact a fallacy of composition. And the way that you would get this one right is by looking in the book, the chapter, because the chapter used this example in particular, right? Let's see, what page was that? So you've got page 91, where you've got the buses and the cars, and you've got the distributive versus the collective. And so if you use that page, it would help you figure out that this is a fallacy of composition that It is true, it is the case, that a single bus uses more gas than a single car. But it is not the case that all buses together would use more gasoline than cars because of the different numbers. So this one was tough, but the correct answer and the only answer that I will accept is a fallacy of composition. Any questions on that one? That one was making me scratch my head a little bit. Number four, human beings have an immortal soul, and a finger is part of a human being. Therefore, a finger has an immortal soul, or at least part of a soul. I like how they added that there, how they add at least a part of a soul. My finger soul says, and then you can have a little conversation with your finger, and it puts you in the loony bin. What's that, Mr. Man? Human beings have an immortal soul. The finger is part of a human being, therefore a finger has an immortal soul. Is this a fallacy? Yes, it's a fallacy. Is it a fallacy of division or composition? Yes, because what's the conclusion? The conclusion is what? Yeah? A finger has an immortal soul, or at least part of an immortal soul. That's the conclusion, because you see the word therefore, and therefore indicates the conclusion. And is a finger a part of a human being, or is a human being a part of a finger? Finger is part of a human being. So if your conclusion has the part in it, then you know that it is a fallacy of division. Flip it over, number five. I love hot salsa but I also like chocolate so I would probably love chocolate dipped in salsa. Anybody ever try that? No? Maybe you tried it this week after you read this and you're like maybe I would love chocolate dipped in salsa. Not the best. No, not a great idea. That kind of ruins both. So what's the conclusion? Yes, you see the word so, that indicates a logical conclusion. So means it follows from the premise that was just stated. So I'd probably love chocolate dipped in salsa. And what is, are you having the whole or the parts? Let me say, let me put it this way. This one's again, kind of challenging. Are you combining two things together to get a new thing or are you dividing something to get a conclusion? Yeah. You're combining. So composition is another word for combining. So you can combine chocolate and salsa together, but that doesn't mean that it's going to still have the quality of tastiness. Another emergent quality is tastiness. You can take things that are not tasty in and of themselves, put them together and make something very tasty. You can take things that are very tasty in themselves and put them together and end up with something that's not tasty. But of course, the classic example of taking two tasty things and putting them together and having it be very tasty, chocolate and peanut butter. Chocolate and peanut butter are awesome together. Number six, no atoms are alive and people are made of atoms. Therefore, people are not alive. This is a fallacy. People are alive. What's the conclusion? Yep, and so the conclusion is false, and because it's a fallacy of composition, because people are made up of atoms, we are composed of atoms. So get used to that word composed, composition, and think, is the conclusion a composition of what is in the premises, or is the conclusion a division of what is in the premises? That's how you want to think about it. Tim says, some people have survived all types of cancer. Renee answers back, not true. I doubt anyone has even had every type of cancer, let alone survived them all. That's pretty humorous. That's what I like about logical fallacies. If you guys want to write a comedy script, you need to like make sure that somewhere in the movie, there's a logical fallacy for like, you know, every kind of logical fallacy and that'll vary it up and make it funny. That's people say things that are stupid like this. Misunderstandings are a great way to create comedy. And here's a misunderstanding. And in fact, that's what he says in the answer key. It's not really a fallacy as much as a misunderstanding, but if one person made this argument and was making a fallacy in this way, what kind of fallacy would it be? Somebody I haven't called on yet? You got a 50-50 chance. What kind of fallacy here? Melanie, what do you have? Okay. Lucy, what do you got? Yes, that's right. It is a fallacy of division, if it's a fallacy. If you say it's not a fallacy, but it's just a misunderstanding, I'll give you credit for that too. So fallacy of division or not a fallacy. But you get what he was going for here. And it centers on the word all. So all can be used in a collective sense or in a distributive sense. First statement by Tim is a distributive use of the word all, like some people have survived all types of cancer, like it's been distributed among all different types of people. And some of those people, in a distributive sense of all, have survived. Whereas Rene takes all cancer as every type in one person, though it's collected into one person instead of distributed among a large number of people. So watch out for the collective versus the distributive use of the word all. I like the example he had in the book about how motorcycles have, all motorcycles have two wheels. And somebody says, well, that's ridiculous. You know, there's like 20 million motorcycles. That's like 40 million wheels at least. So be on the lookout for that misunderstanding as that can miscommunicate. When a word has multiple