Logical Fallacy - Interview between Bret Baier and Tim Shriver, 17Sept2024

On Sept 17, Fox News aired an interview between Brett Baier and Tim Shriver, founder of Unite, regarding Mr. Shriver’s “dignity index” (DI). To summarize the DI rates statements for their contempt vs dignity content on a scale 1 (“They are not even human. It is our moral duty to destroy them before they destroy us.”) to 8 (“Each one of us is born with inherent worth, so we treat everyone with dignity – no matter what.”)

During the interview Mr. Shriver provided the results of an 80 person, politically bipartisan, panel to assess the degree of negativity expressed by V.P. Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump during their ABC aired debate on September 10. The panel rated the comments of each candidate in the range of 3 (“We’re the good people and they’re the bad people. It’s us vs. them) or 2 (“Those people are evil and they are going to ruin our country if we let them. It’s us or them”) Mr. Shriver said that from the panel of bipartisan individuals rating the candidates on the DI scale “the big conclusion was that neither candidate opted for dignity in a big way… The panel scored the candidates pretty much at the same level.”

Giving the impression that there is equivalence between the two candidates seems wrong, but it is not clear to me how to talk about what is missing in the assessment of the candidates. I wonder if Mr. Bennett’s work with logical fallacies could shed light?

Links to both the interview and Mr. Shriver’s work with the DI are below for your convenience, if needed.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6362081096112

https://www.dignity.us/tim-shriver

 

There are several logical fallacies and potential cognitive biases that might be at play in the interpretation of the “dignity index” (DI) results discussed in the interview between Bret Baier and Tim Shriver. Here are a few that stand out:

1. **False Equivalence**:
- **Explanation**: This fallacy occurs when two situations, things, or outcomes are incorrectly considered to be logically equivalent when they are not.
- **In This Context**: By scoring both V.P. Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump at similar low levels on the DI, Mr. Shriver may unintentionally imply that both candidates' behaviors are equally contemptuous, regardless of the content, context, or impact of their statements. This might ignore significant differences in the nature or consequences of what each candidate is saying, making it seem that both are equally at fault for undignified discourse.

2. **Anchoring Bias**:
- **Explanation**: This cognitive bias involves relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (the "anchor") when making decisions.
- **In This Context**: If the panel of raters had strong preconceptions or biases about the candidates' expected behavior, their initial assessments might influence their subsequent ratings. For example, if raters expect Trump to be more contemptuous, their initial ratings can skew the subsequent evaluations, despite any variability in his or Harris's actual statements.

3. **Confirmation Bias**:
- **Explanation**: This bias involves focusing on information that confirms one's preconceptions while ignoring evidence that contradicts them.
- **In This Context**: The panel may have had pre-existing beliefs about the candidates that influenced their ratings. They might interpret or recall comments from Harris and Trump selectively, reinforcing their initial expectations instead of objectively evaluating each statement.

4. **Oversimplification**:
- **Explanation**: This logical fallacy involves simplifying complex issues to the point of misrepresentation.
- **In This Context**: Reducing the complex, nuanced behaviors and rhetoric of political candidates to a single score on the DI scale can be oversimplifying. This might ignore important context, such as the content of their policies, the context of their statements, and the intentions behind their rhetoric.

5. **Straw Man Fallacy**:
- **Explanation**: Misrepresenting an opponent’s position to make it easier to attack.
- **In This Context**: If the assessment focuses more on isolated comments rather than the entirety of the candidates' debate behaviors and positions, it can create a "straw man" of what each candidate represents, misrepresenting their overall positions and behaviors in a way that makes them seem more contemptuous than they might be in full context.

6. **Measurement Validity**:
- **Explanation**: This involves questioning whether a tool or method accurately measures what it purports to measure.
- **In This Context**: There might be concerns about whether the DI accurately captures the dignity or contempt in rhetoric. It may not account for subtleties such as sarcasm, humor, cultural context, or non-verbal cues, potentially leading to misleading equivalences.

To critically evaluate and discuss these potential fallacies and biases with Mr. Shriver’s assessment, consider the following points:

- **Context and Content**: Advocate for a more detailed analysis of the candidates’ statements, considering context, policies, and the substantive impact of their rhetoric.
- **Multiple Measures**: Suggest the use of multiple measures of behavior, including qualitative analyses, to complement the DI.
- **Avoid Simplification**: Emphasize the complexity of political discourse and the limitations of reducing it to a single index.
- **Transparency in Methodology**: Encourage transparency in how the DI ratings were derived and discuss potential biases in the process.

By addressing these points, you can articulate a more nuanced critique of the assessment of the candidates and challenge any misleading implications of equivalence.

I took a look at some of the evaluated statements and how they scored, and within the broader context of how these candidates have been speaking over the past several weeks, and here are some of the issues I noticed.

First thing is that the scale is inherently subjective, it's really on the person listening to determine how dignified a statement is. To their credit, it does look like they've made attempts to normalize this by recruiting a large group of people from across the political spectrum (which, again, has some subjectivity within it), and by publishing the averages of liberals vs. conservatives and showing them to differ by, at most, half a point.

However, I think the real issue is the selection of statements used, there is a lot of room for cherry picking statements:

• The race between Harris and Trump has been going on for roughly 2 months. Both of them won their first elections to a national position in 2016 and have been continuously campaigning since then, and have been in some way involved in politics going back decades. One night of debating, particularly as candidates are specifically presenting themselves to a national audience on this night rather than a partisan one, is not necessarily representative of their entire rhetoric.
• Even if the focus was just on debate performance, each candidate spoke for roughly 40 minutes, and were graded on 4 statements. That opens the possibility for bias from whoever is selecting the statements.
• 7 out of 8 statements chosen were, directly or indirectly, about the opponent or their administration, with the exception being a statement Harris made about Israel and Palestine. So there is definitely a lack of consistency there.

So, having watched the debate, I can certainly think of some statements that could have shifted the scores of they were included. If Harris talking about how she wants to be President for all Americans, or her appreciation for high profile Republicans who endorsed her despite their ideological differences was included, she would have gotten a higher score. If, instead of his statement where he disagrees with Harris's use of the term "sales tax", they included his most memorable statement where he repeated a known hoax about immigrants eating people's pets, then his score would have gone lower. If you had pulled statements from outside the debate, such as yesterday's campaign appearance in Grand Rapids, Michigan where Trump literally says that immigrants are animals and not humans, you could reliably get some 1s.

And, whether or not a candidate uses contempt in their rhetoric is not necessarily a good way to gauge a candidate's overall quality. Partly because their rhetoric and their performance in office are, to some degree, separable. The other thing is that, most people would agree, that some people are worthy of contempt. If one candidate said "Nazis are evil and must never be allowed to hold power," while another candidate said "I have some disagreements with Nazis, but we can build a better consensus by allowing their views into the national conversation," I think almost everyone would agree that the first statement is the morally superior one, despite its higher levels of contempt. To scale that back to the level of a typical Presidential debate, Presidents do make high stakes decisions that can be poorly considered or self-serving, possibly leading to poverty, illness or death for thousands of people. In some of those situations, a certain amount of contempt in their opponent's language may be appropriate to communicate the gravity of it.