Thanks, Big Pharma!

When I went to see a doctor last summer, I was asked whether I was taking any medications. Specifically, the doctor wanted to know if I was taking anything for my blood pressure, as it was running a bit high. I told the doctor that I used to, but I had stopped.

She looked at me a bit puzzled and asked me why.

I didn't have a good answer.

I figured it was time to get back on track with my blood pressure after my last dentist appointment. The poor hygienist had to check it three times until it was finally low enough for it be okay to start my teeth cleaning. (I don't know why I need to have low blood pressure when they clean my teeth, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason.) She also asked me about any medications, and once again I had to confess that I had stopped taking medication several years ago for no good reason.

When I made my first appointment with my new doctor (as my wife and I are on a new insurance provider) I was asked yet again why I had stopped taking my medication. I actually had an answer, and I went with an honest one - I was simply being stupid.

The thing is, my blood pressure has always run a bit high. I'm fairly certain that it runs high on both sides of my family as well. Yeah, I could lose some weight, but that's been the case for some time. I'd still like to do that, but who knows if losing weight would fix the problem? It might not. And until then, it's probably better to take care of it if there's something that can be done.

So, why was I being so stupid? I don't know. For some reason, I didn't feel good about having to take medication. I felt like I was some kind of a failure for not getting my weight under control. Also, when I would tell certain friends and family members that I was on blood pressure medication, they would look at me like I just admitted to developing a crack habit.

It's kinda crazy when I think about it now. I'm not going to single people out, but more than one indicated that it was probably a bad idea - that it would be better to try and get it down "naturally". (Not sure why "naturally" is automatically a better option. In fact, that very notion is an outright fallacy.) I was also told that the pharmaceutical industry (or "Big Pharma", ya know) was only interested in making money, so they have people convinced that they need these pills in order to turn a profit.

I don't doubt for a moment that they want to make money. But making money and providing a valuable product aren't mutually exclusive ideas. Having high blood pressure is understood as being a potential problem. What's wrong with them making money off of something that's minimizing my risks in life?

The thing is, I'm ultra critical of ridiculous ideas, but I try to be sympathetic toward people who have them. After all, I'm not immune from having them myself. I feel pretty dumb that I stopped taking my medication because of some pretty groundless objections.

The doctor got me back on it (Lisinopril) and after a slight adjustment, my blood pressure is back in the healthy zone. I seemed to have a bit of a reaction to it at first. At least, it might have been. Let's just say that I was having some digestion issues. However, that's all over now, and I seem to have adjusted to the medication (assuming that it was the problem in the first place).

I'm definitely not going to stop taking it unless my doctor tells me to. I feel good about it, and I'm not going to let anybody make me second guess something that benefits my health. (And I'm also getting to the point where I find it hard to take anybody seriously who sincerely uses the term "Big Pharma".)

The Argument from Authority

Years ago when I worked at a dotcom, there seemed to be a lot of my fellow coworkers who were believed that aliens were visiting us and doing all sorts of things from leaving crop circles to rectally probing people. I remember having a debate with a couple of people who were insistent that all of that were true, and one woman used as her trump card that she heard "a guy from the C.I.A." who said that it was all happening.

I pointed out that she was using an argument from authority fallacy (technically, it's an argument from an anonymous authority), but as I've mentioned before, pointing out logical fallacies only has an effect if you're talking to somebody who's playing by the rules of logic in the first place. It's not too hard to figure out why this is a fallacy. What if I got another guy from the C.I.A. who said that it wasn't happening? (He's part of the cover-up, obviously!) Sure, it very well may be possible that it is happening, but I need some actual evidence if I'm going to believe something so incredible. Simply having some guy with some insider government information (that he's rather reckless about spilling to the average person) claim that it's so doesn't make it so.

Essentially, the argument from authority is the adult version of: "My mom said (x) is true!" I remember that I once had a student tell me that Catholics weren't Christians because her grandmother said that they weren't. I had to gently tell her that her grandmother was wrong. As we get older, we tend to give automatic credence to doctors, scientists, etc. without necessarily checking to see what their specific credentials are or if they actually have evidence to back up their claims. Nothing is true simply because an authority figure says it's true.

