The Family

 

 

The history of science is the history of successive approximations.

~Robert Burton

A Catalogue of Horrors

One of my favorite fallacies to point out is the red herring. This is a fallacy in which an arguer lends support to his/her conclusion by providing an irrelevant (and diversionary) detail in order to distract people from the issue at hand. In other words, it's a form of throwing the argument "off track" by making a comment or point that is only weakly related to the main point—or maybe not related at all. It's derailing the argument.

A comic containing a red herring

I'm sure you've heard more than a few red herrings during the course of your studies. Given that a large number of my friends are teachers, I certainly have no shortage of stories where one student derails the conversation by bringing up something that is only loosely related to the topic at hand. (Maybe you're the one that has derailed the conversation!) For example, in one of my friend's classrooms, the topic for the lesson was variation in sexual practices in different cultures. One student, however, only wanted to talk about the tendency of one gender—guess which one!—to philander. Per my friend, almost nothing of substance was covered that day.

Examples of red herring arise in various other domains, of course. In his book on critical thinking, Randy Firestone (2019) gives some examples in the political arena. For example, according to Firestone, a politician who argues that we should vote for him/her merely because they have the most experience might be committing a red herring. This is because experience alone is not what (should) count in politics. We obviously need their time in office to have been productive and honorable. In other words, all else being equal, if two politicians have been in office for 10 years but one has done basically nothing of worth and is associated with several scandals, we should prefer the non-scandalous politician. To steer the conversation towards a discussion of experience is to divert the conversation so that it lacks any substance.

Here's one more. I was once at a coffee shop engaging in one of my favorite pastimes, eavesdropping, when I caught wind of the following tragically comical conversation:

A: Raising the minimum wage will only make the cost of everything go up. Pretty soon a carton of milk will cost $20.
B: Wouldn't that only happen if lots of people spent their extra income primarily on milk? Like a supply-and-demand kind of thing?
A: Exactly.
B: But I just don't think that enough people will actually buy more milk than they need so as to drive the price up. Right?
A (realizing he has no idea what he's talking about): Well it's always the same thing: people want something for nothing.

In all honesty, neither one of the speakers had any idea what they were talking about. But in the very least B did raise a good point in his first question: it's not entirely clear that the price of milk in particular will skyrocket due to a rise in minimum wage. And it's also not clear that a whole lot more milk will be purchased if people have more expendable income. What is clear is that A tried to change the subject at a certain point. He tried to transition to a discussion about how people don't want to work but still want money. That is not at all a response to the sensible economic question that B raised. That is merely derailing the conversation. That is, in other words, a red herring.

Begging the question is another one of my faves. This is a fallacy that occurs when an arguer presents an argument for a conclusion and one of the premises supporting the conclusion is the conclusion itself. In other words, this is the fallacy where the support for one's conclusion is just restating the conclusion. I've unfortunately seen this firsthand as well. While at a conference, I heard a talk where the speaker presented evidence from Mazzucato (2015) that argues that the US government has actually been pretty good at spending taxpayer money to develop new technologies that modernized our lives. To this, someone asserted that the government is always inept and always just wastes money. The speaker, looking confused, said something like, "I just gave you a bunch of evidence that what you said is not true. Why do you think the government is always inept?" And then, I kid you not, the person objecting said, "Because they are always inept." Do you see the fallacy? The conclusion is "The government is always inept at spending taxpayer money." When asked for evidence of this, all that was given was "The government is always inept at spending taxpayer money." This is as circular as it gets. Here's the argument in standard form:

1. The government is always inept at spending taxpayer money.
2. ∴ The government is always inept at spending taxpayer money.

 

A comic containing slippery slope

Another good one is the slippery slope fallacy. This is a fallacy in which an arguer claims that if one event (or action) is allowed to occur, then it will inevitably lead to a series of events (or actions) that are much more extreme and undesirable. My favorite example of this betrays my old age. Back in 2008, we had the debate over Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition and state constitutional amendment that was intended to ban same-sex marriage. Fifty-two percent of California voters ultimately said yes to Prop 8, thereby banning gay marriage in the state (until it was overturned in 2010). That's all ancient history. What I can't forget, though, is the arguments I heard against gay marriage. They were preposterous. Some argued—I'm not making this up—that if you allowed gay marriage, then the next logical step would be to allow marriage between a human and a non-human animal, like a goat. Some even said that the state would eventually have to allow marriage between a human and an inanimate object, like a pizza, if gay marriage was allowed. It was bananas. As I hope you can see, these are slippery slopes indeed. The idea that gay marriage would eventually lead to pizza marriage seems ludicrous now. But some genuinely argued this way.

