Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Welcome back to another episode of the Filter It Through a Brain Cell podcast, I’m so glad you’re back, I appreciate my listeners so much! Ok, let’s start off by reviewing a fallacy we covered earlier this season, the Appeal to Closure Fallacy. Do you want to hit pause real quick and see if you can remember what the Appeal to Closure fallacy is? Ok, the Appeal to Closure Fallacy happens when someone argues that a particular issue or question should be closed, settled, or resolved because people are tired of discussing it, or because they feel a strong emotional need for closure.
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, go back & check out Episode 153.
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Alright, let’s dive into today’s new fallacy, the Pragmatic Fallacy. First, let’s define the word Pragmatic. Dictionary.com defines it as, dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations. So, the Pragmatic Fallacy happens when someone claims that something must be true because it’s ‘worked for them’ or they’ve seen it work for someone else. Basically, they received some sort of practical benefit, so everyone should believe it’s true. This fallacy is a combination of the Hasty Generalization fallacy we covered back in episode 38 and the Anecdotal fallacy from episode 44, and it’s also sometimes called an Appeal to Convenience or an Appeal to Utility.
Here’s a simple example of what this sounds like: Terry has a headache and his friend Chad says, “Diet Coke gets rid of headaches!” Terry says, “What do you mean?” Chad replies, “Everytime I get a headache, I drink a Diet Coke and it goes away. I’m telling you, it’ll work.” Ok, so you can probably see the fallacy here. Just because Chad saw a benefit once or twice doesn’t mean that Diet Cokes are a proven treatment for headaches.
Here’s another simple example: Your 25-year-old uncle shows up at Christmas looking buff. He is happy to share what he’s been doing and says, “CrossFit is the best type of exercise anyone could do… I got so strong after just 6 months of working out!” Do you see the fallacy there? Just because HE’S having great results doesn’t mean it’s the best exercise for everyone. What about people whose joints can’t take a lot of pounding or people whose adrenal system can’t do super high intensity exercise like that?
The problem behind the thinking here is that just because someone saw a benefit to something, or were satisfied with a certain outcome, that’s not a guarantee that it will always work, or that it’ll benefit everyone, and it’s not even a guarantee that that thing actually “works”. What do I mean by that? Well, people have lots of biases, which we’ll be going into in Season 2 on this podcast, but one of those biases is called Confirmation Bias, where we tend to see things that back up what we want to have happen or what we want to believe. The Pragmatic Fallacy happens a lot in areas of natural remedies or alternative health.
Your Auntie Meggin says, “Essential oils are basically miracles. I know because everytime I use them, I feel amazing the entire day.” Now, are essential oils effective at doing certain things? Sure, and there’s lots of info that you could get to learn more & read about what they do & how they affect the body, but to claim that something is a ‘miracle’ just because the person feels amazing when they use them is the Pragmatic Fallacy.
So the question to ask yourself if you think you’re facing the Pragmatic Fallacy is this: “They may have seen a benefit, but does that mean it’s really true?” *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?”