ways of being used, it can be taken out of context. And that makes for good humor. So you didn't know logic class was going to be so funny. Number eight, a coach says to his track team, if a person runs faster, he can win a race. So if all of you run faster, you can all win the race. Coach needs to go to logic class. He's making a very obviously fallacious statement. And this is a fallacy of what? Composition or division? Yeah, because all of you is a composition of the individual running faster. And also, it's just bad logic. If a person runs faster, it doesn't mean he's going to win the race, but that his chances increase. So if all of you run faster, your chances of winning the race will go up. So anyway, it's a fallacy of composition. Number nine. Every part of the universe obeys laws of nature. Earth is part of the universe. Therefore, Earth obeys laws of nature. What do you guys have for number nine? If it's a fallacy, it would be a fallacy of division. But in this case, it's not a fallacy because the Earth as a part of the universe, it does follow after the same laws that the rest of the universe is governed by. So number nine is a legitimate case of division. It's not a fallacy of division, it's a legitimate argument from the whole to the parts. Sometimes the part does have the same qualities as the whole. Think of an example of something where a part of something has the same quality as the whole. Everybody think of an example. Think of something that's made up of parts and then think about a part of that something that has the same quality as the whole. Everybody got something in mind? Yeah? Aiden, what do you got? Okay, so what is the quality of the Jenga tower that is made of wood? Okay, so the woodness of the Jenga tower is then also true of each of the individual part of it. But the ability to stack three feet high does not then go down to the individual part. And so some parts of the Jenga tower are able to be divided, the quality. Other parts are not dividable. So good example. Clarissa, what was your example of something that does have the same quality? Yeah. So what something is made out of the material is often something that transfers to the part and then the color also often transfers to the part. Now just interesting to think about. So this is not a fallacy, but if it was a fallacy, it would be a fallacy of division. Number 10. The brain is the seed of human consciousness and is comprised of millions of synapses. Therefore, each synapse must be a little bit conscious. This is a fallacy of division. that the conclusion is therefore each synapse. The synapses are what make up the brain. The brain has the quality of consciousness, and it is a fallacy then to divide and say that the quality of consciousness is in each part of the human brain. The human brain is amazing, consciousness is amazing, and I'd invite you to spend some time thinking about where does consciousness come from and how does consciousness arise and what does consciousness mean about our existence. What I've heard explained that I really like is that consciousness is an emergent property of the human brain, that somehow you put the human brain all together, and emerging from that is this new quality, this new property of consciousness, and that is by the power of God. Pretty awesome to think about. All right, so put the correct number out of 10 at the top of your paper and hand them in question, I give you a half. All right, half credit for the fallacy of division on number nine. Good question. All right, pass those towards the center. Jamie, collect those and record the grades for me on chapter 18. So when we come to chapter 19, we're dealing with generalizations, hasty generalizations, and sweeping generalizations. Now, in an inductive argument, my friends, your conclusion falls from the premises with some probability. Because when you are doing inductive reasoning, Inductive reasoning looks at the data and then forms a generalized conclusion. So if I examine 2,000 swans and all of the swans that I see are white, my generalized conclusion is swans are white. However, if I travel to Australia or wherever it was that black swans were first discovered, I can't remember, and I see, oh, here's a swan that is not white. Here's a swan that is black. Now I have to say, well, most swans are white, but there are some who are black. And so inductive reasoning is when you are gathering evidence from observations in order to create a general conclusion. And when you're doing that, you're making a generalization. And a hasty generalization is when you have not yet identified a sufficient number of examples in order to draw a conclusion. The example I gave of you this last week was in a theological argument I heard somebody say, or they wrote on YouTube, If you meet a, I can't remember what it was, dispensationalist or Calvinist or something like that, they're sure to be a jerk because I've talked with three of them and they were all jerks. Well, three is a pretty small sample size when it comes to forming a generalization like that. And so that would be a hasty generalization. You haven't gathered enough data in order to make that general statement. Therefore, your inductive argument is, weak because your premises are not true, because your generalized statement doesn't have enough data. If your argument is weak, then it is uncogent. This sweeping generalization has to do with the inductive method of reasoning and then making deductions based upon your induction that are not going to be valid because your general statement was presumptuous. So a hasty generalization will lead to a presumptuous conclusion that is not sufficiently proven. And then a sweeping generalization goes the opposite direction. It starts with your generalization and it forgets that it's a