The "Red Herring" Fallacy

[ElasticGiraffe]

You tend to use examples which reveal your political and (ir)religious biases. These videos would be better, I think, if the examples were neutral and about uncontroversial matters.

[JonesArmandoHoward]

This kind of sounds like religious Martyrdom and Conspiracy against rights, denial of Entrapment for whatever they did, Color of law, and then probably RICO and a whole bunch of other stuff with a probable civil commitment that is completely non Reciprocal for the defendant being charged and possibly for the first time in two hundred years you have Jewish,Black, and gay slaves that have to work until they die under the royal retainer class that survived ZOG and its minions...Awesome!!!

[iDJScatter]

Isn't it great that people will do this! I really appreciate the author of this video. It is information that most wonder, but nobody answers. It takes these kind people to explain this stuff and inform. Thanks dude! =D

[YourTeacherLE]

Greenhouse gasses vs Nuclear weapons (That's what I call smoke and mirrors). Look at what those countries are doing. Look at how much debt Europe has. (Just don't look at what we are doing, or our debt.) ;)

[chinguidinsky]

There's something similar, if not the same, in Psychology. Say a couple suddenly starts fighting during their therapy and things start heating up, it gets crazy. As a therapist you throw a Red Herring by saying something like "hold on, do you smell gas? is there a gas leak?", the couple will divert their attention and start smelling around. You deactivate their fight. Sounds silly, but it works.

[oxmach91]

Fantastic - so clear and concise. Thank you!

[Regain680]

You just helped me with writing my college essay on Context, as well as decide my college course next semester, on Philosophy.

[KoldShadow]

Superb, concise, and well articulated explanation. I have been intrigued by what this kind of fallacy was when a 9/11 documentary referred to the "Al Qaeda" hijackers as "red herrings" (when considering the possibility of remote hijacking/alternate aircraft used in the attacks). Using the "straw man" fallacy to compare and contrast, and using clear examples made this a commendable insight, and for that I applaud you!

[hasenj]

Thanks for this explanation.

[CalmPanda]

Thank you. I always get them mixed up, but this clears it up.

[2ndSTARMAN]

What happens if the fox was the real red herring? a tripple bluff?

[ThorkilKowalski]

Thumbs up if you feel more like commenting on the examples given than the actual point in this video.

[kly45]

You should have mentioned smoke screens too. I know it isn't an argument but they are related. A red herring is an argument that tries to change the subject, whereas smoke screen is a general way of distorting the truth to mislead people, it's always worth mentioning that to beginners.

[PhilosophyFreak]

Thanks again for the nice comments everyone.

[gameralholbert]

@PhilosophyFreak

Straw man is distorting the original argument or make it easier to argue (Politicians usually do this if the argument if from some source that cannot counter argue). Red herring is ignoring the argument and presenting a more appetizing argument (Politicians use this if the argument is too strong to refute and want to distract the audience).

[thesparitan]

@PhilosophyFreak Can you do a video on an Ad Hominem fallacy? That has to be the one fallacy most people know about and most people get completely wrong.

[PhilosophyFreak]

@thesparitan You asked ... check out my channel link. If it's not on the featured video then it's in the "fallacies" playlist.

[thesparitan]

@PhilosophyFreak As always thanks for your help.

[twinqletwinqle]

I was about to say the exact same thing as the person before me. Excellent videos, the graphics, line of explanation, examples and manner of speech makes it very easy to understand.

[franciscomalmeida]

PhilosophyFreak, your videos are of excellent educational value. I have subscribed, expecting much more of this great work from you. :)

[lautz73]

In other words they try and change the topic of the arguement.

[TheChamseyCampaign]

Wow! Really well layed out. Thanks! :-)

[mimi3537]

I watch this video over and over an still don't get it!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's so confusing to me.......

[PhilosophyFreak]

@mimi3537 The wikipedia entry for "red herring" gives an overview of the origins of the herring metaphor. Good examples can sometimes be hard to come by because some people use "red herring" to label almost any response that is in any way irrelevant to a main line of reasoning, so it's treated more as an umbrella category under "fallacies of irrelevance". I like to reserve it for intentional efforts to distract attention away from a given point or line of reasoning.

[otccore]

@mimi3537 That's cause you're a Republican.

[HonorableTheft]

@mimi3537 Think of a Pup Named Scooby Doo :) Who actually did the crime? And Who does Fred Blame all the time?