I can imagine that somebody might object here and point out that I often point out the scientific consensus when it comes to things like evolution, climate change, and GMOs in order to make my point, and thus, I make the argument from authority fallacy. While I do point out the consensus, I'm not guilty of making the fallacy as I'm not trying to make the case that evolution is true, climate change is happening, and GMOs are safe because the scientific consensus says so. In the case of each of those, the evidence speaks for itself, and you don't need expert opinions to figure that out.

Then why bring it up at all? I do so because it's an interesting challenge, and when I refer to the scientific consensus, I refer to a consensus of scientists who are experts in those particular fields because ultimately the person who is arguing the opposing side is asserting that they have an understanding that the experts don't. For instance, if somebody denies anthropogenic climate change, they're implying that they understand the science better than the vast majority of climate scientists. It very well may be the case that they do, but when I bring it up, I'm asking them to explain what it is that they get that the experts don't get. Usually in this case, you can expect an evasion.

I once got into a conversation with a creationists about a TV special featuring Stephen Hawking. In it, Hawking gave his reasons for why the universe doesn't need a creator in order for it to exist. The creationist called Hawking's conclusion "laughable". My response was to ask what, exactly, did Hawking get wrong as far as the science was concerned. He brought up the fact that Hawking didn't mention things like "evidence from design", which still doesn't address the question. Did he really think that Hawking had never heard that before? Same goes with people when I talk about GMOs; they will express that more testing needs to be done, but that implies that they understand something about the process that the majority of geneticists understand, since they are saying that they're safe. Again, the critics might be right, but if they are, they should be able to explain why their understanding is better - preferably with an actual geneticist in the room.

Bringing up what the experts say isn't a logical fallacy so long as you're not using it as the reason as to why something is true. It's simply a way of getting people to address the specific arguments and offer any evidence to the contrary. The problem comes in when people use the opinion of an authority figure as evidence, their authority figures aren't even experts on the particular subject, or the authority figure isn't even named in the first place (like our mysterious C.I.A. official).

A big problem that comes up with this fallacy is that often the people who constantly use it will assume that you're doing it as well. To be specific, I have had on more than one occasion Christians bringing up the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche to me. Nietzsche is understood to be an atheist, and he was the one who is often quoted as saying that "God is dead". From what I understand, and I very well could be getting this completely wrong as I'm no philosophy expert, his point was that as society moves away from religious faith, humans will struggle to find some sort of intrinsic value to life, as that's what they had with a belief in God. Essentially, the Christian is trying to tell me that since Nietzsche is an atheist, and I'm an atheist, that I should accept his premise and feel that life has no inherent meaning (ultimately as a way of demonstrating that their worldview is superior to mine).

What they don't seem to understand is that if this I don't give a crap what Nietzsche had to say. If he says things with which I agree, then I agree. But if he says something with which I disagree, then I disagree. I'm not going to agree with the guy on everything just because I agree with many of his critiques of religion. More importantly, if I am understanding his premise correctly, I think that it's a false one, as I don't think that people derive intrinsic value from religion. Rather, I think that they have their values and then wind up ascribing them, after the fact, to their religious faith.

This doesn't just happen with Nietzsche. I've had a theist tell me that Richard Dawkins thinks that atheists should embrace the idea of being "militant" after I said that was a ridiculous thing to do. I suppose the person thought that I was going to find myself in some sort of difficult position of sticking with what I said and contradicting Richard Dawkins. Fortunately for me, I have no problem disagreeing with the man. (I personally think that calling ourselves "brights" is pretentious as all hell, for instance.) I guess what many theists don't seem to understand is that atheists - or to be more specific - skeptics don't have any authority figures. We might have people we admire, but if Lawrence Krauss (another atheist I admire) started talking tomorrow about how we need to wear tinfoil hats to protect us from alien mindreaders, then I'll have no problem saying that Krauss is off his nut. (That is, of course, unless he provides objective and verifiable evidence.)

An even better example of this misunderstanding comes up in the movie God's Not Dead. The setup for the film is a Christian student takes a philosophy class with a professor who insists that the kids sign a statement declaring that "God is dead" in order to pass the class. (Something which has never happened and would be criticized by even some of the most strident atheists.) During the film, he debates his professor on the existence of God, only to get the professor to admit that the problem is that he's mad at God, which makes him not an atheist at all (but I digress).