As we move to close this section, let me remind you of the false dichotomy fallacy that we were introduced to all the way back in Three Red Flares. This is a fallacy in which an arguer portrays the issue as if there are only two tenable viewpoints when, in fact, there are other tenable viewpoints. In other words, when someone says, "It's either A or B" and there's clearly an option C, D, etc., then that's a false dichotomy. For example, once I heard (also while eavesdropping) someone say this, "Either I'm right and you're wrong, or you're right and I'm wrong." Having actually heard the conversation, I can tell you that it was option C: they were both wrong. Similarly, given that you might be thinking about how you're going to spend the rest of your life, someone recently might've told you that you can only either have a career you hate but that pays well or a career you love but pays poorly. That's a false dichotomy. I've got news for you: you might get a job you both hate and that pays you poorly (but hopefully not!).

It goes without saying that, as members of the Council of 27, you must attempt to rise above fallacious reasoning. Here. We. Go.

Argument Extraction

 

 

 

Tailored Fit

Recall that in today's reading there was mention of eugenics, the study of how to arrange reproduction so as to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Eugenics is, for my money, not going to work quite like some of the early practitioners—who, in a weird twisted way, did actually want to help people—thought it would work. It's probably more likely to inspire another genocide, like it did during World War II. Thus, I won't cover it further in this course. However, in this section we will return to the topic of genes. In particular, we'll return to the scientists covered in the last lesson, The Distance of the Planets, and their radical(?) ideas.

Marx
Karl Marx (1818-1883).

Recall that there is a knee-jerk reaction among some leftists to the suggestion that there is individual variation on cognitive traits and traits that might lead to differential performance on fiscal matters. That's all a fancy way of saying that some leftists don't like when theorists provide evidence that some differences in intelligence, temperament, openness to new experiences, etc., are based on our biology rather than our upbringing. The concern for these leftists appears to be that if there is a biological explanation for the differences in the aforementioned traits, then that might be used as an argument to justify the status quo, i.e., the social inequality of the modern age. However, in the last lesson we also covered the is/ought distinction, the view that no amount of empirical claims can ever justify a moral conclusion. So, the leftists' concern is probably unfounded. It appears that we can both accept and learn from science about individual variation and we can reject the social inequality of the modern day. This, by the way, is quite a happy outcome: we can embrace the most up-to-date scientific findings and(!) also be concerned about social inequities (without being inconsistent!).

I'd like to further convince you of this today. If the concern was that the aforementioned biological findings might be used to justify the status quo, then these leftists were flat-out wrong. The very scientists whose work I reported on last time have their own ideas for how to make our institutions and society more rational. In other words, they are concerned about inequity, and they have ideas that they want to share—ideas that the leftists seem to have not even tried to listen to. We can begin with Richard Haier, whose work on the relationship between genes and intelligence I reported on. If a lefist would've made the argument that Haier was trying to justify why some are poor and others are rich, i.e., because the former are less intelligent, then this leftist is wrong. Haier is actually concerned about what he calls neuropoverty. In the following passage, he explains what it is and how it can perhaps be treated with further developments in neuroscience:

“…the normal distribution of IQ scores with a mean 100 and a standard deviation of 15 estimates that 16% of people will score below an IQ of 85 (the minimum for military service in the USA). In the USA, about 51 million people have IQs lower than 85 through no fault of their own. There are many useful, affirming jobs available for these individuals, usually at low wages, but generally they are not strong candidates for college or for technical training in many vocational areas. Sometimes they are referred to as a permanent underclass, although this term is hardly ever explicitly defined by low intelligence. Poverty and near-poverty for them is a condition that may have some roots in the neurobiology of intelligence beyond anyone’s control.

Here is the second most provocative sentence in this book: The uncomfortable concept of ‘treating’ neuro-poverty by enhancing intelligence based on neurobiology, in my view, affords an alternative, optimistic concept for positive change as neuroscience research advances. This is contrasted to the view that programs which target only social/cultural influences on intelligence can diminish cognitive gaps and overcome biological/genetic influences. The weight of the evidence suggests a neuroscience approach might be even more effective as we learn more about the roots of intelligence. I am not arguing that neurobiology alone is the only approach, but it should not be ignored in favor of SES-only approaches” (Haier 2019: 196-198; emphasis in original).