[93cian]

@mimi3537 I had never heard of red herring before but to sum it up:

You're in an argument and you have nothing to say to prove the other person wrong so you change the subject completely. That's a red herring.

[OnionTrollsAlliance]

I appreciate your clear presentation.

[BeatboxSTeoX]

i like salmon ^^

[drealgrin]

So it's like when You're arguing how Male Genital Mutilation on infants and young children without medical necessity is wrong. And then the opponent says "Oh, well you probably think it's ok to kill babies (abortion) but it's not ok to cut parts off them?"

Oh yeah i'm so smart

[RefutingSkellyism]

Straw 'Man' is not in any way sexist. Woman are never wrong, so for anyone suggesting a figure other than a male, would be shooting himself in the foot. Men are the only sex capable of error. Come on man, you being into philosophy should know that.

[sunners16]

@RefutingSkellyism no.

[sunners16]

@RefutingSkellyism no, you're wrong.

[arachnophile01]

I like to think of the difference between the red herring and other sorts of fallacies like Ad Hominem is that the red herring has no "Ergo x is wrong" atatched to it rather it is " While you could say x, it's a funny story about x, onetime I was doing y and someone else said x"

like an ad hominem would be " you think that this restaurant should have a nutrition wall sheet, but you're wrong because you eat there"

rather than the red herring "..but don't you like their food?"

[PhilosophyFreak]

@arachnophile01 I agree that red herrings are subtle, they usually involve changing the terms of a discussion rather than arguing for a position on the original issue.

[mistara31415]

Why are you not a youtube partner??

[ImaginaryMdA]

so this is what you creationists keep using!

interesting!

[bejjinks]

@ImaginaryMdA Actually, your comment is a perfect example of a red herring. The term "creationism" was never even mentioned. You're changing the subject.

[ImaginaryMdA]

@bejjinks The difference is, I don't want to prove a point, I just wanted that said, in addition to what the vid said, it was just an exclamation like, ow you're so right! (the video also never said that it was right, changing the subject) to keep the analogy, if there is no fox being hunted, a redd herring cannot be destracting, since it has nothing to draw attention away from,

[SUpersaiyajinjerkbag]

Does red herring involve making an irrelevant topic or an irrelvant answer?

[PhilosophyFreak]

@SUpersaiyajinjerkbag could be both. the key is that it involves a subtle change of subject away from the original line of argument. you could do this by raising a new-but-different topic, or by giving an answer to a different question than the one asked (politicians are good at this :))

[thesparitan]

@PhilosophyFreak I have received this argument in a debate with a creationist. it is a fallacy but I want to know which one. I called it a use-mention error because I couldnt think of anything else. I want to know if there is a better explanation.

"a computer was created by an intelligent designer, the brain is a computer, therefore it had an intelligent designer"

what do you think?

[PhilosophyFreak]

@thesparitan This is an (excellent) example of the fallacy of "equivocation", using the same term in an argument but with two different meanings (when the logic only works if the term is used with the same meaning). In the second line, all that "computer" means is "performs computations". It's a basic assumption of a good deal of cognitive science, but it's just a claim about the way the brain processes information, it needn't imply a designer. So yes, this is a fallacy!

[thesparitan]

@PhilosophyFreak THANK YOU, I needed that. I think I watched that video you have on equivocation, why I didnt get that I dont know.

[grycer]

@PhilosophyFreak It needn't imply a designer? You are begging the question here. You have not shown that the logic is really different within the two functions; you simply assumed it. Until compelling evidence is presented that shows a complex design (that contains highly specified information to perform a funciton) can be caused outside of a intelligent designer, then you don’t have a case and no fallacy has been created.

[PhilosophyFreak]

@grycer Was this comment directed at me or someone else in the debate below?

[scudder91]

@thesparitan hi, i totally defer to philosophy freak's excellent explanations and videos, but i thought i'd offer my own thoughts:

the creationist's argument is a form of equivocation that runs in line with another form of fallacy, called"The argument through analogy" metaphors are useful for giving poets a vibrant way of expressing themselves, but they are not valid sources of proof, and no conclusions can be drawn from them

[scudder91]

@thesparitan so, if we compare a brain to a computer, that is valid if we use it to visualise or help us to understand how it works. but if we make a conclusion from this comparison, one that doesn't necessarily follow because although a brain and a computer are similar in some ways they are different in others, we have made an "argument from analogy" fallacy.