generalization and it thinks that there are no exceptions. If I examine the coins in my pocket and I said, okay I've got 12 pennies a diamond and nickel and so most of the change in my pocket is pennies now if I forget that most of the change in my pocket is pennies and I come and say well the change in my pocket is pennies so it's a sure thing that when I reach in and pull out a coin, it's going to be a penny. That would be, I'd forgotten that it was just a general statement. It wasn't a statement that didn't have exceptions. And so then my argument, my deduction, if I pull out a coin, it's going to be a penny is invalid because it's based on a faulty premise because I had taken what was generally true and said it was always true. So that's seeing how a hasty generalization is a fault of induction and a sweeping generalization is a fault of deduction because you have a premise that is not true. In deduction, your conclusion is necessarily true if it follows from the premises. But your premises have to be true. And your argument is sound only if the premises are true. And if you have a general statement that you're taking to be a universal statement, then your premises are not true and it's going to have an unsound argument. Now I might get lucky and pull out one of my pennies instead of one of the nickels or dimes. But remember, a deductive argument to be sound has to be necessarily true. It can't just be, well, I got lucky and it was true, but I think that well illustrates. All right, so on worksheet number 19, Look at the second paragraph there in the chapter review. Reasoning often involves the use of generalization. That's what I just explained. That's the inductive method of reasoning is when you are looking for patterns and then you make a general statement of what has occurred from your observations. Now, you can't observe everything. No one can observe everything except God. God is the only one who has absolute knowledge of all of the swans in the universe. Maybe there's another planet out there somewhere in the universe that has swans and there's purple swans. But how would I know? I can't go to that planet. I can't observe that planet. So I can't make any statement about that that is 100% true. All I can do is say, well, based upon my experience, swans are black or swans are white. And most of them are white. All right, so reasoning involves the use of generalizations based upon observation, that's inductive reasoning. We depend upon inductive reasoning quite a lot. Now, when you then for take a generalization and misuse it, it can be a sweeping generalization. And if you form a generalization too quickly without sufficient data, that's a hasty generalization. Notice the last paragraph there in the chapter review. The key is to recognize that the sweeping generalization starts with the generalization as a premise. and reasons to a specific instance. So that's deductive, where you're starting with a generalization as a premise, and then you are reasoning to your conclusion. And so when you see deductive arguments, that's a sweeping generalization. Whereas the hasty generalization starts with specific instances and falsely concludes a generalization. So that's inductive. So a hasty generalization is an error in induction. A sweeping generalization is an error in deduction because it is misusing a generalized statement and it's presuming that there are no exceptions. And so the premise is not true. And that leads to an unsound deductive argument. All right, that's a good way to tie together what we were learning about formal logic together with what is here on this particular case of informal logic. So let's go through it, number one. The Bible states that Noah was to bring two of every animal on board the ark, but later it contradicts this by saying that seven of some animals were brought on board. People love to try to find Bible contradictions, especially I'm talking about, of course, non-Christians, atheists in particular. They just enjoy it and get such glee out of finding these Bible contradictions that very often they find them when they're not there. You guys ever heard of confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is when you are looking for evidence that supports your conclusion, you will find evidence that supports your conclusion. Whether or not that evidence really does support your conclusion, you have this confirmation bias. And so people that want to believe that the Bible is full of contradictions will see Bible contradictions everywhere because that's what they want to see. And we have to be on our guard that we're not doing confirmation bias in our reasoning, that we're not just seeing what we want to see that supports our beliefs and our desires, but that we are applying equal weights and measures, that we use our reason to be able to evaluate things fairly, whether they are for us or whether they are against us. And a great example here is question number one. Whether or not it's a contradiction in Genesis 6 versus Genesis 7, this is something that unbelievers love to do with the book of Genesis. They'll say that the book of Genesis was written by different authors and then was later put together kind of clumsily, and you can tell which author wrote which part of the book of Genesis by which name of God is used in that part, whether it's Yahweh or Elohim, this type of stuff. And so they'll say, because it's been drawn from different sources and put together by different authors kind of clumsily, one chapter is going to contradict another chapter because they're separate accounts and been brought together and haven't been perfectly harmonized and things like that. So be aware that that's how unbelieving scholars view the book of Genesis and how they're looking for these types of contradictions. However, if