I hesitate to give this movie any publicity, even if it's the 30-100 hits my blog posts get. I also must admit that I haven't seen it, but a friend told me about it, and I've read so many reviews of it that my point still stands. If anybody has seen it, and it turns out that I'm getting something wrong, please let me know. (And if you want a very thorough analysis of the film, check out what the Camels with Hammers blog, written by an actual atheist philosophy professor, has to say.)

From what I've read, the arguments that the two throw at each other consist of little more than arguments from authority. The professor quotes the likes of Dawkins and Hawking, and then he's dumbfounded that the student (the hero of the film) isn't impressed by the credentials of those he quotes. In other words, he is unable to make any arguments of his own. He can't even seem to paraphrase what others have said.

Perhaps there are atheists out there who only parrot what prominent nonbelievers have said, but that's not the way most of the ones I know come to their conclusions. I was an atheist long before I ever heard of Richard Dawkins or many of today's prominent nonbelievers. Sometimes I will quote one of them, not as a way of providing what I think is evidence, but because I think that they have made a true statement in as clear a manner as possible, and for me to use my own words would be to run the risk of being less articulate. A prime example includes Christopher Hitchens, who said: "That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."

It's not true because he said it. It's true because it simply makes sense. Why should I have to go digging for evidence to disprove something for which no evidence has been provided? A basic tenet of logic is that the person making a claim about something is the one who has the burden of proof to provide evidence, not the other way around. (I guess I ought to write my next logical fallacy post on the burden of proof.) In other words, Kermit the frikken' Frog could have said it, and I'd still quote it. Shoot, I bet you could easily compile a list of Hitchens quotes with which I do NOT agree, but that has no impact on the fact that I like what he said that one particular time.

I suppose that I can understand why I run into this problem with so many theists in particular. Their entire belief structure is based on the words of an authority, so naturally they assume that I must be doing something similar. Even when people get away from theism though, they run the danger of replacing one authority (The Bible - or somebody's interpretation of it) with another (like the Food Babe or some other mountebank).

The good news is that it's very possible to not fall into this particular line of fallacious thinking. As Lawrence Krauss said, when speaking of the scientific method:

There are no scientific authorities. That's a key point. There are scientific experts. But there's no one whose views are not subject to question. And that's the key point. And there's no student that should ever be afraid of saying to a professor in a science class, "You're wrong and here's why."

If you can't be wrong, you're probably wrong.

I accept the current science behind anthropogenic climate change and that the world is getting progressively warmer. If the next ten years shows a rapid decrease in average global temperatures, and we see an increase in arctic ice, then guess what? It's wrong.

I accept the science of evolution, and I believe that species give rise to new species through natural selection. If a squirrel is found in the same rock layer as a trilobite, then guess what? It's wrong.

I accept the idea that cars require gasoline in order for them to run. If my wife starts putting apple juice in the tank and gets around town just fine, then guess what? It's wrong.

Everything that I accept about the world is subject to being wrong as far as I'm concerned. There are plenty of things where I don't really give it too much likelihood that it will be proven wrong, but I have enough humility to know that my perceptions can be completely off when it comes to discerning what's true and what isn't. I try my best to determine when it comes things where I have a strong opinion (evolution, climate change, etc.) as to exactly what it is that would make me admit that I'm wrong.

Contrast this with some things which I regard to NOT be true and some of the common attitudes you'll find.

There are people who believe that praying to a deity will bring about a miracle, whether it's being cured from an illness or getting out of some financial difficulty. When the prayer doesn't result in the desired result, do they say that the prayer "didn't work"? That's not my experience. Instead, they backtrack and give excuses. They'll say something along the lines of (and I'm quoting from a Facebook post here) "It (the miracle) just might not happen the way he expected it would." Another response goes along the lines of: "IMO, praises and prayers dont fail, sometimes its manifestations may be delayed or prolly you dont have enough faith" (sic).