[thesparitan]

@scudder91 Thank you for your answer, it help alot.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan no worries, i am only an amatuer logician and am still at the foothills of how logic and reason work, and i am learning all the time :-)

there are two excellent books to read if you want a comprehensive guide on fallacies vrs reason: "Straight and crooked thinking" by Robert H Thoughless, and "Why people believe wierd things" By Micheal Shermer of the skeptics society. Shermer has loads of posts on You tube. His debate with Deepak Chopra is very funny.

[thesparitan]

@scudder91 I watch the debate and you have made me dislike deepak now LOL. He was at his worst in this debate, and I did like him before it too, oh well. micheal shermer and Sam harris abilities as debaters are amazing.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan hi, yeah, if you want a text book example of the use of equivocation that philosophy freak refered you to then Deepak is the definitive article. a very good intellectual excercise to undertake if you have time is to watch his bits again and try and work out what exactly the words he is using actually mean. i've done it about four or five times and i still can't manage it.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan the reason why shermer and harris by contrast are so good to listen to is that they come from a real scientific background, where you have to be very precise with the meanings of the words you uses.

[thesparitan]

@scudder91 I can see that at work in the debate. equivocation seems to be one of the most popular fallacies for people to use when debating spirituality.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan there are two absolutley lethal strains of equivocation being touted by theists these days: one is to conflate "science" with "faith". The other is to appropriate the word "freedom" and try to make it mean worshiping god. they are the most dangerous permutations of this fallacy that are around today

[scudder91]

@thesparitan in order to understand the first we just need to conduct a thought experiment; imagine sitting in a cardboard box and praying to god that it will fly you to america from th UK. see what happens. then book a ticket on an airline, that had to have scienteists, engineers, chemists, physicists etc all of whom had to abandon faith and find out for themselves how everything worked. this describes pretty accurately the different approaches of creationism and evolutionary theory.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan if you want to see how it works with the first example then try a simple thought experiment; imagine being ill with some potentially fatal disease and praying to god to get better. then imagine going to see a doctor who had to spend years finding out how the human body worked and what fixed it. now imagine someone who tried out the first cure insisting that the methodology involved was the same as the second.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan oops! sorry thought i'd erased one of those examples, so i've repeated myself.

anyway, if this seems rediculous then it's just exactly what is happening in the real world. faith based medicine is starting to encroach on the established scientific medical community. one question to ask is; why do theists try to equate science with faith? why don't they just say they believe in something they have no evidence for and leave the science to the scientists?

[scudder91]

@thesparitan to answer this question we have to look at how the world is now: theists in the secular world can't force the rest of us to believe, so they have to compete fairly with other ideas (in the old days they could simply kill anyone who disagreed with them.) now, when someone is ill, or when they look at subjects like evolution, they can see that scientific observation is better at understanding the world then faith. the theists see this and envy the credence they're lost to science

[scudder91]

@thesparitan so what they do is simply appropriate the word "science" and attempt top strip it away of it's real meaning; that is, a theory arrived at through reason that is verified through a process of exhaustive experimentation, as opposed to the psuedo science of creationism, that starts at its conclusion, fits evidence around it to fit and discards anything inconvienient. it then calls this process "science" because it hopes to steal some of the kudos that real science has gained -

[scudder91]

@thesparitan througout the world without actually having to meet any of the standards that real science does. it wants to appropriate the veneer of credibilty that real science has earned in the world without actually having to earn it for itself by meeting it's real standards. or it goes the other way and says that scientists only make judgements based on faith, the same as theists. this kind of equivocation is the favorite theist con trick of today. it's being perpetrated on a massive scale.

[scudder91]

@thesparitan nice trading ideas with you! keep it rational! :-)

[TheObservationDeck]

@scudder91

Any debate with Deepak is funny. And sad..

[scudder91]

@thesparitan what is interesting about the example you have given is that it takes the form of a syllogism; that is, a major premise supported by two minor premises. syllogisms are notoriously difficult to break down when they are misused by unscrupulous or incompetent thinkers. if one of the premises is flawed or does not follow from the others they become extremely problematic. in this case it is the second premise that is flawed and leads to the falsely concluded major premise.

[100PercentGreen]

Very clear and nice illustrations!

[ethanlimsc]

good idea to explain the meaning

[Gunriffun9mm]

Good.