you just apply a fair treatment of logic to the text, you find that this is an error, the argument that this contradicts is an error, and that the Bible does not have a contradiction here, but that this is an example of a sweeping generalization. Number one is a sweeping generalization because It's assuming that Genesis 6, 19, and 20 doesn't have any exceptions, and the exception is stated later. So if I come to you and I say, I want you to go to the store and buy one of every Hostess product that is on the shelf, you know, HoHos, Twinkies, all that good stuff. Go and buy one of every package of Hostess stuff at Walmart. And then I come back to you a minute later and I say, well, get two of the HoHos. I really like the HoHos. I haven't contradicted myself. I've added on to my instructions. You're still buying one of everything that is at the store, but you're buying more than one of some other thing. So to call this a contradiction is unfair and it's not right. This is a sweeping generalization assuming that there's no exceptions to this idea of two. Now, he says in his answer key that it's not really a sweeping generalization. You could think of it as just an addition to what was already stated, but he's using it to illustrate a sweeping generalization because of the no exception idea that someone would import to the Genesis account. So I will accept either sweeping generalization or not a fallacy. Either one of those are acceptable here. Well, not a fallacy. That doesn't really work because it's obviously a fallacy. The argument is fallacious. But whether it's fallacious because it's a sweeping generalization or if it's fallacious because The deduction is just invalid, but it is a chapter on generalization, so sweeping generalization is the answer that you know he's looking for. If you have a question about that, talk to me afterwards. Number two, our local Christian school teaches creation, and their test scores are below average, so clearly creationist thinking tends to be associated with low test scores. What kind of generalization is this? It's a hasty one. One is never enough to draw a general conclusion, okay? You will see, I know this guy named Timothy and he's a pompous fool and so I think all Timothys are pompous fools. Well, I mean, one is not a large enough sample size to be able to generalize from. I had a girl in my class when I was in grade school that I particularly didn't like. I don't know why I didn't like her, whether it's the smell or her attitude or what. I really didn't like her. And so her name was Cassie. There's no Cassies here, so I can get away with that. And so I was like, I'm never gonna name my daughter Cassie, because I don't like Cassie. Well, maybe if I met more Cassies, I'd find out that they don't all have the same problems that this Cassie had. And maybe I was doing a sweeping generalization that I don't like the name Cassie because I was associating it with this one individual. So one is never a large enough sample size to generalize from, just keep that in mind. Number three, the Bible says that a soft, gentle answer turns away wrath, Proverbs 15.1. But John spoke gently to Henry yesterday and Henry got angry anyway. So clearly the Bible is wrong. You can't trust the Bible. You do what it says and it doesn't happen. What kind of generalization is this? Sweeping, yeah. So proverbs, this is important for you guys to understand, I'm glad he brought this example up and brought it up in the chapter, that proverbs are generalizations. Proverbs have exceptions. And so don't read the Proverbs like you read the promises of the Bible. When God says, I will never leave you or forsake you, that's a promise with no exceptions. But when God says a gentle answer turns away wrath, he means that it has the tendency or it has the quality of turning away wrath, but that people can still be wrathful if they are choosing to be. And so this is a general statement, and most of the Proverbs are this way. They're general statements of wisdom, that if you do this generally, you'll have this result. There are exceptions. Remember that when you're reading Proverbs. They're not promises, they are general principles. They do have exceptions. Number four, Kim and Julie are sisters and they look very much alike. Apparently, sisters tend to look alike. Now, while this is true that sisters do tend to look alike, this is a hasty generalization because it's based upon one example. So one example is never enough to draw a generalization from, even if you end up having your generalization be true. If I'd never seen pennies before, we go back to pennies, and I look at a penny and I'm like, oh, a penny is made out of copper, and therefore all pennies are made out of copper. Well, that's a hasty generalization, because how do I know that all pennies are made out of copper just because one is? Now, if I go and examine a lot more pennies, I'm like, oh, look, all these pennies are made out of copper. Generally, pennies are made out of copper. That's good inductive reasoning. But one is not sufficient, and that's why this is a hasty generalization. Question? Uh-huh. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now, I'm going to tell you that that is incorrect. Good argument, though. You almost had me. Number five. People who are very closely related have very similar DNA. Clearly, similarities in DNA show that organisms are all related. This is why humans and chimpanzees have such similar DNA. So what kind of generalization is this? What's that? No, this is hasty. So a hasty generalization is when you haven't taken enough data and are making it apply to a larger principle. So number five, the fact that there are similarities in DNA in some cases correlating with biological descent does not establish that this is generally true. DNA similarities within a kind might be indicative of the close relationship there, but does not extend to DNA similarities between different kinds of animals. If I said, you know, George Lucas tends to write movies that have bad romances in them. And then I look at a movie that has a bad romance in it, and I'm like, George Lucas must have wrote that movie. Like, no, that's a hasty generalization. Doesn't mean that any time you find a bad romance, it's written by George Lucas. So that's similar to what we have here in number five, that just because brother and sister have similarities in their DNA, doesn't mean that any similarity we find between a chimpanzee and a human means that they're related, okay? See the hasty generalization. Number six, Carl says, you cannot legally yell fire in movie theaters if there is no actual fire. But Brenda responds, sure I can. I have the right to free speech. It's in the Constitution. So this is a classic example of a sweeping generalization. that the right to free speech does not give you the right to lie in a situation that is going to endanger other people's lives in the immediate context. There are limits on the freedom of speech. The freedom of speech is the freedom to have your own political opinions and your own religious opinions and to disagree with other people without being punished by the law. It's not the right to deliberately hurt other people by telling things that are not true that you know are untrue. So understand what a sweeping generalization is. There are exceptions to your freedom to speech. Number seven, that's the third time this week that a woman has lied to me. I guess you just can't trust women. This is a hasty generalization. Three is not a sufficient sample size. There's billions of women in the world. Now, let's get biblical on this, where David says, I said in my distress, all men are liars. When David wrote that all men are liars in the book of Psalms, what do you think his sample size was? Any guess? Is he basing that on one or two people that lied to him? No, he's probably basing that on a quite large sample size. And as you look out into the world, you find out that there's a lot of liars in the world. In fact, lying is one of the chief sins that you find spread about among mankind. And so while it is a generalization that all men are liars and there are exceptions, David's sample size was large enough to say In general, men are liars, and men in the humanity sense there, as we're in the context of someone calling women liars. We're not talking about men in the male sense, but just all human beings are liars. There are exceptions, but it is a common problem among mankind, and that's a generally true statement. Number eight. Big cities with little wind tend to have a lot of problems with smog. Los Angeles is an enormous city and doesn't have a lot of wind, so it most likely has problems with smog. What kind of generalization is this? Yeah. It's not a fallacy of generalization. You're right, it's not a fallacy of generalization. So it's not a hasty generalization. It's not a sweeping generalization. It is a valid use of generalization. It's a valid argument based upon a generalization. The generalization there is in the first part of number eight. Big cities with little wind tend to have a lot of problems with smog. That's a generalization. Then the argument is Los Angeles is an enormous city and doesn't have a lot of wind, so it fits into the category. So if the premise is true, then the conclusion is true by deduction. This is a valid argument, and the premises are in fact sound. Big cities with little wind tend to have problems with smog. That's a premise that is true. Argumentation is valid. This is a deductive argument that is based upon a generalization, but it's not a fallacy of generalization. Not a fallacy. Number nine. All the planets and known asteroids in our solar system obey Kepler's three laws of planetary motion. Apparently, Kepler's laws are true and work at all times. This is also not a fallacy. If it was a fallacy, what kind of fallacy would it be? Yeah, it would be a hasty generalization if it was a fallacy, but this is another case where the generalization is true and the All the planets and known asteroids obey Kepler's three laws. Apparently they are true and work at all times. Now, when you think of all the planets and known asteroids, that's not a small sample size. there are thousands, if not more, asteroids in our solar system, and there's multiple planets. So you take multiple planets and thousands of asteroids and you observe Kepler's laws of motion, that's a large sample size. Now, it is a small sample size in comparison to the total number of objects in the universe, and it's also a very localized sample. based upon all of the objects in the universe. It's just our solar system, which is a very small part of the entire universe, all times and all places, as it says. So if you put that it was a hasty generalization, I will accept it. But the astronomer who wrote the book says it's not a fallacy. So I'll trust him on that. But I'll give you credit if you thought it was a hasty generalization. Number 10, we know that Jesus did not really walk on water because water is liquid and science shows that people cannot walk on a liquid surface. Now, you run an inductive. study, if you use inductive reasoning, you take 10,000 people and you have them try to walk on water, and you get zero out of those 10,000 who can walk on water, then you would be well-founded to be able to say, inductively, based upon inductive reasoning, human beings cannot walk on water. But here's the thing about induction. induction leads to probable conclusions. And so while you might be able to say it's improbable that Jesus could walk on water, you can't say it is impossible and you can't say