Appeal to Unreliability
(Perceived, Suspected, but Unrelated) A Frequently Seen Fallacy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia :
A fallacy is reasoning that is logically invalid, or that undermines the logical validity of an argument. All forms of human communication can contain fallacies.
Because of their variety, fallacies are challenging to classify. They can be classified by their structure (formal fallacies) or content (informal fallacies). Informal fallacies, the larger group, may then be subdivided into categories such as improper presumption, faulty generalization, and error in assigning causation and relevance, among others.
The use of fallacies is common when the speaker's goal of achieving common agreement is more important to them than utilizing sound reasoning. When fallacies are used, the premise should be recognized as not well-grounded, the conclusion as unproven (but not necessarily false), and the argument as unsound.[1]
One of the major annoyances of the comments section of SubStack essays is the use of fallacy as an argument against the author's views and conclusions. The situation is much worse on platforms such as Twitter. And usually without recourse, or the least hope of getting the guilty party to see the nonsense of his comment or argument. I've had a close look through the Wikipedia list, a very informative source on the subject which makes me want to propose that a group be organized whose members point out such fallacious arguments wherever they see them in online media, and post replies accusing the perpetrators of illogic, and posting the set of exchanges to a common platform for all to see. Not fact-checkers but Fallacy-Busters! But personally, I already have enough to occupy my time....
The Wikipedia list, as complete as it is, doesn't explicitly include what I think should be a classic example of fallacy: The case where a claim, argument, reference, etc. is negatively assessed on the sole basis of the perceived unreliability of the source of the claim. It is in a way the opposite, or inverse of such fallacy as "Appeal to Authority,"
(argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam) – an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it.[74][75]
Appeal to Uncertainty could be said to be a type of ad hominem, but where the "hominem" is not just a person, but could be a group, a committee, a publication, etc., and where the target is being compromised specifically for perceived or actual unreliability concerning other, or past incidents.
Or perhaps Appeal to Uncertainty could be seen as a variant of:
False attribution – appealing to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument.
False authority (single authority) – using an expert of dubious credentials or using only one opinion to promote a product or idea. Related to the appeal to authority.
Bulverism (psychogenetic fallacy) – inferring why an argument is being used, associating it to some psychological reason, then assuming it is invalid as a result. The assumption that if the origin of an idea comes from a biased mind, then the idea itself must also be a falsehood.[37]
As the Wikipedia article notes, "Because of their variety, fallacies are challenging to classify". They may overlap, or in certain cases be more than one type simultaneously. So I will try to provide a definition of the fallacy that would cover most possible cases and variations:
Appeal to Unreliability - The claim that an argument, fact, article, study, analysis, idea, reference, presentation, et al., is unreliable because its source has been shown to be unreliable in other unrelated situations, or that the source is accused of making arguments or providing information representing only one side of a controversy, namely the side that the arguer wants to discredit.
As with most of the fallacies in the Wikipedia list, it is more difficult to define the fallacy than to give a good example of it in practice. Here is a perfect example, from a Twitter exchange:
theepochtimes.com THE EPOCH TIMES
Ivermectin Is Safe and Effective: The Evidence
"In a meta-analysis of 63 studies of ivermectin versus COVID-19 in humans, 100% of these have shown positive results... 29 of those studies were found to be statistically significant regarding use of ivermectin alone.
@abbyobenchain Replying to @RWMaloneMD
The Epoch Times is hardly a credible source.
I might have replied, if I suspected even the tiniest possibility for awakening this fool :
"So, if the Epoch Times reported that 2+2=4, you would then have reason to doubt the claim?"
To which he might (ignorantly) reply,
"But I already KNOW that 2+2=4"
then,
"If you had read the article fully and checked out its references such as the meta-analysis and the 63 studies, you could KNOW whether the claim is true or false with near certainty, and understand that the source of the report has not the least bearing on the truth of the report. Wouldn't that be a more intelligent and logical approach, not to mention a more respectful reply to someone who knows what he is talking about, such as Dr.Malone?"
"Oh stop it!".
Or consider the case of Tony Fauci, supposedly America's top health authority. When he first stated for the record that it made no sense for people to wear masks, which in fact was quite true, we could then illegitimately say that masks didn't work because Tony said so. This is Appeal to Authority, and in this case the premise that is supposedly validated is that "masks don't work"...
Soon thereafter, however, Tony completely reversed himself, insisting that masks et al. were essential for getting back to normal, flattening the curve, etc.
This time the unwary could Appeal to Uncertainty saying that since that Fauci dude says one thing this week and the exact opposite thing the next, he is totally unreliable and therefore anything he says unreliable. Therefore we should conclude that masks don't work. We see through this simple example that Appeal to Authority and Appeal to Uncertainty both have absolutely no traction for the validation or rejection of the premise!
Or consider the apparently thorny question of whether Hydroxychloroquine works as early treatment for COVID. We've seen a large collection of "authorities" arrive at diametrically opposed conclusions! Who you gonna' call? (Fallacy-Busters!).
A little personal story here: Early on, I tried to convince my specialist MD and professor of hematology to give me a prescription for HCQ so I could have it on hand as early treatment in case I should contract COVID. He hemmed and hawed, referred to the (now bogus) paper that showed a possible heart complication if HCQ was taken for COVID, but I continued by sending him results of Didier Raoult's findings at the Marseille hospital... and so on.
