understanding the importance of logical fallacies when people have influenced
our making statements is absolutely critical while the common conception of
an argument is two people fighting with each other an argument is just a person
trying to persuade your opinion without understanding flawed arguments we can be
persuaded based on fallacies rather than legitimate reason while this may not be
a big deal when your friend is arguing for you two to order pizza instead of
Chinese food it becomes an issue when someone with a massive influence uses
logical fallacies to influence the opinion of hundreds of thousands if not
millions of people on a very serious accusation like over 1 million other
people I watched Blair White's video about Shane Dawson Blaire White is a
youtuber who has called out problematic behavior many times so her audience
wanted to know if she did quote/unquote keep that same energy for Shane Dawson's
recent accusations as I watched her video one of the worst logical fallacies
arose and it was a critical part of the video to support her argument while she
didn't directly accuse Shane of misconduct with minors she used flawed
logic while also getting emotional you know one of the things that definitely
made me realize this was an important video to do is when all these things
started coming out about Shane I had a very real conversation with my fiance
and he asked me Blair give me an honest answer do you think
Shane Dawson is a
my reaction was I don't think so and the fact that I wasn't able to confidently
state how now of course not like why are you even asking me that is a problem in
this video my goal is not to attack the character of Blaire white personally I
believe she's a good person who has some different opinions than myself but I
respect her opinions she's someone who has faced her own backlash due to her
controversial opinions but she still stands by what she believes although I'm
not going to discuss the character of Blaire it's extremely important to break
down the logical fallacies of her argument because this is a serious
subject I don't personally know Shane but he's being accused of things that
some people never come back from these types of accusations can ruin a person's
life so when the stakes are this high we need to use critical thinking and
address logical fallacies when they arise the last thing any critical
thinker wants to do is attack someone based on a flawed argument riddled with
logical fallacies more importantly this has everyday applications as well within
our own friend and family circles rumors and gossip spreads part of the human
experience is people sharing information about one another without realizing it
we're being persuaded by flawed arguments but when we practice spotting
logical fallacies while consuming content it better helps us be critical
thinkers in our everyday life so in this video we're going to discuss Blaire
White's use of the argument from ignorance fallacy but after that we're
going to talk about the fallacies from the crowd but before we get started if
you're new to the rewired soul make sure you subscribe and turn the notification
bell on here at the rewired soul we believe critical thinking is a key
towards mental and emotional well-being by learning from real-world scenarios we
can build upon a foundation of emotional intelligence
my reaction was I don't think so and the fact that I wasn't able to confidently
state how now of course not like why are you even asking me that is
a problem emotions are an interesting thing and
it's actually fascinating how they're created I'm currently reading how
emotions are made by the neuroscientist dr. Lisa Feldman as Blaire gets emotional
while stating she can't say for certain that Cheyne hasn't done these things
it's something to take note of this is a prime example of how lacking critical
thinking can affect our emotions and even ruin friendships so what is the
argument from ignorance fallacy also known as the appeal to ignorance this
fallacy is when a person claims or assumes that something is true because
it hasn't been proven false appeals to ignorance are often used by creationists
the argue that you cannot prove that God doesn't exist therefore he must exist
they'll also commit another fallacy by moving the goalposts when presented with
strong evidence that supports the Big Bang Theory they'll argue well how do
you know that God didn't create the Big Bang well the debate about creationism
vs. evolution may never fully go away we need to realize that the argument from
ignorance fallacy is dangerous when we're using it to gauge relationships
the argument from ignorance also makes something unfalsifiable as you may
remember from the last video on ghosts good scientists and skeptics do what
they can to disprove a theory in order to confirm it for a moment I want you to
ask yourself if Blaire's argument from ignorance is falsifiable when Blaire says
that she can't say for certain that Cheyne hasn't participated in misconduct
with a child ask yourself what evidence would Blair
need to be certain short of being able to produce footage of Shane's every
waking moment since birth there is no way to say this for certain
now I want you to think about how dangerous this argument from ignorance
can be when it comes to your own relationships and let's make no mistake
Blair and Shane were friends so this is very relevant to the topic at hand for
example every night I go to bed at about 10:00 p.m. because I'm an old man and I