it didn't happen just based upon inductive reasoning. Because inductive reasoning gives conclusions that follow with some probability. You see that? With some probability. So This is a sweeping generalization, assuming that Jesus is just like everyone else, and therefore what applies to everyone else is also true of Jesus, but Jesus is truly exceptional, and we have good reasons for believing that Jesus is truly exceptional. So this is a fallacy of sweeping generalization, not recognizing that there are exceptions to our generalizations that come from inductive reasoning. Everybody follow me on that? All right, so put the number correct out of 10 at the top of your page, make sure your name is on the page, and then hand those towards the middle as we always do. All right, doing three chapters a week doesn't leave us much time for dilly dally, but there'll be several weeks where we get to just do two chapters a week and then we can do some review games and things like that. But we're powering through and I appreciate you guys coming early where your brain is still strong and you've got all of your mental power for the new day. and being able to power through an hour and 15 minutes of logic. Awesome. So chapter 20, get chapter 20 out. Let's talk about the fallacy of false cause. False cause is a fallacy of presumption. You're assuming, you're presuming that you understand the cause and you are making that false. presumption that it's not actually the cause. He gives two examples. There's the post hoc ergo propter hoc and there's the cum hoc ergo propter hoc. The post means after. Hoc means this. The kum means with, hak means with. So you can have after this, therefore this caused it. Or you can have with this, therefore it caused it. And just because something happens after, doesn't mean the first thing caused it. And just because something happens at the same time, doesn't mean that one of them caused the other. This is the fallacy of false cause. Now, I want you guys to repeat after me a very important phrase that you might have heard before, and if not, you need to memorize, that has to do with the fallacy of false cause, and that is, correlation does not equal causation. Let's all say that together. Correlation does not equal causation. One more time, correlation does not equal causation. What does that mean? Just because two events are correlated, they might be happening at the same time, doesn't mean that one has caused the other. And this is a fallacy you will find over and over and over and over again in every area of knowledge, economics, politics, religion, science, everywhere. You're going to find this fallacy where it's like, wait, look, here's a chart. Here's the government spending and here's the cost of inflation. And so we know that government spending has caused inflation. And that's actually true. That's not a false cause. But you're going to see many examples of false cause where they say, hey, look, here's a trend. Here's a trend that's following along the same line. So this one must have caused this one. And just because two things are correlated doesn't mean they're caused. And you have to do more than just show correlation. You have to show the cause. and be able to explain how government spending causes inflation and be able to rationally explain that and be able to explain how it's not related to other possibilities that have caused it. So if you really want to demonstrate causation, it's a complex thing. It has to do with showing that there is a causal effect between what you're correlating, and showing that other causal effects do not explain it, and other theories are not sufficient. That's why he says that A complete discussion of cause and effect relationship is beyond what this chapter is able to do. That would be a whole different study. We'd have a whole book on cause and effect or causation, and that is mostly having to do with science. Science studies physical causes, and then other areas like economics studies financial causes and things like that. All right, so in this chapter, exploring cause and effect just a little bit, getting into it, how we can establish that two events are causally connected, actually how we can spot when someone is creating a false cause or is being presumptuous and is assuming that something has caused something else just because it comes after or just because it is happening at the same time. I love the example that he gave of like the number of sunspots and the number of Republicans in Congress. that they were correlated for a short time in history and that makes some people like to play with that and have fun and say well somehow the sunspots are causing the number of Republicans getting elected in Congress or vice versa. Of course, it's ridiculous, but many less obviously ridiculous examples are common. One of my favorites, again, this is good comedy, so when you guys are thinking comedy, pull out your logic book and come up with scenarios. There's a TV show where there's this town and they had a bear come into town, and everybody got really scared, and they're like, oh no, bear, what are we gonna do? He's gonna eat our kids. So they're like, we're gonna have a bear patrol. So they set up a bear patrol and they've got people that are out there patrolling for bears and I don't know, tooting horns and whatever else they're doing. And a guy comes out and looks around and he says, yeah, I don't see any bears. Bear patrol is working like a charm. And his daughter comes up and tells him that that's faulty reasoning. And he said, you know, how is that faulty reasoning? And she said, well, by your logic, I could prove that this rock keeps tigers away. And he's like, it does? And she's like, well, you don't see any tigers, do you? And he's like, how much do you want for that rock? Just