Question

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The Fallacy of unprovable evidence

I always forget what kind of fallacy this is. Its extremely common where any evidence shown is brushed aside is it just a moving the goalpost? What's the actual name of this fallacy it might be a group of fallacies.

1.Ancient Rome didn't exist all shown evidence and Primary sources were forged or made up. 

2. Evidence of Vaccines is forged by companies with a secret agenda

3. The earth is flat those pictures are just CGI.

 

 

asked on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 04:56:21 AM by

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
3

This is close to the conspiracy theory . It is virtually always the result of people who use bad methodology to determine what is true. For example, with vaccines, people are trusting YouTube videos, Fox News entertainers, and social media posts from randos rather than world health organizations, medical institutions, and virtually all doctors and researchers. If the conspiracy theorists attempt to justify their position, they almost certainly resort to cherry picking by referencing the handful of studies or doctors that support their ideologically-based position (confirmation bias) rather than the thousands that don't. Psychologically, people crave being part of the elite few who "know the truth," despite the efforts of "Big Brother" trying to brainwash all us "sheeple."

The earth is flat. The universe is 6000 years old. Climate change is a hoax. Vaccines don't work. Trump won the 2020 election. Despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, these few Google University grads have discovered the "real" truth.

answered on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 06:00:50 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

I'd also add cognitive bias to the mix, in particular, strong confirmation bias.

posted on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 06:06:23 AM
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Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Rationalissimus of the Elenchus]

Dr. Richard, you really need to examine your thought process regarding Trump wining the 2020 election.

[ login to reply ] posted on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 10:26:26 AM
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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

It seems like your answer got downvoted! Makes little sense, given how detailed (and correct) it is.

[ login to reply ] posted on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 12:31:24 PM
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Petra Liverani writes:

The term "conspiracy theory" is a propaganda weapon used to discredit those who challenge the mainstream narrative. High-level conspiracies happen and sometimes we can argue for them without any sense of the theoretical as it is so overwhelmingly obvious.

To accuse a scientist or otherwise credentialled person (apart from any person who argues cogently) of "conspiracy theory" is inappropriate. A scientist disputing the mainstream narrative does not argue in the first instance for the existence of a conspiracy, they argue against the science put forward. Their argument may be flawed but they're arguing about science with the conspiracy side of things being very much incidental.

One method of determining the truth I advocate is "follow the debunking trail" because I believe it is easier as lay people to evaluate the credibility of an argument when you see people arguing both sides.

Let's say:
Mainstream narrative says: "It's X"
Refuter says: "No, it's not X, it's Y for reasons A, B and C"
Mainstream narrative says: "No it really is X blah, blah"
Refuter says: "No, it's really Y blah blah"
Mainstream narrative (or refuter depending on who has the last word) is then unable to further defend their argument ...

... that's rather compelling, no? Of course, we need to apply our own brains, we must always apply our own reasoning skills and sift through all available evidence but when a person has the "last word" in the argument so to speak that tends to support their being correct ... or at least more correct than the person they're arguing against. Of course, if it's got to the stage where the argument is going round in circles the person opting out isn't necessarily the one who was unable to defend their argument but it will be clear if it's got to that stage.

I think in this day and age we cannot rely on source one iota. The fact that something appears on YouTube does not in the least mean that because of its source it has less credibility than a paper published in a scientific journal, not when we know science has been corrupted - a fact even admitted to by editors of scientific journals! Source means absolutely nothing and I feel I cannot "trust" any information, I feel it is always up to me to canvass all information available, apply my own intelligence and judge in that way.

Very revealing talk, The Illusion of Evidence-based Medicine, by Leemon McHenry, bioethicist and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at California State University, about the corruption of medical science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAEAWyfuEWY

The argument against vaccines is not limited to the simplistic: "Evidence of Vaccines is forged by companies with a secret agenda." There are various arguments coming from medical doctors, for example, that incidence of certain diseases was on a downward trajectory because of improved living conditions before the vaccines against them came on the scene and the argument the vaccine is responsible for the continued downward trend rather than continued improvement in living conditions is not proven. I do not argue either way as I haven't examined the evidence, I'd just like to re-iterate the point that this argument is of a scientific nature where the claim of conspiracy is very much incidental. Where less controversial subjects are argued about among scientists, neither side are referred to as "conspiracy theorists", they're simply regarded as scientists arguing about the science. One medical doctor who has argued against vaccines and also made highly controversial claims about the science of virology, Thomas Cowan, had his licence revoked but do we infer from this that he talks nonsense? I certainly wouldn't - we need to evaluate the information ourselves.

posted on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 09:36:36 PM
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GoblinCookie writes:
[To Petra Liverani]

True as much of that is, it also works backwards.  Quite often conspiracy theories themselves are used for propaganda purposes to undermine trust as part of a conspiracy of your own.  The conspiracy is spreading conspiracy theories. 

