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Jason Mathias

What fallacy is this?

Examples:

1: We can't explain why the lamp just moved, therefore it must be supernatural. 
2: No one can explain it, therefore it must be aliens.

3: I don't know what these little things are that I am seeing under the microscope in the covid vaccine sample, therefore the vaccine is poisonous and the manufactures must be secretly trying to kill us all.  

asked on Tuesday, Oct 19, 2021 01:45:08 PM by Jason Mathias

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
3

This is a good one, and I need to do a little research to see if this already exists. I would say this is a "gaps" fallacy. We all know the common "God of the gaps," but in practice, people fill that metaphorical gap with any ideology or strong belief.

We can also say this is jumping to conclusions .

answered on Tuesday, Oct 19, 2021 02:07:22 PM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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KDU writes:

From my understanding, these are examples of the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. What do you think?

posted on Tuesday, Oct 19, 2021 09:09:51 PM
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Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To KDU]

That doesn't quite fit (although similar). Consider the form of that fallacy:

X is true because you cannot prove that X is false.
or
X is false because you cannot prove that X is true.

A gap fallacy is more of

X is true because we want to believe it is, even though we have no evidence to support our belief.

The cognitive process for each of these fallacies is different... a different error in reasoning. In fairness, I have heard others say that the God of the Gaps fallacy was an argument from ignorance, and in a loose sense it can be. However, if we want to be precise (which we do on this site) then we should acknowledge the difference.

[ login to reply ] posted on Wednesday, Oct 20, 2021 07:46:23 AM
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Mchasewalker
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Jumping to conclusions is about right. Aside from being painfully non-sequitur, I don't detect any core deception. So I would just say these are the conclusions of various cognitive biases (confirmation biases) of a teleological nature. See Dr. Matt MacCormick HAAD or hyperactive agency detection, or   Daniel Dennett on promiscuous teleology. 

answered on Tuesday, Oct 19, 2021 02:32:12 PM by Mchasewalker

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TrappedPrior (RotE)
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All three examples are non-sequiturs. They do not follow, since there's no attempt to link the premises to the conclusions.

1) We can't explain why the lamp moved, period. Assuming that's true, it effectively means we can't make any causal claims about its movement until we get further evidence. That includes suggesting it's supernatural.

2) No one can explain it, therefore no one can explain it. There's no evidence provided that aliens did it (which is also begging the question that aliens exist).

3) The person does not know what the "little things" are so how do they know that these are poisonous?

answered on Wednesday, Oct 20, 2021 04:23:55 AM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Dr. Richard
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Argument from Ignorance (appeal to ignorance, argumentum ad ignorantiam), assumes a claim is true (or false) because it has not been proven false (true) or cannot be proven false (true).

answered on Wednesday, Oct 20, 2021 11:47:37 AM by Dr. Richard

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Kuda
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(1) seems to be a misinterpretation of the Principle of Conservatism which states that we should not accept supernatural explanations (all kinds of explanations that are not common, whether they are explanations drawn from science fiction, fantasy, religious, magical, etc., that are not logically impossible) if we have natural explanations that explain a fact. This does not mean that because we cannot explain x , therefore, the explanation of x is supernatural, rather, that the nature of x is such that one concludes that there can be no natural explanation to explain it, therefore, one must resort to the supernatural explanation.

In the case of the lamp, if the environment is controlled (there is no one in the room who could be moving it with some kind of illusion, you have a whole group of people who are experts in the field observing the phenomenon, all kinds of physical causes such as tremors, magnetism, etc., have been ruled out), then one must consider supernatural explanations (collisions with parallel universes or extra dimensions like in the Interestellar movie; telekinesis, immaterial entities, etc.).

answered on Wednesday, Oct 20, 2021 12:32:51 PM by Kuda

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