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Mini: Middle of the Road · Why We Do What We Do

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  You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome to Why we do
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  what we do? Mini. I'm your host Abraham and I'm Shane. This
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  is a short form series that we do where we take a smallish bite sized
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  topic, we unpack it really quickly, and then we get out of there
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  so we can let you go about your day and go Yes, so today
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  is or of divorce, Right, that's what we call them. Okay,
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  wait, I'm saying, or dervs because they're just a snack. Right,
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  that's what we're doing. All right, So there you go our discussion today.
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  Fallacies are arguments that appear to be legitimate and are often convincing, but
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  when examined closely or even just like a little time, a little bit about
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  you can actually determine that these arguments are poor or even flat out wrong.
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  This can be done accidentally or as often as the case, they can be
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  used to trick you into believing something. Politicians basically only speak in logical fallacies
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  and many times illogical fallacies. That's always fun. Yeah, so there's informal
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  logical fallacies. These are statements or arguments based in language that are unsound,
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  illogical, or inaccurate because the content of the argument, not just the structure
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  or form of the argument is bad. Right, So we're it's just the
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  argument itself as bad, as is the case with the formal logical fallacies.
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  Yes, so this is an informal The one we're talking about today is informal.
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  There are formal Here's an example of a formal logical fallacy. One that's
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  called affirming the consequent or modus ponens is. However it described in Latin.
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  I mean, that's a formal logical fallacy. And it goes like this,
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  if A then B B therefore A And here's an example of how this that's
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  sort of the logical symbolic representation of how it works. So let's let's do
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  it this way. If immigrants come into our country there will be more crime.
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  That might be a premise that someone states as part of an argument,
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  is if immigrants come into our country, there'll be more crime. That's a
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  B there is more crime, as an observation, so C therefore immigrants have
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  come into our country. Like, that's an informal logical fallacy, just because
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  you make the premise which may or may not be true, and then you
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  have an observation of an outcome which may or may not be true. Then
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  you imply the premise, which again may or may not be true, And
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  that doesn't actually make logical sense to do. And I think that an example
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  should unpack that relatively. Well, yeah, absolutely so. One such informal
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  logical fallacy is the middle of the road logical fallacy. So this fallacy is
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  the argument that the middle of two extreme positions is the truth or most likely
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  to be true. Which is so fun. It's like the three sides to
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  every story. Right, yeah, So let's take this example. We'll have
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  it. We'll have a little debate with each other. Part A, we
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  should kill all of the dogs in the world. Oh, Abraham, Well,
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  my argument is we should kill none of the dogs in the world.
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  Okay, so then a logical position, as the middle of the road,
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  we should kill half of the dogs in the world. Oh that's bad.
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  No, that's bad. That is clearly wrong. Don't kill dogs unless it's
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  an act of compassion. That is, they're dying, they can't be saved,
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  they're an extreme pain, that sort of thing. We don't kill dogs.
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  No, no, kill yeah the dogs. Yeah, we don't have
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  to give it here. Yeah. Yeah, it's just the sort of active
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  compassion version of that, which is rare and sometimes necessary, but not not
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  the go to for anything. Right, let's unpack some more less clear examples
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  of a middle of the road logical fallacy. Some argue that electric cars are
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  better for the environment. Some argue that electric cars are worse for the environment,
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  So it's probable that electric cars are neither better nor worse for the environment.
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  They put out a neutral net positive or neutral net negative. There's there's
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  they're neutral as it's neutral. Yeah, it's net neutral. This may or
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  may not be true, depending on how you choose to slice and dice it,
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  but the argument itself is not sound. Is the problem here? Just
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  because there are two polar opposite positions does not mean that therefore the middle position
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  is accurate. But by the way, just by pretty much every available metric,
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  electric cars are better for the environments. We'll just get that out out
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  of the road. But suffice it to say, people will use this to
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  create polar opposite positions so that they can then move their position to the middle
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  of those, which is still wrong, and claim that it's legitimate because it's
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  between two extremes. Well, right, and I think, you know,
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  as I'm kind of listening to this, and it's like, okay, so
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  one extreme is wrong, the other extreme is wrong. The middle one is
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  not like A. It's like a perfect melding of the two, which makes
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  it wrong because it's still in itself extreme by making like such grandiose claims.
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  Yeah, right, like in itself is like not generalizable exactly right. Yeah,
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  it's like just because the two extreme positions doesn't mean that one of the
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  like partially they're like partially right in any direction. A is wrong, B
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  is right, c as ads. So let's consider a different type of example.
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  So let's say carcinogens cause cancer. I'll say instead the genetics cause cancer.
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  Well, then the middle of the road would be the carcinogens and genetics
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  can cause cancer. And this is an example that highlights that the conclusion can
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  be definitely true, but the argument itself is flawed. Right, So we
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  can make the argument that carcinogens and genetics together can be higher risk, but
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  the argument to get there doesn't make any sense. It's not reasonable to say
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  that carcinogens and genetics cause cancer because that is the middle position between the two
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  different statements. It just happens to be the case that both are true.
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  I think it's worth just pointing out, like sometimes the middle of the road
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  is the right position, but not because it's the middle of the road.
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  It just happens to be the right position. Also, sometimes most times,
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  probably all times, there are really more than two options that can exist,
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  So like, it doesn't have to be like sometimes painting that there are two
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  extremes. It's actually another logical fallacy called a false dichotomy. So worth considering
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  that. Right, Oh, let's unpack a psychological example, because you know,
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  we are psychology podcasts, so we should be talking about that. So
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  presumably you know, well we've discovered it were history podcasts recently, so there's
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  that true. So let's say behavior is determined by cognitive processes, and I'm
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  going to say behavior is determined by environmental processes. Then we would say middle
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  of the road behavior is determined by both cognitive and environmental processes. And a
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  lot of people will hear this and think that makes perfect sense. I can
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  totally buy this. That's wrong, right, and the premise of the question
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  is incorrect. Cognitive processes are behavioral processes. They're part of our behavior.
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  There are things that we do that are part of interaction with the environment,
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  so they are behavior. Simply superimposing this truth into the argument highlights the deficiency
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  in the argument itself, because if we simply replace the word cognitive with behavior
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  because they are behaviors, then the argument becomes behavior is determined by behavior processes,
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  right, and then behavior is determined by environmental processes, which then leads
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  to it's not true because a is not true to begin with. Right.
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  So the point of this discussion is to point out how people can use these
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  arguments to try and trick you. Or you may use these arguments to trick
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  yourself into believing something, but by using flawed logical method and many people will.
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  They'll create extreme positions, again like in politics, so that they can
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  then land in a middle position saying this is the right place to be,
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  and that it's still a very extreme position relative to one of those premises,
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  but they've made it seem less extreme by comparing it to something even more extreme
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  and then highlighting as being true because it's the middle of the road. Don't
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  be hoodwinked by these liars. That is all I got, anything you got
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  Shane nothing else that nailed it. Thank you for listening Why We Do What
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  We Do Mini is out Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What
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  We Do. You can learn more about this and other episodes by going to
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  wwdwwdpodcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day