For regular videos on ancient cultures and forgotten civilizations,
please subscribe. If you would like to support the channel and become part of
our ancient history fan community, visit patreon.com/worldofantiquity.
One skill that is valuable when writing history, when reading history,
or when watching history is the ability to spot fallacies in arguments. This is especially the
case when you are making an argument or you're judging the validity of someone else's argument.
New proposals or hypotheses in history often need to make arguments, or a series of arguments,
in order to convince people that this proposal ought to be accepted. So it's important to be
able to identify poor reasoning so that you can avoid it yourself and so that you won't be
inadvertently fooled into thinking an idea has a more solid foundation than it really does.
Welcome to the Writing About History series,
in which we discuss the ins and outs of historical argumentation
so that you can better assess historical claims and write history better yourself.
In order not to be fooled by poor reasoning in something that we read,
hear, or see, we're wise to commit to memory some of the common fallacies that history presenters
sometimes employ to convince their audiences that their stories are true. A fallacy is a
statement that sounds reasonable at first, but which logically has no support, is irrelevant,
or makes no sense. If you can spot them easily, you'll not be deceived by the stories that you
encounter, and you will avoid using fallacious reasoning in the justification of your own views
about history. Several fallacies—both formal and informal—fall into the category of poor reasoning
and they are very common. I’ll go through each of them with you and explain why they are fallacious.
First up: hasty generalization, also known as jumping to conclusions. This occurs when
broad statements about important events or ideas are based on only one fact or only a few facts.
Or the argument uses too few examples to prove its point. Here's an example: "This culture
over here has nubs on their building stones, and this culture over here has nubs on their building
stones. Therefore, these cultures must have been in contact with each other." But to demonstrate a
link between two cultures, one needs to examine all aspects of the two cultures and see exactly
how many similarities there are between them. Just one example of a similarity, or even two or three,
is simply not enough to justify the conclusion that the similarity isn't a coincidence.
Here's another one: "This artifact's measurements are precise to within one-thousandth of an inch.
Therefore, the people who made artifacts like these must have had advanced technology."
Have all artifacts of this type been measured? It would be necessary to have a large sample size of
measurements of all the objects of that type made at that time and in that place so that we
can get a better idea of just how precise they all are. A society with advanced technology
that consistently made precise objects would not make objects of wildly varying preciseness.
So measuring a small sample of artifacts is simply insufficient to justify the conclusion.
Another fallacy is called ‘false cause.’ This fallacy occurs when a person assumes
that because an event occurs after another event, the first event caused the second.
The arguer must demonstrate that there is an actual connection between the two because
posteriority itself is not proof. The best way to avoid falling into this trap is not to overlook
alternative explanations. Consider all possible reasons why an event happened. And many events
have more than one cause. Another type of false cause is to assume that simply because there is a
correlation between one phenomenon and another, the two are somehow connected. Check out the
spurious correlations website to see examples of correlations that clearly are not connected.
Another one is the historian's fallacy, also known as hindsight bias. Occasionally historians
will fall into the trap of evaluating the decisions made by historical figures
as if those figures possess the same knowledge as the historians do. As is often the case,
the significance of events does not become apparent until later when one is able to observe
their effects. So even if there were situations developing in the time of the historical figures,
of which those figures were aware, they couldn't know how such situations would play
out. This fallacy can also be committed when a person evaluates decisions made in the past
by how we might today feel about it. "Why would Egyptians have spent so much time and energy
to make a tomb that impressive? It just doesn't make sense." Yeah, it might not
make sense to you or to a modern person, but does it make sense in the context of ancient Egypt?
To find that out, you would have to know a lot more about Egyptian conceptions of
death and the afterlife, as well as conceptions about the ruler and his position in the universe.
Possible proof is another form of poor reasoning in which the arguer tries to
prove something did happen by showing that it could happen. But it's not enough to know that
an event had the potential to be. Potentiality and reality are two different things, right?
So proving that it could happen doesn't prove that it did happen.
You've probably heard of the straw man argument that's named for the idea of a boxer or fighter
fashioning an opponent out of straw and then knocking it out in the ring.
