Hey what’s up guys! Kathy Gibbens here…
Ok, before I dive into today’s new fallacy, I wanted to share this email I received just last week from a school teacher named David: Kathy, I hope you are doing well. I want to begin by saying thank you for your efforts in promoting logical thinking. I have heard several of your podcasts and you mention the vacuum in young minds in the area of thinking, both independently and logically. I can personally attest to this. I am an eighth grade teacher in Indiana. My oldest daughter recently introduced me to your program. She homeschools our grandkids (Luke/14 and Raegan/13) and is the head of a large homeschool co-op. I began listening to your interview on the SchoolHouse Rocked podcast". I have since downloaded your podcasts and have thoroughly enjoyed them. I see the opportunity to implement your strategies in my own classroom, especially when studying the Constitution and government. I want my students to think for themselves. It is fast becoming a lost art. I also have 6 grandkids. I want to speak truth into their lives. It is important that we invest in the next generation. Thank you again. Your fellow logical thinker, David
David, thank you so much for taking the time to send me an email, and thank you to everyone who has left a review for the podcast or left me a comment on Social Media saying that you’re listening and enjoying the podcast…seriously, I can’t tell you how much it means to me! If you haven’t left a review yet, would you do that now?
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Alright, y’all, let’s dive in. Let’s say you were going to get a drink from a well and someone told you that the well had been poisoned. Would you drink from that well anyway? Or would you take the person’s word for it and find something else to drink?
I wouldn’t want to take my chances with that water if someone told me that it had been poisoned, even if they weren’t entirely sure it was true. Drinking the water wouldn’t be worth the risk of getting sick –and in my mind, the water would be tainted no matter what.
Apply this idea to how you get information from people, you can probably see how it translates. If you see a person’s character as being tainted, you may also decide that their ideas and arguments are bad as well.
Today’s new Fallacy is called Poisoning the Well. A person is said to Poison the Well when they bring up unfavorable information about a person that could be true or false in an attempt to discredit anything they may say in the future. The unfavorable information they bring up could have nothing to do with the claims the person may make in the future, it’s simply brought up to cast doubt on everything they say later on.
Here’s an example: One student whispering to another student: “I just saw our new math teacher picking his nose and wiping it on his pants. There’s no way he’s going to be able to teach us anything!” You see the problem? By sharing negative information about the teacher, the first student is casting doubt on everything else the teacher says. In reality, he could be an amazing math teacher, even if he has a gross habit of picking his nose!
What’s wrong with the thinking here: You can probably already see why this is a fallacy. Just b/c you presented unfavorable information about the person doesn’t automatically mean that whatever they say is going to be false or should be doubted. You actually have to ask the question, “is what they’re saying true?” regardless of what negative things you’ve heard about them. Guess what? Someone could be a convicted convert and still tell you the truth about how you can better protect yourself from violent crime. In fact, they just may be a really great person to listen to on that topic!
Poisoning the Well is actually a form of an Ad Hominem attack, which we covered in episode 7, so you can go check that out if you want a quick review.
We see this happen in advertising when a brand will hold up the competitor’s product and drop it into the trash can while making a disgusted face.
Poisoning the Well happens a lot in court cases. The prosecution will say disparaging things about a person’s character in hopes that the jury will not believe what they say when they get up on the witness stand.
And it happens all the time in politics! Candidates who are running against each other are constantly looking for ways to discredit the character of their opponent in the hopes that it will make the voters doubt & distrust them.
So, the question to ask yourself when you encounter someone who is poisoning the well is this: “Is that really a valid reason to disregard everything this person is saying?” *repeat*
Alright, that’s it for today…
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
