Hey what’s up guys! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off with a quick review of a fallacy we’ve covered earlier in the podcast: The Part-to-Whole Fallacy. The part-to-whole fallacy is when someone makes an assumption that what’s true about one part of a group or a thing has to be applied to other or to all parts of that group or thing.
Question to ask yourself: “Is it really true that this one characteristic applies to EVERYONE or everything in that group?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 35.
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Ok, let’s dive into the new fallacy for today, called Ad Fidentia, which is Latin, but it simply means Against Self-Confidence. You may also hear this called Argumentum Ad Fidentia, which is just Latin for Argument Against Self-Confidence. The Ad Fidentia, or Against Self-Confidence fallacy happens when someone attacks their opponent’s self-confidence rather than attacking their argument or the evidence they’re presenting.
Here’s a quick example: Your little brother comes running in the house saying “I just found a piece of gold in the stream!” Without even looking at it, you ask him, “Are you sure that’s really gold or could it just be a rock?” He replies, “Oh, I don’t know, I *think* it could be gold?” To which you reply, “See, you don’t even know…there’s no way it’s really gold!” Do you see the fallacy there? In this example, you’re just attacking the fact that your little brother is unsure about what he found to disprove his claim of striking gold, rather than taking the time to actually look at what he found to see if it could possibly be something valuable. A key indicator that someone may be committing an Against Self-Confidence fallacy is when they ask the question, “Are you sure?” instead of asking questions about the actual argument or about the evidence being submitted.
What’s wrong with the thinking here is probably pretty obvious to you: just b/c someone is unsure doesn’t mean they’re wrong. When my car is making funny noises or has something wrong with it, I take it into the mechanic shop & tell them what it’s doing and usually say something like, “I think it could be the brakes”, or, “I think maybe it’s coming from the middle part of the engine.” They don’t laugh & say, “Well, if you’re not sure, then there’s clearly nothing wrong - get out of here!” Lol…no! They say, ok, well, we’ll take a look and check it out and see what’s going on with your car. They may come back and say, “You were right, it was the brakes!” or they may say, “it was just a loose screw, your car is fine.” But either way, they took the time to actually look at the car and assess it for itself, not just based on how sure or unsure I was about it.
Ok, here was a really interesting, real life example that I read about when I was researching this fallacy. One example that was given was from someone who believes in a Flat Earth. When it comes to science, we know that good scientific discoveries come from a process called the Scientific Method. And all we have to work with is the information that we KNOW NOW, we can’t go off the information we don’t have yet, that will be discovered in the future. So in this example, a person who believed in Flat Earth was questioning whether the scientist was 100% sure & certain of their claims & information. And if they weren’t 100% certain, then that would be the “proof” that they were wrong. Now, the scientist was saying that yes, I am certain based on the information I have now, but they also acknowledged that they might get new information in the future that could help shape their opinions. Science is always learning new things! Well, the Flat-Earther saw that as a “weakness” or an “un-sureity” in their position and concluded that therefore the scientist was wrong just based off of that.
Now…if you’re a Flat-Earther, don’t send me emails defending your position…that’s not the point here, the point is that this argument is a fallacy.
Here’s another example: Let’s say a friend asks you why you believe in God. And you reply, “Well, I know my Mom is real b/c I can talk with her and she talks to me. Same with God…I can talk to Him and He talks back to me.” And your friend says, “Are you sure that’s really God talking to you and you’re not just making stuff up in your head?” Now, obviously, in this example, there are other ways you could answer the questions and answer why you believe in God, but the point here is that your friend’s response is an Ad Fidentia, it’s an Argument Against Self-Confidence in that it’s an attempt to get you to question yourself.
Question to ask yourself: “Does the fact that they’re unsure make their argument invalid?” *repeat*
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?”