In other words, Haier is making the case that there are necessarily some who are going to score very low on intelligent tests. They are not strong candidates for well-paying jobs, and society (as it is currently organized) gives them no added safety net. Thus, as neuroscience advances, we should attempt to identify and "treat" these individuals, attempting to boost their intelligence in whatever way the latest technology allows us to. Put differently, it is cruel to leave those who are below-average intelligence through no fault of their own to fend for themselves. We must find them and help them, using the science that our taxpayer dollars funds.

But wait! There's more! Haier then discusses the work of Kathryn Asbury and Robert Plomin, both behavioral geneticists. They suggest tailoring the educational environment to help each student learn core material in a way that is likely best suited to that student’s genetic endowment. Basically, genetic research could accomplish the goal of individualized education: neurally-tailored educational programs for each and every student so that they actually learn(!). Haier quotes the authors:

“We aim to treat all children with equal respect and provide them with equal opportunities, but we do not believe that all our pupils are the same. Children come in all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of talents and personalities. It’s time to use the lessons of behavioral genetics to create a school system that celebrates and encourages this wonderful diversity” (Asbury and Plomin 2014, as quoted in Haier 2019: 198).

Haier isn't done yet. What about college? Here's Haier again:

“The idea that every high school student be held to a graduation standard of four-year college-readiness, irrespective of mental ability, is naïve and grossly unfair to those students for whom this expectation is unrealistic. Remember, statistically half of the high school student population has an IQ score of 100 or lower, making college work considerably difficult even in highly motivated individuals. It is similarly naïve and unfair to evaluate teachers by student test score changes when many tests are largely de facto measures of general intelligence rather than of the amount of course material learned over a short time period. Perhaps the greatest disservice to students will come from purposefully increasing the difficulty of evaluation tests by requiring more complex thinking to get the right answers... In principle, there is nothing wrong with evaluation testing or having high expectations and standards. These examples, however, illustrate the consequences of ignoring what we know about intelligence from empirical studies when crafting well-intentioned policies for education, especially those policies that assume thinking skills can be taught to the same degree to all students, or that buying iPads for everyone in the education system will increase school achievement” (Haier 2019: 199; emphasis in original).

 

Haier's The Neuroscience of Intelligence

Haier is saying, in short, that it is unfair and frankly mean-spirited to funnel everyone into college, since some are simply not prepared and can probably not become sufficiently prepared to be successful. It's unfair for students. It's unfair for teachers. It's an unscientific and naive way to operate an educational system.

Now you can agree or disagree with Haier's ideas. (It's more fun if you do.) However(!), here's the main point of this section. Haier is not trying to justify the status quo. Rather, he is recommending that we radically alter it. So, if one wants to object to Haier's idea, one must object to the ideas that Haier actually espouses. In other words, one would have to respond to the ideas in the preceding paragraphs. To respond to something else is to fall right into an informal fallacy, whether it be a strawman argument, a red herring, a slippery slope, you name it.

Last time, we also saw some comments from neuroscientist David Eagleman. In fact his comments on the differences between the genders gave the last lesson its name. Quite the contrary to leftist concerns of justifying the status quo, Eagleman makes some radical recommendations for reforming the social justice system: neurally-tailored sentencing. Here's some Food for thought...

 

 

So, there are some radical ideas for altering society given the latest neuroscience. Moreover, it looks like these topics themselves have been off-limits, shut down by good-hearted but misguided individuals. To be clear, it makes sense to be weary of some of these topics—to be a little guarded. But being so close-minded so as to not even consider some potential social benefits from, say, the neuroscience of intelligence is the epitome of not being a good critical thinker. And it looks like it's political ideology that got in the way of being able to accurately process information.

So much for the leftists. Time to go after the right-wing.

 

 

 

Do Stuff

  • Read from 460a-468e (149-160) of Republic.

 

 

To be continued...

 

FYI

Suggested Reading: Wikipedia entry on the History of the Race and Intelligence Controversy

TL;DR: CrashCourse, Controversy of Intelligence

Supplemental Material—

Related Material—

Advanced Material—

For full lecture notes, suggested readings, and supplementary material, go to rcgphi.com.