View source for SGU Episode 40

=== Bananas and Logical Fallacies <small>(25:19)</small>===

S: The next email: it's about logical fallacies. This one comes from Mark Smith in Lansing, Kansas. He says

<blockquote>
My only suggestion ...
</blockquote>

I'm sorry, he starts out writing about Dianetics, and basically just telling us how ridiculous it is. He says:

<blockquote>
I'm still laughing years later at how ludicrous Dianetics is.
</blockquote>

and then he goes into a question. He says:

<blockquote>
My only suggestion for the show would be to put more of an emphasis on logical fallacies like the ones listed on your webpage. Logic geek that I am, I find these very entertaining, and they're also useful everyday tools, especially in a popular culture where fallacious thinking runs rampant. But they're not always self-evident, even when they have been pointed out and identified. As a result, I think the nature of fallacies is too often ignored. For instance, I happen to have on my desk a booklet called ''The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools'' from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, and, amazingly, I can find no mention of logical fallacies anywhere in it. One idea for the show would be to spotlight a fallacy and explain it using current examples from popular media or the news. The examples wouldn't need to be from scientifically-oriented stories exclusively, as long as they include an attempt to support a certain position using a logical fallacy. I have a feeling that examples would be trivially easy to find. Thanks for the great podcast. In a perfect world, you guys would be paid like pro basketball players, and Rebecca would be on the cover of every magazine. Keep up the fight and keep living the sweet dream of reason. Woo-hoo!
</blockquote>

Well, Mark, thanks for the kudos.

R: That's definitely the best letter, yet.

S: That was the best ending to an email that we've had recently. That's not the first person to suggest that we should be making lots of cash doing what we're doing. I have the feeling that we're missing something. Maybe we're not as smart as we think we are.

E: Yeah, if there's a promoter out there who wants to work with us, I'm sure we'd be open to speaking with him.

P: I'd be willing to shoot a few hoops.

S: Well, Mark, we like your idea about showcasing logical fallacies. We have bandied that idea about in the past, and I do think it is time that we add a logical fallacy segment. So we're going to try out a couple of formats before we solidify something, at which point we might have even some intro music, but we're going to do a brief logical fallacy segment on this show. By coincidence, unless you are the kind of person who doesn't believe in coincidences ...

R: At which point, go away.

S: ... we had another email this week. This one comes from Cecil in Chicago, Illinois. And Cecil writes:

<blockquote>
Here is a short clip of Kirk Cameron visiting with a guy who tries to prove the existence of God by exhibiting the amazing design of the banana. I checked the top 20, and I am not skilled enough to recognize a logical fallacy. Can you help?
</blockquote>

Well, this is a perfect opportunity to play our new game, which is ''Name That Logical Fallacy''. But, first, Rebecca, you specifically asked if you could give a synopsis of the banana argument.

R: Yeah.

S: The God of the Bananas is what I'm calling it. So give us the synopsis.

R: I love this clip. For those of you who don't know, it's got Kirk Cameron of Growing Pains fame and some Australian dude sitting by a lake talking about silly atheists are. And at this particular part, he says, the Australian guy says "behold the atheist nightmare," and he pulls out a banana.

S: I recoiled when I saw it.

R: We all did, a little. The banana, you know, it's a banana. It's about seven inches long, an inch-and-a-half thick, or so. You know, your average banana. And he says "Now, if you have a well-made banana, you'll find on the far side there are three ridges, and on the near side, two ridges, ridges apparently being very important. And then he goes on to compare that shape with the shape of a human hand when holding the banana, and saying that they're a perfect fit. He says the banana and the hand are perfectly made, one for the other, at which point he slips the banana suggestively into his hand. He says "you'll notice that the maker of the banana, or mighty God, has made it with a nonslip surface -- another very important trait, apparently. He then goes on to say "God has placed the tab at the top. When you pull the tab, the contents don't squirt in your face." I'm not making this up. That's word-for-word.