You can check out an entire page that addresses why God doesn't answer prayers. The reasons include that maybe YOU don't have enough faith (which makes it your fault, ya know), sin, and he's going to get around to it eventually. Nowhere is the most obvious answer, the one that requires the least amount of assumptions, addressed.

In other words, to people like this, there is no way that they can be wrong. When it works, it works. When it doesn't work, it still works. What would convince me that it works? If it worked at a statistical rate that was better than chance. Until then, these explanations appear to me to be nothing more than cop-outs.

A similar situation is with astrology. When a person matches up with the description of his or her astrological sign, then that's proof that it's working. When they don't, well, you have to look at what stars and planets were ascending at the time of the person's birth. Or you have to look at exactly what day and year the person was born. In other words, if it works, it works; if it doesn't work, then you can still get it to work. From what I know, astrology has no criteria that would successfully debunk it for its adherents. (Which is why it split off from an actual science, astronomy, long ago.)

What would make me believe it? If astrologers could give accurate and specific readings based on whatever information they think that they need. From my understanding, every time it's been put to the test, they have failed miserably, as their descriptions are either spectacularly off or too vague to determine its veracity. See the video below to see how these things go. (And it should be noted that a million dollars is waiting for any of them who can successfully demonstrate their claims in controlled conditions. When somebody collects, I'll change my mind.)

I think that the important question, no matter what issue we're talking about, is to ask yourself whether you care or not whether your beliefs are true. If you don't care, well then, you can just ignore all of this. If you do care, then you have to not only be open to changing your mind, but you have to know exactly what WOULD change your mind.

The problem with anecdotes

Years ago while weed-whacking, I mowed up a nest of yellow jackets. They were swarming all around me, but for some reason they didn't attack me, and I didn't get even a single sting. (I wrote about this on another post years ago to make a separate point.) It's a pretty incredible story, and it's even better to hear me tell it in person.

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no evidence that this happened.

Wait...what...how can that be? I lived through it! I was there! I saw the damned things! How can I say that there is no evidence?

Because that's all I have. Now, had somebody been filming it, then maybe I could at least provide you with something that you could verify for yourself. Or if I was willing to go and try it with other yellow jacket nests (I'm not, by the way) and demonstrate my ability to wreak havoc on them sans stings, then you'd have something to evaluate.

But all I have is my story. It's a cool story, but it's not evidence. I'm not saying that you shouldn't believe me, but considering that it's hardly an everyday sort of occurrence, I don't suppose that I'd blame somebody if they didn't.

All I have is an anecdote.

The problem with anecdotes is that people will often submit them AS evidence for whatever phenomenon they're trying to advance as being fact. I was watching a video yesterday between a "psychic" and a professional debunker (I included it below) and the debunker pointed out that there was no evidence. The "psychic" kept saying that there IS evidence, and she cited all of her personal stories (in rather vague terms) as "evidence". What she didn't understand is that that isn't evidence at all because nobody else has any way of confirming what happened.

As a skeptic, I've been told that I "don't accept evidence" for the supernatural when people insist that they've had all kinds of personal experiences from miracles to psychic phenomena to encounters with ghosts and demons. When I try to explain that "anecdotes aren't evidence", I don't seem to get anywhere. I also don't get anywhere when I point to an example of an anecdote for something that they don't believe (My favorite? Sammy Hagar being kidnapped by aliens) and ask them if they count that as "evidence" or not.

Because if anecdotes are evidence then ALL anecdotes must be evidence, not just the ones that confirm what you already believe.

Honestly, I do understand though why people get really insistent when you doubt their personal stories. They take it as a personal attack, as though you're calling them liars. Nobody likes that, but calling somebody a liar and pointing out that they have no evidence for something is not the same thing. Back to my story with the yellow jackets, I suppose I would get a bit annoyed if my close friends called me a liar when told them the story. However, if they point out that I don't have evidence, then why should I get mad? They'd be right.

Try not to misunderstand me here. Just because an anecdote isn't evidence that doesn't mean that it didn't happen, and ultimately it's up to us as to what we believe. For me, I try to have the evidence determine how strong my belief is. My yellow jacket story is unlikely, but it doesn't necessarily break any of the known laws of the universe, and there are various unknown factors that could have contributed to what happened. If I told you that aliens probed my mind though, I would hope that your skepticism would increase as if that story was true, it would certainly change everything we know and understand about the universe in which we live.