because two things are correlated doesn't mean that one has caused the other. Just because you have people walking around on bear patrol doesn't mean that's keeping bears away. In the whole history of this town, in recent memory, there was one time a bear came into town. So the fact that there's no bears in town right now doesn't mean the bear patrol's working. It just means that bears don't come into town very often. Okay? So correlation doesn't equal causation. And it's very important to understand the fallacy of false cause. You're going to want to recognize this one. Number one. As the sun vanished during the solar eclipse, the natives beat their drums continuously, hoping to cause the sun to return. It worked. All right. So this is a fallacy. And the beating of the drums occurs before the sun comes back. And so this is a post hoc. that the sun comes back post, after the beating of the drums, is a post hoc fallacy. And you don't have to write post hoc ergopropter hoc for every one. Post or cum would be enough, or post hoc and cum hoc. That's what I did. And if you just put after or with, that'd be fine too, because that's what those words mean. So this is a fallacy and it shows the superstitious nature of mankind. And I loved his example of the pigeons in the chapter about how pigeons can be superstitious. Remember reading about that? So people act like pigeons when they're doing stuff like this and think, ah, we beat our drums and the sun came back. And that kind of superstition is foolish. It's beneath us as those who are created in the image and likeness of God with the ability to reason, the ability to examine cause and effect. You see how far sin takes us down in our foolishness that we become like the pigeons. Pigeon-like thinking with our bird brains. Number two, shortly after the school changed its policy and allowed teachers to carry concealed handguns, one of the students arrived armed and began shooting up the place. Clearly this policy was a bad idea. It's another post hoc new policy. A shooting happens after that doesn't mean that the policy caused that shooting. So this is a fallacy, a post hoc fallacy. You'll see this kind of fallacious thinking all the time because of confirmation bias. People who want gun control, they're just looking for reasons why gun control doesn't work and isn't a bad idea. And they will use fallacious reasoning to come up with those reasons. Because that's what they're trying to convince you of. They're not thinking objectively. They're not thinking unbiased. There's a lot of cognitive bias that goes into human thinking, and that's sin. Cognitive bias is sin. We're not supposed to act that way. God doesn't act that way. It's not Christ-like. It's not loving. It's not wise. It's not good. Number three, Jim studied much harder this year for his SATs and his score was much higher. Clearly his studying paid off. This is not a fallacy. If it was a fallacy, it would be a post hoc fallacy, but it's not a post hoc fallacy because studying for tests does tend to increase your success in tests. There is a cause and effect relationship there that is valid. So not a fallacy on number three. Yeah. Yeah. Is it a fallacy? If so, is it? And why? So it's all wrong if you get A wrong. It's half wrong if you get B wrong. Let's do that, all right? We'll be generous. Number four, whenever I eat dairy products, I tend to get bloated and have stomach pains. I think I might be lactose intolerant. This is not a fallacy. For one, it's not a hasty generalization from the previous chapter, but he says, whenever I eat dairy products. So I know this is not a chapter on hasty generalization, but I like to tie things together. So there is a generalization that's happening here, but it's not hasty because he's using a decent sample size by saying whenever, so repeated experiment. And then There is a causal connection between lactose intolerant and being bloated with stomach pains when you eat dairy products. And so this is not a fallacy. Number four is not a fallacy. If it was a fallacy, it would be post hoc, right? Because eat before, then after the stomach pains. But there is a causal relationship there. Number five, over several decades, the environment got colder, and the animals now living there have thicker fur than the animals did when it was warmer. Clearly, these animals have self-adjusted to their environment. Now, he said that this was an example of a post-hoc fallacy, that just because the climate has changed doesn't mean that this is what has caused the animals to develop thicker fur, but I'm going, I don't know. It depends on, I guess, how you're interpreting self-adjusted. Self-adjusted, to me, it could be taken in an evolutionary sense, in which it means that their genome has mutated to create new genes that give them longer fur, and that would be fallacious because a change in the environment doesn't cause mutations like that. But if you mean self-adjusted to mean that it triggered certain part of their genome to produce longer fur or that the colder environments killed off parts of the population that had the shorter fur and that those then that had the longer fur were selected by natural selection to survive and reproduce. If that's what you mean, well then it's not a fallacy. So I would accept either not a fallacy or post hoc fallacy for number five. Number six, then. Humans and apes have very similar anatomy. This is because they have evolved from a common ancestor. This is a false cause. And is it kumhawk or post-hawk? That's what I put, but I have a question mark next to it. And that's what he says. He says it's a kumhawk. But to me, this is not a great example of a kumhock fallacy. It's a great example of a fallacy. You definitely have to have a fallacy. But I would accept kumhock or post hoc because the false