This fallacy happens when an arguer misrepresents the argument of the opposing side and then easily
knocks it down. This misrepresentation can be done by exaggerating or oversimplifying
the opponent's point of view, thus creating a dummy argument
and it becomes relatively simple to debunk it. Unfortunately, the actual argument of the opponent
is not even touched. An example of this might be when someone says, “Mainstream archaeologists
think primitives using only copper chisels made this pyramid? Yeah right.” But, you know,
that's not really representing the view of mainstream archaeologists all that well.
Maybe you've heard of the non-sequitur. This is a conclusion that doesn't follow from previous
statements. Most often, it happens when the arguer skips a step in the argument,
leaping from point c to point e, for instance. It's easy to spot if you
disagree with the author but much less easy if you're already biased in the author's favor.
Another one is the false dichotomy, also known as the either-or fallacy.
Sometimes a person will make an argument under the assumption that there are only
two alternative conclusions that can be drawn and you have to pick one of the two. They might argue
from the negative saying that if a is not true then b must be true. An example of that might
be when someone says, "This artifact could not have been made in this time period. Therefore,
it must have been made in this time period." Like, if it wasn't made in the Old Kingdom, it must have
been made at the end of the Ice Age, or something like that. Often matters are not so black and
white and there are many possible alternative answers in between the two options given.
Then there's the special pleading fallacy. In this situation, the maker of the argument creates a
universal principle but then later insists that the principle doesn't apply for some reason to
a specific issue. The arguer can't have it both ways; either the principle Is universal
or it isn't. An example of special pleading you might encounter is when someone claims,
“Hey, if you can't find the ancient tools that made this object, you shouldn't believe
that such tools made that object.” Then, when it's pointed out to them that
they're claiming that the object was made by tools that they can't find, they respond by saying, “Oh,
well, that's different. Those tools were destroyed in a cataclysm.” That's special pleading.
Misplaced literalism is another one. Occasionally, you'll find an argument
that takes someone's words literally, which are in fact being used metaphorically or hyperbolically.
Someone once told me that because an ancient king was called “King of the World,” that
must mean he ruled the entire planet. Then there's something called begging the
question. This occurs when a writer skips over the most important component of the argument,
assuming it's true without ever trying to establish it. The problem with this
kind of argument is that an assumption that your conclusion is true is not proof that it's true.
Keep in mind that if someone begs the question, that doesn't mean their
conclusion automatically is invalid, it just means that they have not established it yet.
Technically speaking, to beg the question is not a logical fallacy. That's because
it's logically valid in the strictest sense but it's just completely and totally unpersuasive.
Circular reasoning is related to that. As you can tell from its description,
this fallacy involves reasoning in a circle. The person employing this argument starts with a
premise and then reasons their way through several steps, sometimes, back to proving the premise
true. It's similar to begging the question except that it's harder to see because several steps in
the argument obscure the fact that the premise and the conclusion are identical. It runs as follows:
x is true because of y, y is true because of z, z is true because of x. For instance,
if someone tries to prove that the popular use of a word is correct by appealing to the dictionary,
that's a circular argument because the dictionary got the definition
from popular usage. Or here's another one: “The reason why we have no remains
of the advanced tech of this civilization is because it was destroyed into cataclysm.”
- “Well, how do you know it was destroyed in a cataclysm?”
- “Well, because there's no remains of the advanced tech left.”
To be clear, these are just examples to illustrate poor reasoning,
not my summarizations of the actual arguments of the alternative history folks,
I don't want people to think I’m misrepresenting their position here. These are just some things
someone might say if they haven't thought things through. The best way to get out of a circular
argument by the way is to ask for more evidence. Adding outside evidence can end the loop.
Anyway, because there are so many fallacies that we could fall prey to
and this video has already gotten long enough, I’ve decided to save the rest for my next video.
So stay tuned for part two of this discussion of fallacies coming soon. Please like this video if
you've enjoyed it and I’ll see you next time. You might like my little e-booklet,
Why Ancient History Matters. It's designed to persuade people that the subject is important,
even in the modern world. You might also wish to use it to help spread the word,
so feel free to share it with someone you know. It's free for anyone who wants it.
I've left a link in the description box below the video for you to grab a copy.
Catch you later.