Lately, I've tried a new tactic when confronted with people who give anecdotes as evidence. Sometimes they'll just keep giving me more and more, as if ten anecdotes suddenly equal evidence. I have one online friend who apparently lives in the equivalent of Smallville, but instead of visits from various superheroes from the DC Universe, there are miracle healings left and right. I think that he was starting to get frustrated as I was questioning the veracity of these statements.

The strategy that finally seemed to work was when I said that I didn't accept those stories as evidence because I had no way of confirming them one way or the other. All I had was his story and no way to check on it. Evidence is something that can be verified by anybody, and until he gave me something that I could actually check on, I was going to have to remain skeptical.

That seemed to work a bit better. If you're a skeptic like me, and you find that saying "anecdotes aren't evidence" gets you nowhere, try explaining it in those terms. At least then the other person might understand why their story isn't convincing you of anything.

Your logic is useless!

If you've just learned about logical fallacies, you're probably feeling pretty confident that you know how to deconstruct an argument and demonstrate when somebody's reasoning is faulty. Whether it's the post hoc ergo propter hoc, the no true Scotsman, the argument from ignorance, or any of the various other common fallacies that people make on a daily basis, you're ready to get to the truth of the matter.

There's a bit of a problem though.

You're assuming that everybody either knows about logical fallacies or, more importantly, cares about them.

When I first started getting really into skepticism, I would read various debates on usenet, and the skeptics would often point out the fallacies that were being committed by the paranormal advocates. I'm not some rube who's impressed by somebody simply naming off a fallacy, mind you. What convinced me was that they'd not only name them, but they'd explain them and show how the supposed reasoning that the other person was using didn't work by applying it to another example. In other words, my opinions started to change because I was already a pretty logical person, and even more significant, I valued logic.

Obviously, not everybody knows all the logical fallacies by heart, so simply saying to somebody: "You're making a strawman!" isn't going to get you anywhere if they don't know what that means. If the person is reasonable though, then you can correct this by explaining what that means and exactly how they're using it. This might get you somewhere, especially if you're clear that just because a person makes a fallacy, that doesn't mean that he or she is wrong. After all, you can have bad reasons for believing things that are true. If I said that the sun was going to rise tomorrow because it was the will of the monster who lives in my closet, I'd be right about the sun coming up, but I'd be wrong about the reason why.

Still, you might find yourself a bit annoyed, as even this isn't a sure-fire way to go about things. Some of the problems you might encounter include:

1. The other person thinks you're playing some kind of clever word game. I've been accused of  using "rhetoric" instead of making a point, and another person said that I was using words that are impressive in a debate class but don't mean anything in the "real world". Another person once referred to this as being my own personal method of analyzing things. That's very flattering, but I can't take credit for logic.

2. The other person will think that multiple examples of the same fallacy will eventually equal a truth. I get this a lot with "God of the Gaps" style arguments and anecdotes. You can point out that they're making a fallacy, but then they'll give you ten more of the same fallacy. When you take the time to point out that each one on the list is making the same bad bit of reasoning, they act like you're just being stubborn and "nothing will convince you".

3. They think that logic is subjective. I once had a guy tell me that he was using his own logic to reach his conclusions. I can't even...

4. Sometimes the most frustrating of all is a person who knows just enough to be dangerous. They'll throw out the terms without being able to explain how the argument fits the fallacy, or they'll just say, "No, I'm not doing that".

So, you know logic? Good for you. Before you go throwing it around, it's probably best to see if you and the person with an opposite point of view can agree to the rules before you start playing the game though.

The coincidental correlation

Source: Fallacy-a-Day Podcast

I guess that I must be doing a series of posts on logical fallacies, as I've already covered the No True Scotsman, and the Argument from Ignorance. Today I feel the need to write about the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, or Coincidental Correlation, as a number of conversations that I've engaged in lately have left me frustrated with people not recognizing this particular bit of faulty reasoning.