cause is, the question is, what has caused them to have similar anatomy? Humans and apes have similar anatomy. What has caused it? Has it been caused by them evolving from a common ancestor? to draw that conclusion is presumptuous, clearly. And what they have in common, they have in common in the present, they have a similar anatomy now. That's why he's saying it's kumhock. But I don't know, something about this I can't quite put into words, but I think it's a poor example. So as long as you have that it's a false cause, either kumhock or post hoc, I'm fine with it. Number seven. Japan has the second highest percentage of atheists, and it has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. Clearly, atheism is good for society. So this is a hasty generalization. You've got a sample size of one. Now, I know we're not in the generalization category, but still. And it's also false cause. So you've got a hasty generalization and a false cause kind of combined here. And the false cause is Kumha. that at the same time you've got a high percentage of atheists and a low crime rate, but correlation does not equal causation. Just because these things are happening at the same time doesn't mean that one has caused the other. So that's a kumhock fallacy. Number eight. This wooden board is vibrating for some reason, but whenever I put a heavy book on it, the vibration stops. See? Whatever the cause, apparently placing a book on the board will make it stop vibrating. This is not a fallacy. This is good reasoning. He's repeated the test multiple times, so it's not a hasty generalization. But he is doing good inductive reasoning, putting the book on, taking the book off, putting it on, taking it off. And whenever he puts it on, the wooden board stops vibrating. So his conclusion is valid. When he places a book on the board, it stops vibrating. Not a fallacy. There does seem to be a clear causal connection that is established there. highly unlikely that there was some other cause that was corresponding perfectly in time with the placing of the book and the taking off of the book. Now, you could make a comedy out of that too, right? And make it, you know, some other cause that he can't see that is happening at the same time. And this is where people play practical jokes on one another and they'll, you know, make it look like they're causing something that they're not actually causing. There's a great video online of a dad who was having fun with his kid. And so the little girl was watching a movie. And in the movie, the character is jiggling the door handle that's at the edge of the screen. And then the dad has the other hand of the door handle in his hand. And he's messing with it and making the daughter think that he's interacting with the character on the TV when he's not. He's not actually causing the character on the TV to do those things. But he's lined up his actions so perfectly with it that it looks like he's causing those things. So the fallacy of false cause can be a lot of fun in playing with kids too. All right, number nine. My cousin got this chain letter in the mail, but he didn't forward it on. Two weeks later, he had a fatal heart attack. Don't tell me chain letters don't do anything. I don't know if you guys are familiar with how chain letters will threaten you with like bad luck, something bad's going to happen to you if you don't pass on this chain letter to someone else. So, you know, they'll send out a chain letter they think is important, like a political chain letter. And it's like, pass this on to 10 of your friends or you're gonna have a heart attack. Okay, you can't manipulate me with superstition like that. your curse doesn't have a cause and it won't alight. That's one of the Proverbs. A curse without a cause will not alight. And so just telling people that this curse is going to go on them if they don't do what you tell them to do, that the Proverbs say that's generally not true. A curse without a cause doesn't alight. So here is an example where if somebody didn't pass on the chain letter, and then he died, so now we can make the conclusion that you always have to pass on the chain letters or something bad's going to happen to you. This is superstition based upon a hasty generalization based upon a false cause, that just because something happened after something else doesn't mean that was the cause, a post hoc fallacy. If I made 500 prophecies and one of them happened to come true, you can't conclude, oh, Timothy's a prophet. Because just because I said it before it happened doesn't mean that I caused it to happen. I just got lucky with one of my guesses, okay? There was a shooting of President Trump, and some prophet had said that Trump was gonna survive a shooting, and so everyone was like, wow, look, real prophecy in our day, real fulfilled prophecy. Well, what about the other 100 prophecies that he predicted that didn't come true? Just because he said something, that doesn't mean he caused it, so. Superstition, beware of superstition based upon bad logic like this. Whenever I get a headache, it lasts for days unless I take an aspirin. The aspirin really works to relieve my headache. This is not a fallacy. There is a causal effect between aspirin and headaches, relief. And he's also performed the experiment multiple times, so it's not a generalization fallacy. It's not a hasty generalization. But he's done the inductive scientific reasoning work, and others have confirmed the causal relationship between aspirin and headaches. So not a fallacy. So number nine was post-talk. Number 10 is not a fallacy. All right. So put the correct number out of 10 on the top of your page and hand those in so that we can write those down and get them back to you. And while you're doing that, I will hand out next week's assignment for you.