like to wake up early meanwhile my beautiful girlfriend
Tristan doesn't come to bed until about 1:00 a.m. imagine if a rumor circulated
that Tristan was cheating on me and then like Blair's fiancee someone asked me if
I could say for certain that Tristan isn't cheating well each night there's
at least three unaccountable hours were hypothetically she could be cheating or
what if Tristan were questioned about me I wake up two to three hours before her
each morning I could be doing anything in that timeframe are you starting to
see how the argument from ignorance can ruin our relationships when making
arguments for a serious claim such as Shane potentially being a predator the
burden of proof is on the accusers why because disproving an argument from
ignorance can sometimes be impossible if you don't believe me pause this video
and run through a few of your own real-life scenarios and think about how
difficult it would be to disprove an argument from ignorance again Blair
didn't say that Shane is guilty but when looking at her burden of proof all she
has is what she deems tasteless jokes if your strongest evidence of such a
serious accusation is jokes made publicly following that logic
we'd have to lock up three quarters of the entire population of stand-up
comedians it's important to realize that the premise of the argument isn't about
Shane's character we're discussing how a creator is using the argument from
ignorance logical fallacy in a video that has over 1 million views again
as discussed in the intro we need to understand logical fallacies because
flawed logic may persuade us and this is why in the next section we're going to
discuss two logical fallacies that community uses which appeal to
popularity and authority so Blair White is just one person and one person using
logical fallacies isn't a huge deal for the rest of us unfortunately Blair using
this flawed logic may have destroyed her relationship with someone she once
called a friend but we're now going to talk about the much bigger issue since
making her first video on Jeffrey star and then following it up with her video
on Shane Dawson she's gained over 40,000 subscribers as of recording this video
she's only 21 thousand subscribers away from the coveted 1 million subscriber
mark aside from reaching over 1 million views on her video about Shane using the
argument from ignorance fallacy with every new milestone of subscribers it's
now more crucial as she applies critical thinking to her arguments well it'd be
great to live in a world where were all individual thinkers who objectively look
at facts and develop our own opinions this is far from the case as you've
learned from this video in previous videos we must stay vigilant in order to
avoid our own cognitive biases and it's even more important that we are
persuaded by flawed arguments that use logical fallacies the to logical
fallacies that affect the community are the appeal to celebrity and appeal to
popularity with the amount of influence that Blair White and other influencers
have it's of the utmost importance that they present a sound argument when
making such widely viewed videos so what are these two logical fallacies first
there's the appeal to celebrity the appeal to celebrity is a logical fallacy
that states that since a celebrity has the opinion it must be true this often
occurs due to a cognitive bias known as the halo effect the halo effect is when
we take one positive attribute of a person and then believe it makes the
person infallible for some reason we believe that since a person
reach celebrity status which is so admired they must know what they're
talking about a prime example of this was when the actress and model Jenny
McCarthy went on a world tour claiming that vaccines cause autism people cited
her opinions in an appeal to celebrity as a way to say that her opinions have
as much weight as credentialed scientists just because Jenny McCarthy
is rich famous and attractive does not mean that she has any credibility when
it comes to debunking medical scientists recently in Dave Chappelle's special
titled 846 where he discusses George Floyd in the BLM protests he discusses
how flawed the appeal to celebrity is Chappell discussed how just because he's
a celebrity it doesn't mean his opinions matter more
than anyone else's he's actually had this stance for quite some time in his
2004 stand-up special for what it's worth he joked about the fact that MTV
asked ja Rule what his thoughts were on 9/11 right now you may be acknowledging
how the appeal of celebrity fallacy isn't valid evidence for an argument but
is something we see daily how many times does a friend send you a video that
validates their opinion because the person saying it is a celebrity more
importantly how often do you share a video because a celebrity has the same
opinion as you if you don't have any first-hand experience with the appeal to
celebrity fallacy look no further than a Twitter debate where comments are filled
with links to arguments celebrities have made so when play white is using her
argument from ignorance it's no longer just her opinion this isn't mere
speculation either with a quick Twitter search you could see how many people
have tweeted out her video using the appeal to celebrity fallacy lastly let's
discuss the appeal to popularity fallacy this logical fallacy is when someone
states everyone is saying X therefore X must be correct we must remember that
just because something is a popular belief it doesn't mean that it's true