Like most fallacies, it's not too hard to see why people engage in it. We humans are pattern seeking animals, which is something that saved our lives when we discovered the pattern that the big hairy things with sharp teeth regarded us as lunch rather than good friends. Unfortunately, we sometimes see patterns that aren't really patterns at all. Take a look at the clouds sometime. See that rabbit? Yeah, you ain't seeing a rabbit. Your brain is trying to make sense of random data is all.

The "post hoc" argument consists of attributing something to an event that preceded it. For instance, I once had a headache and then I had a bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal. Shortly after I finished it, my headache was gone. Therefore, eating Cap'n Crunch cures headaches, right? Umm...no.

Making these conclusions isn't always a fallacy. When your cat scratches your arm and you bleed, it's perfectly logical to conclude that a cat scratch can make you bleed. The difference between that and the Cap'n Crunch example is that you can explain the mechanism of how a cat's claws cuts through your skin. There is no equivalent to the Capn' Crunch scenario. Plus, there are several other factors that can go into a headache going away - one of which may have been that I was simply dehydrated and the milk took care of the problem. I could have had a glass of water and achieved the same result. (And sometimes headaches just go away on their own and it's best to just say that you don't know why it did.)

When considering whether you're engaging in this fallacy or not, it's best to step back and consider all the other factors that could be going on with the situation in question. In other words, step outside of yourself and realize that your personal experience may not represent the bigger picture.

For instance, where I see this fallacy used the most often is with the hysteria over vaccinations. People point to their children showing signs of autism shortly after receiving their vaccinations. Also, you'll hear stories of kids getting really sick shortly after their vaccines. Then you'll get numerous stories of these vaccines supposedly being the cause of the various ailments. While it is true that vaccines aren't completely free of side-effects, it's not logical to attribute every negative thing that happens after one to the vaccination.

In the case of autism supposedly being the cause, the age that kids receive their vaccines (two years old) is also the age where one would expect to first see signs of autism. Another important thing to consider is what happens when you flip this idea around? Think of how many millions of kids get vaccinated and DON'T have autism. Why not say that vaccines prevent autism, but there's a low failure rate and some of them become autistic anyway? After all, there are kids who haven't been vaccinated who have autism.

Of course, what I just wrote is a logical fallacy, and nobody is even trying to make the claim that vaccines prevent autism. (Most likely because nobody gets hysterical when a negative reaction DOESN'T happen.) However, it's the same argument, only it's backed up with better numbers than the "vaccines cause autism" side. In other words, it's illogical, but it's even less illogical than those who would get you in a panic over vaccines.

Regarding the kids who get sick after their vaccines, again, there are potential side-effects (although it's safe to say that none of them are as bad as the potential side effects of whooping cough, measles, etc.) but the thing is this, KIDS GET SICK. And they get sick for a number of reasons. We don't always know why, but grasping at the easiest answer doesn't mean you've found THE answer. What's wrong with just saying, "I don't know what happened?"

And again, step outside yourself. What if you not only have a personal experience where your kid suffered a negative reaction but what if you also knew somebody else who did? What if you ten people? A hundred? A thousand? Well, what's that compared to the entire world population that's been vaccinated? Nothing, really. Now, if we were getting reports all over the world where pretty much every kid was suffering from serious negative side-effects right after being vaccinated, then we'd have something. But as of right now, you're still at a level with my Captain Crunch example, and coming up with more fallacies won't suddenly turn your fallacy into a truth.

My son had some respiratory problems before he turned one. He doesn't seem to be showing any signs of them now. What was the cause? What was the solution? I don't know, and pretending to know would be disingenuous, even though I could probably come up with all sorts of reasons.

It must have been all of those Disney princess movies I let him watch. (Which also explains why he loves dance class so much.)

Who's a True Scotsman?

Don't you just hate those Westboro Baptist jerks? You know, those folks who picket funerals with signs that read "God Hates Fags". What a bunch of jerks. They claim to be a Christian organization, but don't worry about that - after all, they're not True Christians. See, True Christians would NEVER do the stuff they do, nor would they go around condoning such behavior. Would you believe that True Christians even support gay marriage and full equality for LGBT citizens?

Of course, some True Christians would tell you that no, there is no way that True Christians would support marriage equality. Sure, they wouldn't go around picketing funerals like Westboro Baptist, 'cause that's too over-the-top, but God clearly set out rules for what He wanted marriage to be, and Adam marrying Steve just ain't what's happening.

