FALLACY: Red Herring

Have you ever been in the middle of a discussion and found yourself asking something like this: "How in the world did we get on the subject of pumpkin pie when we were talking about cartoons?" Or you start out with a disagreement about where to eat lunch, and it turns into a yelling match about who broke the mp3 player and whether or not it's your turn to do the dishes?

This is called going off on a tangent. In logic, it's known as a RED HERRING. This is named after a type of pungent fish. Probably because the stinky fish would confuse dogs trying to track a fox or criminal. It would throw them off of the original scent.

A RED HERRING fails to prove the conclusion because it's irrelevant, it just tries to change or confuse the topic, it tries to throw you off the scent. It's a distraction, often an emotional one. In this way, appeal to consequences, appeal to emotion and other fallacies fall under the category of red herrings.

You may find it hard to ignore the red herring and might feel obliged to abandon your original point to try to address the new one. This often happens in online disagreements. Someone might introduce a string of red herrings in an attempt to "win" the argument by upsetting, undermining or distracting you until you forget what you were discussing in the first place.

Why are you upset that I stepped on your glasses? A hundred people died in Iraq today.

You want the government to help people who can't afford health care. So, you favor death panels?

You didn't lock the door when I asked you. You never listen to anything I say.

A common saying with regards to a red herring is, "What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?" It's a silly way of saying that the person's comment has nothing to do with the original topic.

Something to think about, however, is that the red herring might be psychologically or emotionally connected to the conclusion in the mind of the individual. Sometimes understanding red herrings -- and getting past them -- requires filling in the blanks. It might also require defusing the emotions involved.

You didn't lock the door when I asked you.
You didn't remember to feed the cats after I reminded you.
You hit your brother again when I told you to stop.
You won't look up from your book when I'm talking to you.
I'm beginning to feel like you never listen to anything I say.

I'm sorry. I'm listening to you now. Please tell me everything I missed.

In politics, one type of red herring is called the OCTOBER SURPRISE. This is when information is released, or something special happens, just before elections in November. The intent is to distract voters from more serious issues and influence the outcome of the election.

Emails have surfaced which show that the candidate was flirting with his secretary. Was he having an affair?

We just discovered that the candidate hired an illegal immigrant to do yard work last year. Did she know he was illegal, and did she hire others?

Red herrings are also a kind of plot device used in books, TV and movies, to distract the reader or viewer from figuring out what's going on, or to keep you from solving the mystery before the end.

I thought the brother was the murderer, because he looked so creepy. But the butler did it.

The princess found a key, and I thought it would open the magic door. Turns out, it was just a red herring.

Subjective and objective truth

Let's take a moment to talk about truth. After all, the whole idea behind this logic stuff is to discover the truth, right?

Something to keep in mind is that there is SUBJECTIVE TRUTH and OBJECTIVE TRUTH.

SUBJECTIVE TRUTH is true for the subject. In other words, your subjective truth is true for you, but your mom or your best friend might have a different truth. Subjective truth has to do with feelings, perspectives, hopes and desires.

That song is terrible.
I love that song.

This movie is great.
This movie was boring.

Playing baseball makes life worthwhile.
Music makes life worthwhile.

However, OBJECTIVE TRUTH is what it is, regardless of your thoughts, feelings or beliefs about it.

There are 5,280 feet in one mile.

2 + 2 = 4

Mount Vernon was the home of George Washington, located on the banks of the Potomac River.

Logical fallacies often often arise when subjective truth -- emotion, fear, belief, preference -- is taken as fact, reality, or objective truth. But that doesn't mean subjective truth is always bad, and objective truth is always good. People's feelings, beliefs and opinions are very important to them. Even if you can prove them wrong with logic, you may not be right.

Santa Claus is real. Everyone knows that. If you don't believe in Santa, you won't get any presents, and then you'll be sorry.

That's appeal to popularity, appeal to consequences, and appeal to emotion. That doesn't prove there's a Santa Claus.

I don't need to prove it. I get presents from Santa every Christmas. You're mean, and a know-it-all. I don't want to be your friend anymore.

It's important to know when to apply logic -- such as when you are making business decisions, choosing between political candidates, watching an advertisement, writing a scientific paper, etc. -- and when logic is not appropriate -- such as when you might upset your friends. Highly emotional topics like religion, love, death, etc., do not respond well to logic.

It's also important to know that logic can be applied to something and still come up with two completely different, sound and valid, conclusions.

They only spent $2,000 making that movie.
There were no experienced actors in it.
The script was written by high school students.
Therefore, I didn't enjoy it.

The movie made me laugh.
It was unusual.
The actors and writers are my friends.
Therefore, I liked it.

FALLACY: Ad Populum

APPEAL TO POPULARITY, or "Ad Populum," is similar to Appeal to Belief. An Appeal to Popularity is the fallacy of thinking something is true, good or correct, because it is popular.

Let's look at the difference:

Appeal to belief = Humans only use 10% of their brains. Everyone knows that.

Appeal to popularity = Our pills will help you tap into the unused 90% of your brain. Just ask the thousands of people who use them every day.

By the way, humans use 100% of their brains. The "10% of the brain" claim is an urban myth -- a false story perpetuated in modern times via advertising, email and media, and repeated so often that it's assumed to be true.

Here are more examples of appeal to popularity:

"I have thousands of letters in my office from people who approve of the war on terror, so it's obvious that we are doing the right thing."

"Four out of five people surveyed say our pizza tastes the best."

"Our school policies are excellent. Most parents like these policies."

Approval is not evidence of truth or goodness. But humans are often uncomfortable going against the majority. If you can convince a person that everyone else likes something, he or she will usually decide to like it too. Another term for this is PEER PRESSURE.