I call this 'it is the wolf that cries wolf'

[ login to reply ] posted on Saturday, Dec 18, 2021 05:52:50 AM
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Petra Liverani writes:

Are you referring to such phenomena as Bill Kaysing, the first person to say astronauts didn't land on the moon, who was actually an agent whose purpose was to encourage those who tend to disbelieve the authorities by default to not recognise that astounding achievement in order to undermine their credibility when they call out real conspiracies? (We know he couldn't have been a genuine disbeliever because someone who was head of Technical Publications at Rocketdyne would never have spouted nonsenses such as "the lunar module would have made a massive hole kicking up sand and rocks everywhere." The obvious nonsense he spouted reflects a deep understanding of those who rule us of the "disbeliever-by-default" profile. Any truly evidence-based thinker with an open mind would recognise that Bill Kaysing could not have been who he is said to have been but no one who subscribes to the moon hoax conspiracy theory has noticed the discrepancy between what he says and his alleged position because they don't evaluate the evidence properly, they're only looking to grab at things they can use in order to attempt to debunk the truth of that astonishing achievement ... which, of course, they've never managed (although they think they have) because the moon landings really happened amazingly enough!

posted on Saturday, Dec 18, 2021 10:03:55 PM
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Kawrno
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Wiser men posted the answers, and I have learnt the answer from them. However, I wish to present a different point of view.

I hope that this question is result of a curious mind, not a loaded question. I say this because of the given second example - Evidence of Vaccines is forged by companies with a secret agenda, and the original post is about people brushing aside every evidence or fact for a claim.

This sentence assumes that all vaccines (the way English language works 'vaccines' means all vaccines, without any exception), the ones that are strongly established to be effective, and the ones which are still being in experimental phase should have the same acceptability to the rational mind, and therefore whoever raises questions about the second category must be irrational.

In this time of pandemic where there is a debate going on for and against vaccines, this is a sensitive matter, and hence should be dealt with carefully.

People who can't think rationally about the given three topics, they are not capable or not willing to understand that they have committed a fallacy.  So I would argue based on only burden of proof.  So these scenarios can be seen as -
   Mr A claims something, and provides facts to support his claim. Mr B doesn't care about his facts, he dismisses the claim.
This is a matter of how a person examines presented facts.

This is an ideal scenario. But what if Mr A cherry picks his facts? In that case when Mr B dismisses Mr A's claim, one can't call Mr B as irrational, or conspiracy theorist.

The fact that governments worldwide call anyone who calls out their harmful agenda as conspiracy theorist, or mad, has caused fear among public that truth is being silenced, and the public can't do anything about it because they are helpless. (If you never have experienced incidents where you know something to be true, but government controlled media is saying otherwise, either you live in a wonderful, moral society, or you keep your eyes and ears closed.) This is a real issue. Fallacy of conspiracy theory is a delicate thing and should be handled accordingly.

When a senator posts such video about a case against Pfizer vaccine trial, it causes people to trust COVID vaccines less. It should be pointed out that no medical cross-checking was done in that clip. But when a senator posts such information, it is usually believed that every cross checking was done.

Laws are mostly, if not only, made to prevent bad people from doing harmful things. If that is not the reason, it is usually to protect the interest of few people in government/power. All other vaccines are not mandated, heavily encouraged only. But COVID vaccines are being forced on people, despite each of them being in experimental phase, rather than doing health campaigns, encouraging people. Not taking vaccine is not a harmful act, the people who want the vaccines to be fully tested before they become vaccinated are not bad people, so vaccine mandate does not look good. 

Then there are Pfizer's terms and conditions; also read the article with reference published by 'Public Citizen'. What you see here is Pfizer putting profit over humanitarian crisis. It should be noted that these are news articles, not articles or papers published in a peer reviewed publication. Two problems with peer reviewed publications are that - 1) not everything gets the attention of such a publication, 2) such a publication is controlled/checked by few people which can be easily manipulated compared to mass media. If I am not wrong, the risk of truth silencing is similar to risk of suffering loss in the stock market, the risk needs to be spread out, not put in a bottleneck situation.

Trust is a fragile glass.

Now, a second possibility, what if Mr A isn't cherry picking, but Mr B claims that Mr A is cherry picking? Now if there is a valid or invalid reason, the scenario is dismissed either way. If there is no reason at all then it is probably a combination of ad hominem and conspiracy theory- 'I don't like his facts because he is bad', and 'he is bad because he is powerful'.

answered on Saturday, Dec 18, 2021 12:10:01 PM by Kawrno

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Jason Mathias
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An unprovable claim is a fallacy called unfalsifiability. 

When evidence is brushed aside, that is committing the cherry picking fallacy. They ignore inconvenient evidence that contradicts or falsifies their claims and only focus on cherry picking the evidence that supports their claims. Also known as conformation bias seeking. 

The 3 examples you give would be committing the conspiracy theory fallacy. 

Logical Form:

A is true.

B is why the truth cannot be proven.

Therefore, A is true.

answered on Friday, Dec 17, 2021 09:52:44 AM by Jason Mathias

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