Whatever you do, don't ask the extremists in Westboro what a True Christian is because they'll go and tell you that it's THEM! Can you believe that? Just because they can point to various Bible verses to support their cause, they somehow think that trumps the more equality-minded Christians who can also point to Bible verses to support their cause. Clearly, The Bible is unambiguous as to this issue, just like it was with slavery. After all, it was Christians who led the abolition movement, and there was absolutely NOTHING that slave owners could have pointed to to support their cause. To say that they could would be as ridiculous as saying that The Bible says it's okay to beat your slave, so long as you don't beat him to death (Exodus 21:20).

The thing is, if you want to know what a True Christian believes, you turn to the Book of Who's a True Christian in The Bible. (Muslims, check out the Surah of Who's a True Muslim in The Koran so you know whether it's okay to blow up infidels or not.) It clearly lays out what you should and shouldn't believe. This is why we only have one denomination of Christianity, known as the True Christians.

Okay, just in case you're about to explode from all the sarcasm, my point is this: lots of Christians believe a lot of different things, and as far as I can tell, there's no real way to tell who's believing it the "right" way. The differences aren't what I'd call insignificant either. But each side will point to the verses in The Bible that helps their cause while either completely ignoring the verses that argue against it. (Or more infuriating - telling you that it actually means the opposite of what it says.)

Meanwhile, the simplest explanation doesn't seem to occur to any of them, and that is that The Bible doesn't even have a consistent message. Is there good stuff? Absolutely. Is there screwed up stuff? Yes. Is there stuff that contradicts other stuff? Yes, and that's the problem. Even Jesus, the guy that some wishy-washy freethinkers will praise, insists that all the Old Testament rules count. He also says that you have to hate your family if you want to follow him. Remember, he came with a sword, or so he says, but nobody likes to quote him on that (except maybe the True Christians, depending on who you think that is). Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that Jesus says that I like, but at least I admit that I pick and choose the bits that suit me.

You know what you never get from atheists? You never get the "He's not a True Atheist" line. All one has to do to be a True Atheist is not believe in any gods. From there, he can be anything else he wants. Of course, there are times when we have to point out that Hitler wasn't an atheist, but that's not because he was evil but because he spoke of things like divine providence - something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for an atheist to believe. Also, we'll point out that the Communistic regimes that led to the deaths of billions of people weren't about atheism, even though much of it was led by self-proclaimed atheists. They did what they did in the name of nationalism, industrialism, worship of the state, etc. There's nothing about being an atheist that leads one to support those ideas. In other words, that would be like blaming Christianity for the actions of BTK, a notorious serial killer. Turns out that he was a regular church-goer. However, he didn't do what he did in the name of Christianity. So, his being Christian is as relevant to his crimes as Stalin's supposed atheism (one of his biographers apparently insists that he actually was a main of faith - whatever, I'll just give it to you that he was an atheist for the sake of argument) was to his.

So, who are the True Christians? I don't know, and I don't think that anybody else does either. All I know is, it's an easy way for some of them to disassociate themselves from the ones they don't like. Meanwhile, I'm stuck with all kinds of murderous atheists who are as True Atheists as I am, but that's just because the definition is such a clear one. Personally, I would be fine if everybody agreed that a True Christian was one who believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. From there. I think that umbrella would be a bit too wide for the comfort of many people though.

Oh - and in case you're wondering what Scotsmen have to do with this, I'm referring to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

The argument from ignorance

Ever have somebody accuse you of making an "argument from ignorance"? Kinda sounds like they're insulting you, aren't they? Nobody likes to be called ignorant, despite the fact that we're all ignorant of many things. (Except me. I know everything, but much of it I am sworn to never reveal.) Realize that it's not that the person is calling you ignorant though. Allow me to explain:

Imagine that you met a guy who said he didn't believe in the sun. What would you do? You'd walk him outside, grab a hold of his head, pry open his eyelids, and make him stare right at that big ball of fire until he was blind. Then you'd say, "Why do you think you're blind now, dumbass?"