S: We have the link for the video clip. It is (''unintelligible'')

R: He says when you pull the tab the contents don't squirt in your face, which is true, so long as you aim it away from you.

S: Even if you shake the banana, they don't squirt in your face.

R: You can do whatever you want to the banana, it will never squirt you in the face.

S: And I've tried.

R: And then my favorite quote: he says "the wrapper has perforations. Notice how gracefully it sits over the human hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry. Just the right shape for the human mouth, and it's even curved toward the face to make the whole process easier.

P: Now, wait a minute.

R: Just to remind everybody, yeah, we're talking about a banana.

P: This is a joke video, right?

R: No.

S: This guy is dead serious.

R: This is dead serious, and he seems to believe that he's still talking about a banana by the end of that. Read from that what you will.

P: Oh, God!

S: Well, as Freud said, sometimes a banana is just a banana. Well, let's talk about the logical fallacies inherent in this argument. They are subtle, and I immediately teased out three logical fallacies. We'll see, maybe we could find more. I think the core logical fallacy is a tautology, mainly that the argument is because the banana is convenient for humans to eat that that convenience is what caused the banana to be the way it is. In other words, it was therefore specifically designed to be convenient for humans to eat, or the effect causing the cause. That's the core logical fallacy. But you have to couple the tautology with an unstated major premise behind the entire argument, which is that design implies God. That because the banana is designed to be convenient for eating, that God is the only thing that could have done that, and he is dismissing without specifically saying so, hence an unstated major premise, that evolution could not have resulted in a fruit that has features that make it convenient for human consumption. In fact, fruit evolved to be convenient for animal consumption. That's the purpose, evolutionary purpose of fruit. Animals will eat it.

R: And not only that, Steve, but haven't humans genetically modified bananas to be ...

E: Yeah, isn't this a case of artificial selection?

S: In addition, thre has been some &mdash; I don't think it's been genetically modified, it's was just through breeding.

R: Ah, right.

S: A lot of the things, a lot of the crops that we use have been modified through human tinkering. So, to be even more useful for human consumption than the nature made it.

R: Right.

J: Rebecca, did this guy think he was conducting science?

R: I think he did. They seemed to think that this is like logical. They seem to believe that this is the death knell for atheism.

P: I know it's not appropriate in our constant search for and endeavor at erudition on this program, but can't we simply say that this is asinine? I mean is it appropriate in this case? It beggars the imagination.

R: Then we can't have fun dissecting his fallacies. And I really like dissecting his fallacies and saying that when we're talking about the bananas.

S: Yes, that is certainly more apropriate in this case.

J: The guy is a total pervert. He's a pervert. "I like the way the banana feels in my mouth."

(''laughter'')

S: Sometimes things are so absurd.

P: Sometimes our initial reaction is that this is asinine!

S: The initial reaction that it is asinine or absurd is appropriate and accurate. But, part of doing this show is to go beyond that. Let's take it the next step. And let's take great pains to explain exactly why it's absurd. The reason is that when you have these really extreme examples of logical fallacies, they make good examples to teach you how to avoid more subtle logical fallacies in claims that are not initially obviously absurd.

J: What about all the fruits that exist that aren't easy to eat.

S: Now, Jay, that brings up the third logical fallacy that I teased from this, which is the fallacy of inconsistency. If you're going to say that the convenience, the easy digestibility of the banana is evidence of a benign Creator, then you have to argue that everything in nature which is inconvenient and harmful is contradictory evidence or evidence against a benign Creator.

P: It's evidence of Satan.

R: The lobster is evidence that God hates us.

S: The lobster, or have you ever tried to eat a pomegranate? 

J: Not going to happen.

P: Or an artichoke? It might have choked Artie, but it ain't going to choke me.

E: I ate six seeds of a pomegranate once.

S: But, guys, don't miss the whole point of ''Name That Logical Fallacy''. Maybe in the future I might have to challenge you guys to see if you could come up with the logical fallacies.

R: Yeah, I like this idea. I enjoy this.

S: It is fun.