Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start today with a quick review of a fallacy we covered earlier in the podcast: The No True Scotsman fallacy. Want to test yourself & see if you can remember what this fallacy is? Just hit pause for a second & see if you can remember! Ok, so It goes like this: “Scotsmen don’t put cream in their tea” “Well, I’m a Scotsman and I like cream in my tea” “Well, then you’re not a TRUE Scotsman”. So the No True Scotsman fallacy is kind of like an appeal to purity. It’s saying that if you do or don’t do THIS then you must not REALLY be a part of a certain group or you must not REALLY be genuine.
The question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing a No True Scotsman fallacy is this: “Are they changing the definition to avoid having to acknowledge new evidence just b/c they don’t like the new evidence?”
If you want to hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 40.
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Ok, so today’s new fallacy is called the Fallacy of Misleading Vividness. The Fallacy of Misleading Vividness occurs when someone shares a small number of really dramatic events and those events are made to seem like they’re way more important than even a large amount of real, statistical evidence to the contrary. Sometimes, this type of fallacy is also called an "anecdotal" fallacy. This means that the argument is based more on personal stories rather than statistics and research.
This may be a grim example, but one example of this fallacy is plane crashes. When a plane crashes, it’s a vivid, dramatic event. Details & pictures of it are splashed all over the news, online & in papers for weeks, showing us all the chaos & mayhem that results from a plane crash. These images make a major impression on us and we tend to remember them for a long time. Someone who survived a plane crash, or who lost a loved one in a plane crash would be very apt to believe that traveling by plane is super dangerous - maybe even more dangerous than traveling by car. However, the statistics prove otherwise. Statistically, traveling by plane is one of the safest methods of travel!
The problem with the thinking in a Fallacy of Misleading Vividness is that the mere fact that something is particularly dramatic or vivid doesn’t mean it’s more likely to occur…especially if there is statistical data that shows the opposite. If it’s used in a negative way, it can leave people with an intense or irrational fear that something bad is going to happen. If it’s used in a positive way, it can give people the impression that positive rewards or outcomes are way more likely to happen than they actually are.
An example of using it in a positive way is one that you may have seen when you go to a fair. You know how there are little booths with games that you can play to win stuffed animals or other prizes? Sometimes, the person working at the booth will “show” you how “easy” it is to win to get you to pay the money and give it a try, when statistically, those games are rigged so it’s much harder to win than it looks.
A real life example of this fallacy happened after 9-11. I remember it well. It was horrific to see the footage of the twin towers coming down of the Pentagon getting hit and of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. The stories & the images were so vivid & so dramatic that it was seared into the mind & memory of everyone who was alive when it happened. But there were politicians & policy-makers who used that vivid, dramatic event to pass legislation that would severely affect & limit the freedoms of Americans. Using the events of 9-11, they painted a picture that America was unsafe and that they needed to pass these measures to protect our country…without actually giving any statistical data showing that we needed them. The vividness of 9-11 was enough.
Question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing a Fallacy of Misleading Vividness is really simple: “Is it really true that this event is much more likely to happen again?”… *repeat*
Ok, guys, 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?”