What if you met a woman who said that she didn't believe in gravity? You'd take her to the tallest building and push her off. Using a bit of pre-planning, you'll make sure to attach an MP3 player on to her and stick the headphones in her ears. As she plummets to her death, the last thing she'd hear is: "What do you think is pulling you down to the ground now, dumbass?"

Maybe you have a friend who doesn't believe in evolution. What do you do but lock them up in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and make them memorize all of the transitional fossil and genetic evidence until you finally allow them to leave. (This person gets off much easier, but you can still call him/her a "dumbass" when it's all said and done.)

These, or perhaps somewhat less extreme, examples are what you'd do to prove the existence of what you're talking about. Do you know what you wouldn't do? You wouldn't say: "You can't prove that the sun/gravity/evolution ISN'T real." What kind of argument is that, anyway? It's not necessary when you can prove that they ARE real, is it?

And that's the argument from ignorance. It contributes absolutely nothing to the conversation, and it's not a piece of evidence. The problem is, people will use it to help bolster their claims for everything from God (most popular) to alien visitation, to dowsing. The problem is that it can work easily as well for Santa Claus, werewolves, or the Kardashians, yet nobody would take it seriously if that kind of argument was used. In other words: if an argument is a good one, then it works in all cases, not just the ones that you have already decided are legitimate.

Another form of the argument from ignorance goes along the lines of: "You can't explain X; therefore, I can explain X by saying that it's (insert preferred hypothesis here)." This is another argument that doesn't move a person's case forward at all. There are many things that defy explanation, but the thing is that there are fewer things that we can't explain now than there used to be. When we couldn't explain lightning, all that meant was that we couldn't explain it. It didn't mean that the explanations that people offered up (wrath of an angry sky-god) were somehow more legitimate.

The problem is that it's using ignorance about something as evidence, but ignorance is just that. It proves nothing but a gap in knowledge. For some reason though, people don't like gaps in knowledge, and unfortunately the response isn't necessarily to figure out what the answer is but to supply an answer that can't be justified by any actual evidence.

The two most popular examples of this form of argument from ignorance are the "God of the gaps" and the favorite of the History Channel: "aliens of the gaps". Things are complicated and mysterious, and rather than simply acknowledging that and saying: "We have a lot to learn", they're inserted as "evidence".

I once was accused of being condescending by pointing out that an argument was merely a "God of the gaps". I didn't know how to respond other than to point out that's exactly what had happened. The other person provided no evidence for the existence of God other than to say that a God can explain things that are complicated. Well, if you want to believe that a God is a good explanation, then that's fine, but you need to provide a reason why he's a good explanation - not just the fact that he's AN explanation.

I was then accused of doing the same thing, filling in gaps in knowledge with an "atheism of the gaps". That was a real head-scratcher, and an obvious example of how misunderstood atheism actually is. Atheism provides no explanations. When I can't explain something, I say that I can't explain it. I don't say: "I can't explain it; therefore, it wasn't God." In other words, there is no "therefore" in my point of view. If you want to say that God explains it, then you have to provide evidence for that.

Take my example of the guy who gets blinded by sunlight. The bright light from the sun explains that. And it's not just the "sun of the gaps". We can explain exactly WHY the sun's light does that, and there are other evidences for the sun (like photosynthesis, its warmth, the results are repeatable and verifiable, the fact that you can SEE THE DAMNED THING, etc.) We know what the sun is, what it's comprised of, what it does, and so on. When it comes to God (or aliens) we don't know exactly what he/she/it is or anything about it. When asked questions like that, the other person will appeal to some sort of mystery - which is the heart of the problem. It's replacing a mystery with another mystery, which gets us absolutely no closer to solving the problem.

Keep in mind that using the argument from ignorance does not automatically make you wrong. If a person actually did use "You can't prove that the sun doesn't exist!" as an actual argument, that wouldn't suddenly mean that the sun doesn't exist. Likewise, a person who uses the God of the Gaps hasn't suddenly invalidated the existence of God. God could very well be real - but he's not real for the reason that's being given. In other words, you can make a bad argument for something that's true.

The only thing that I'd point out though is that if the only reasons you have for believing something are all arguments from ignorance, at the very least, you should take a long hard look at why you still believe that.