Appeal to Popularity is how fads are started. A fad is a temporary, often intense, interest in something that really has no inherent value. It becomes popular just because "everyone is doing it." Bell bottom pants. Smoking cigarettes. Beanie Babies. Webkinz. Silly Bandz. Can you think of any other fads?

FALLACY: Appeal to consequences

APPEAL TO CONSEQUENCES is when consequences are suggested as a reason why something is true or false. In other words, "Agree with me, or there will be terrible consequences."

You should clean your room or the zombies will eat you.

Remember, a fallacy is when premises do not support or prove the conclusion. Appealing to consequences is a fallacy when those consequences make no sense, when they have nothing to do with the truth of the idea or belief.

I love Santa Claus.
If Santa Claus wasn't real, I'd be sad.
Therefore, Santa must be real.

Whether something makes you sad or not has nothing to do with whether it is true or not. It either exists, or does not, independently of how you feel about it.

WISHFUL THINKING is a special kind of appeal to consequences. This is when people make conclusions based on what they want, what they like, or what makes them happy, instead of based on facts. Wishing something is true doesn't make it true.

Barack Obama should be elected president, because he will fix all of our country's problems.

I shouldn't have to do all this schoolwork because I'd rather be playing.

We might wish that one person can fix all of our problems, but is that really going to happen? And just because you'd rather be playing video games, is that proof you shouldn't be learning? This fallacy is similar to the Appeal to Belief fallacy. It is also similar to the Appeal to Emotion fallacy.

God must exist, otherwise life has no meaning and there would be no reason to be a good person. That would be terrible.

Let's look at the above argument in the form of a syllogism.

Life has no meaning without god.
There is no other source of information about how to be happy and good, except the god in the New Testament of the Christian bible.
Without the threat of hell and the promise of everlasting life, people would do evil things.
Therefore, god must exist.

This argument is neither sound nor valid. There are many good people who live happy, meaningful lives while not believing in one particular god or another. They might believe there is no god, or they might believe in several gods, or they might believe that there is a creator of the universe but that it doesn't bother dealing with our daily affairs. One cannot prove the existence of their particular god by suggesting that the absence of such a deity would be disastrous. Some people might even suggest that believing in god is disastrous, because much violence, hatred and injustice in the world is perpetuated on god's behalf.

Here are some more statements which appeal to consequences:

We must go to war in Iraq, or else terrorists will destroy our country with weapons of mass destruction.

We must pass this health care bill, otherwise hundreds of people will die.

Either of these statements might be true or false, depending on who you ask. But if you want to look at them logically, they are invalid. They not only attempt to appeal to your emotions and appeal to your fears, they suggest horrible consequences as proof of their premises.

Another form of this fallacy is an APPEAL TO FORCE, when the threat of force is given as a reason to support the truth of the conclusion, or when the threat of force is used to win an argument.

You had better agree with the new company policy or you will lose your job.

Accept Jesus as your savior or you will burn in hell.

The threat of force can be used not just as a fallacy, but as a way to physically suppress one side of a debate. Some governments do this by arresting or killing people who disagree with government policies. This is why our Bill of Rights guarantees us the legal right to Free Speech, Free Press, Free Assembly, and the Right to Bear Arms, so that citizens are free to disagree with the government, without fear of imprisonment or death.

Individuals and groups also use the threat of real physical force to silence others. They might threaten to harm a person who disagrees with them, or they might disrupt a meeting in order to keep others from being heard.

FALLACY: Appeal to belief

APPEAL TO BELIEF happens when you conclude something is true just because many people believe, or agree, that it's true.

Of course God exists. Are you trying to tell me that millions of people are wrong?

If you sail to the edge of the world, you will fall off. Everyone knows that.

Remember that logical reasoning is about finding the truth. Whether one person or a thousand or a million people believe something, does not make it true. Truth is not a contest you win by having the highest number of votes. You can believe that the sky is green, and you might even be able to convince others. But no matter how many people you convince, the sky is still blue. Or gray, during a storm. Or black, at night. Or orange, at sunset.

Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying, "If you call a horse's tail a 'leg,' then how many legs does it have? The answer is still four, because calling a horse's tail a leg doesn't make it one." Or, in other words, you can't make something true just by thinking so, even if other people agree with you.

Or can you?

Forcing, or enforcing, something to be true is what we do when we make laws and rules. For example, in our neighborhood, the residents decided that cars should drive no faster than 25 miles per hour. So the city was petitioned and new speed limits were set. Enough people believed that the speed limit should be 25 mph, and so it became 25 mph.

Everyone in my neighborhood thinks we should drive 25 mph.
We all signed the petition.
The city lowered the speed limit to 25mph.
Therefore, our neighborhood is now a safer place.

While sound (all the premises are true) it is not a valid argument (the conclusion does not follow from the premises). So, what would be a valid argument? How about something like this:

This neighborhood has many children who play in, or near, the street.
Drivers going 25 mph instead of 35 mph will make it easier for children to get out of the way of oncoming cars.
Driving 25mph will make it easier for drivers to stop if a child runs out into the street.
The city lowered the speed limit to 25mph.
Therefore, our neighborhood is now a safer place.

Examine some of the following beliefs, which were held to be true by large numbers of people at various times in our history (and some are still believed by many people in the world, today):

Slavery is the natural state of mankind.

Women's sphere is in the home, not in politics.

A person will be sick if their humors are not in balance.

The sun revolves around the earth.

Irish people are lazy, contentious drunks.

People of different races or religions should not marry.

Being homosexual is an offense against nature.

Marijuana use is evil.

God is good.

Space aliens visit earth on a regular basis and abduct people.

Whether lots of people agree or disagree with these statements doesn't make the statements any more or less true, logically speaking. Valid conclusions require premises which offer proof. "Because lots of people say so" is not proof. Just ask Columbus or Galileo.