Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off today’s episode by reviewing a fallacy we covered earlier this season: The Noble Motive Fallacy. And this one makes me smile b/c my husband's name is Noble! The Noble Motive Fallacy happens when someone believes (or wants you to believe) that something is true just because they have good motives for wanting you to believe it.
So, the question to ask yourself if you think you might be facing, or even committing a Noble Motive Fallacy is this: “They may have good motives, but does that mean it’s true or right?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 94.
Guys, we hit a really cool milestone over this past weekend…this podcast just passed a quarter of a million downloads! WHAAT???
Your listens have also helped me get some sponsors for this show: CTC Math and Classical Conversations. It’s a huge step in the right direction to get a sponsor for a show b/c while I’m so happy to be able to share the information I teach on Filter It Through a Brain Cell for free, it does cost me money to host a podcast and there’s definitely a big time commitment as well, so having sponsors helps me to be able to keep the show coming! I do want to give a huge thank you to this show’s sponsors, CTC Math and Classical Conversations. My daughter is finishing up Algebra 2 and will be going into Geometry this year and we’re going to be giving CTC Math a try for Geometry, I think their program will be a good fit for our daughter! Plus, I love that I can get a discounted account with them, and you can too…just check out the link in the show notes. And of course, Classical Conversations is the homeschool program our family has been using for 11 years now, and it’s where we have learned the skills of knowing HOW to think and HOW to learn! I’m here to tell you that if you’ve been considering homeschooling for whatever reason, it’s not too late to get started! In fact, we have 2 free books available to you for free when you fill out the form at www.classicalconversations.com/gibbens .
Alright, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, the ‘Draw Your Own Conclusion’ Fallacy. The ‘Draw Your Own Conclusion’ Fallacy happens when someone gives you carefully selected and curated, ‘juicy information' or ‘shocking facts’ and then immediately tells you to ‘draw your own conclusions’ based on the cherry-picked information they presented to you. This fallacy is also sometimes called the ‘Non-Argument Argument’ and it has some similarities to the ‘Hasty Generalization’ Fallacy that I covered back in episode 38, but this one has a little different nuance so I wanted to give it its own episode.
Here’s an example of the ‘Draw Your Own Conclusion’ Fallacy, and this is a silly example taken from a well-known Christmas song. Julian tells his sister, Sofie, “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night and I know Dad doesn’t have a big white beard like that…it can only mean one thing and boy is Dad gonna be mad!” Ok, so hopefully you recognize the Christmas song I”m referring to in this example, but here, Julian presented a few pieces of information: Mommy kissed Santa and Dad doesn’t have a big white beard…and based on those cherry-picked pieces of information, is leading his sister to the conclusion that their Mom kissed some other guy. But is that really true? No, it was their Dad dressed up in a Santa costume.
Unfortunately, this fallacy is often used when it comes to spreading rumors. For instance, your Co-worker comes to you and says breathlessly, “Oh my gosh, Dave just got fired!” You say, ‘What do you mean he got fired?’ to which your co-worker replies, “Well, he just left the boss’s office and his eyes were all red like he’d been crying, then he immediately got his briefcase and left…and it’s only 10am! You draw your own conclusions.” Ok, do you see the fallacy? Is that really the only explanation for what just happened? Could it be that Dave just found out his mother had been in an accident and he was going to the hospital to be by her side? Or maybe he had some other personal emergency and the boss had just given him the rest of the day off to take care of things?” Rather than jumping to conclusions based on limited information, it’s wisdom to seek additional information and other viewpoints before arriving at a conclusion.
The problem with the thinking behind the ‘Draw Your Own Conclusion’ fallacy is that you’re not given all the information about something, so it’s not even reasonable to expect someone to be able to draw their own conclusion. When we encounter incomplete or ambiguous information, we can have a tendency to hastily jump to incorrect conclusions. It's like trying to complete a puzzle with only a few scattered pieces—our brain fills in the gaps with assumptions, and that's where the trouble begins. When someone commits this fallacy, you’re just given small pieces of information, usually purposely designed to paint a very specific picture that will lead you to a pre-planned conclusion. There is wisdom in being able to take a step back and seek out additional information, that way we can make more informed decisions and avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions.
Here’s an interesting bit of human psychology for you that helps explain why we fall prey to this fallacy: when people are allowed to ‘come to their own conclusions’, or at least FEEL like they came to their own conclusions, they’re generally much more strongly convinced than those who are given both evidence and conclusion upfront. A quote attributed to Dr. William Lorimer points out , and I quote: ‘The only rational response to the non-argument is ‘So what?’ i.e. ‘What do you think you’ve proved, and why/how do you think you’ve proved it?”
This fallacy can also be used to seriously mislead people to believing something that just isn’t true. The formula is simple: Give a few cherry-picked pieces of information designed to paint a specific picture and tell people to ‘Draw Their Own Conclusions’: For instance (and, by the way, I’m not going off of real stats or anything here, I’m just using made up examples, but you’ll get the point) “Christians in the US are the largest gun-owning people group in the country, and guns are the #1 cause of death in Chicago…I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about who the real threat is.” OR, how about this one: “Doctors get paid more for every prescription they write and the US uses more prescription drugs than any other country…I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.” Now, could it be that Christians are the ones shooting people up in Chicago and that Doctors are purposely over-prescribing just so they can make money? Maybe…but there’s no way a person could know that just from these statements and the few ‘facts’ that are given. We have to ask more questions and do some thinking and some work to get down to the true facts.
So, the questions to ask yourself if you think you’re facing the ‘Draw Your Own Conclusion’ Fallacy is this: “What evidence is missing? Can I gather more data? Are there alternative explanations?” *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?”