we're social creatures and we often look to others to form our opinions but this
doesn't make the argument any more valid for years the popular opinions of the
time we're that the earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around the earth
when a creator like white makes it video the appeal to
popularity is used quite frequently as people try to defend our argument they
often use this fallacy by pointing to the amount of views or the like to
dislike ratio as we discuss critical thinking skills and persuasive arguments
it's a bit scary to think about bleh white is just one person who used the
argument from ignorance fallacy and has persuaded at least sixty eight thousand
people sixty-eight thousand people is also a conservative estimate because not
everyone who agreed with her liked the video but now there are those using that
number as a way to commit the appeal to popularity fallacy which is rooted in a
flawed argument so now that we know that Blaire white used logical fallacies to
form her opinion about shame and now that we have thousands of people
appealing to celebrity and popularity what's the solution
now that we've come to the conclusion of the video I feel like I've kept my
promise of criticizing Blair White's flawed argument and not her as a person
as we discuss it's absolutely crucial that we're aware of logical fallacies
and hone our own critical thinking skills to avoid being persuaded by
flawed arguments we're all human and no matter what we want to believe we'll
never be fully objective we're emotional social creatures and unconsciously our
opinions are often formed quickly and based on the information provided by
others but in situations like this it's absolutely crucial that we pause take a
step back and ask ourselves how sound an argument is Shane Dawson is currently
facing serious accusation and as people in the community we must use critical
thinking before rushing to judgment this is a man who has been on YouTube for
over a decade and I believe the least we can do is rationally look at the
evidence without being persuaded by flawed arguments right now there is an
enormous amount of videos being made trying to expose Shane but we must
remember that we shouldn't appeal to celebrity or popularity studies have
shown that as a way to not be exiled from the group will conform and
completely lose independent thought I think a perfect example as to why we
need to be independent thinkers comes from the famous Solomon Asch study on
conformity from 1951 in this social psychology experiment one participant
was brought into a room with seven other people as part of the study the one
participant didn't know that the other seven people were actors for the
experiment there was shown these two pictures and asked which one matched the
target line lengths in one variation of the experiment the seven actors were
first asked for their answers and they all gave the wrong one what Solomon Asch
fan over 12 clinical trials was roughly 75%
of people conformed and gave the wrong answer knowing it was incorrect based on
the wisdom of the crowd theory we figure that they must all be right and we're
missing something so we can form even though things aren't
adding up properly what's even more fascinating was that all it took and
another variation of the study was for one of the seven actors to give the
correct answer for people to feel that it was okay to not conform so before you
appeal to Authority or popularity will you blindly agree with the crowd or will
you be the one that gives others the permission to not conform all right
everybody thank you once again for making it all the way through an entire
video and I hope you learned some things so keep an eye out in your day to day
lives and see if people are using logical fallacies to try to persuade
your opinion right whether you're watching YouTube content or you're
watching the news ask yourself is this using an argument from ignorance is this
appealing to popularity or is it appealing to celebrity right but also
even more importantly keep an eye out in your own relationships because when our
emotions go up the logical part of our brain goes down and we stop thinking
rationally and this can cause a lot of interpersonal conflicts all right
something that I've had to personally work on is sitting back when I start to
get heated and I think rationally about the situation and even challenge my own
thoughts and the old fallacies that my mind is coming up with so if you need
help with your mental health or with setting boundaries with people in your
lives and you know confronting people if maybe they're trying to persuade you and
things like that don't be afraid to ask for help
personally I you better help online therapy it's affordable online therapy
and if you would like down in the description and in the pin comment I
have an affiliate link which means you get affordable online therapy and
little bit comes back to support the channel all the work that I put into the
each videos alright but anyways that's all I got for this video if you like
this video make sure you give it a thumbs up and if you're new what are you
waiting for make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell and a huge
huge thank you to everybody out there who supports the channel whether it be
over on patreon or by my mental health books or the merch from the merch store
I appreciate you alright thanks again for watching I'll see you next time