A couple of weeks later he sends me an email saying, "Finally a definitive study!", referring of course to the famous - now infamous - Lancet article. Concluding that HCQ could be dangerous and didn't work on the basis of the Lancet article would of course be Appeal to Authority when he qualified his decision by saying it was a "definitive study" (because it was published in The Lancet). I of course then had the delicious revenge soon thereafter when I could contact him and point out that the Lancet paper was shown to be a fraud, and retracted! So on that basis I could make a (nevertheless fallacious) Appeal to Uncertainty and conclude that HCQ must be safe and surely worked! But we both would be making fallacious arguments: he an Appeal to Authority, and me an Appeal to Unreliability! Neither argument, of course, has any traction whatever for evaluating the claim for HCQ.
~~~~~~~~~~
And while I'm at it, here's another fallacy that is most annoying: the labeling fallacy. Maybe experts on logical argument would consider that I am stretching it a little when I call it a fallacy, so OK, I could label it something else. But it is the labeling problem I want to expose! Again and again I see mere labeling, that is, name-calling, presented as an argument. It's a variant of ad hominem, but the labelling is applied in a wider sense. Here is an example (slightly edited for clarity from the Substack comments, and italics added):
Celia Farber wrote, in The Truth Barrier on SubStack, Dec. 17, 2022
If we don’t react to Twitter Files part 6, in all its hideous implications, it means that Americans, in 2022, identify as East Germans, circa 1969....
I’m not sure what to say. This is a communist country, with better food.
georgie&donny
Writes Georgie&Donnys Newsletter
I'm gonna dispute the better food. It's communism but with much much more hormone laden meat and junk food to fatten you up and keep you fat, sick and on drugs for the rest of your lives. We're not much further behind our role models in the UK- 2/3rds of us are overweight or obese
Peter Webster
Writes KOSMOS
These are symptoms of capitalism, not communism.
georgie&donny
they are symptoms of totalitarianism whatever it's label, central control of the health, lives and spending of the people
Peter Webster
so why call it communism?
georgie&donny [attempting an escape]
er I didn't, I was quoting Celia
Peter Webster replying to georgie&donny
you must have left out the "quotation marks" ;>)
AL
Oh stop it. You must not have read the article.
Celia Farber
That's my word. The WEF Schwab crowd are devoted communists. This all has nothing to do with "capitalism." We will discuss.
Peter Webster replying to Celia Farber
I might've agreed a few years back, but then I read Joel Kovel's excellent look at capitalism, The Enemy of Nature, see
Also we see that increasingly, capitalism is Shock Doctrine everywhere it can get its dirty mits on a scene.
Sixway
It doesn't matter what label you give any government or group of people. The longer they are in power, the more evil and corrupt they become. The labels are meaningless and they are all the same in the end. The only good form of government is voluntary.
macDuff [attempting a re-definition of the term]
you're right. what we call communism is the elites telling us that we're going to be communist while they're going to keep all of the money, and what they call capitalism is us needing to save up money that they're always diminishing while they can always just sign again and have money for nothing when they're doing things that will ensure that they can't lose.
We're not making out quite as well as the two monty python folks who are moving mud and shit from point a to b and then b to a until King Arthur comes along and represses them personally. [An aside: view that hilarious scene here.]
Peter Webster
Under Communism you have a dictatorship, and you know exactly who the dictator is. Under capitalism you have a dictatorship, but you haven't a clue exactly who is doing the dictating. Under Communism you aren't free, and you are perfectly aware of that. Under capitalism you aren't free, and you haven't a clue that you are not...
TheQuieterOne
Writes Final hour
Indeed. It's amusing that censorship is and has long been happening, without respite, in capitalist democracies for decades but some can still only frame the situation using the perspective produced by the tireless indoctrination of that same system. There is nothing specifically communist or socialist about it. The facts are right here, smacking us in the face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the foregoing it is evident that, at least on SubStack, there are a few there who take exchanges of ideas seriously. Twitter, by contrast seems mostly a wasteland of ersatz one-liners. And... fallacies galore that even Wikipedia hasn't classified.
Communism, communism (small c), totalitarianism, authoritarianism, dictatorship, fascism, these and many others are the labels casually thrown around on various forums by many, including people who should know better, or rather, maybe they know exactly what they are doing which is intentionally activating certain switches in the minds of targeted readers not to inform or enlighten, or stimulate thinking, but rather the opposite. None of these labels mean a damn thing unless they are rigorously defined. I don't mind it if the given definition is not in accord with what my definition would be, as long as we (both) know exactly what the terms mean relative to the ongoing exchange.
Is Celia Farber saying that WEF Schwabistas (one of my own favorite lables!) are working towards ownership of the means of production by the workers? <snort>
And are Georgie&Donnys saying that totalitarianism is a system of government where citizens are forced to eat McDo's "hormone laden meat and junk food to fatten you up and keep you fat, sick and on drugs for the rest of your lives." ???
Wikipedia? It doesn't get more leftist than that except for the communist manifesto. Communism or capitalism or whatever ism? The object of living free is to never be psychologically attached to any ism.
Really interesting and thought provoking...