Examples of Poor Reasoning and Uncritical Thought

From a Blog on Grove Critical  Thinking Skills
http://www.grovecriticalthinking.com/blog/2013/1/17/how-not-to-reason-by-analogy.html

Last week’s Globe and Mail contained an article with some of the worst examples of poor reasoning I’ve seen in some time.  Not that poor reasoning is a rarity for the Globe and Mail.  For Critical Thinking professors, some of the Globe’s regular contributors (particularly Margaret Wente) have provided a treasure trove of examples of poor reasoning for us to discuss in our classes.  But this contribution, entitled “Absolutism in the Church of Green,” was particularly bad. It was written by Gordon Gibson.  He’s a former BC MLA and current senior fellow at the Frasier Institute.

Gibson argues that opposition to hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” in Quebec (as well as opposition to pipelines in BC) is merely a “knee jerk reaction” based on the “absolutist” dogma of the new “green religion.”  In order to establish this claim, Gibson attempts to establish that environmentalism is akin to religion.  Here is his argument for this latter claim: 

“Religions have certain characteristics. They consist of a body of belief based on faith (as, for example, in God). This faith is not to be challenged, distinguishing religions from other belief sets. Scientific theories, for a counterexample, must always be questioned. Not so with religion. Unwavering faith is the hallmark. Religions… have high priests who can speak ex cathedra and gain immediate belief. David Suzuki, Al Gore and Amory Lovins, among others, have this otherworldly gravitas. They have their religious orders. Just as there are Jesuits and Benedictines, there are Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.”

What Gibson is presenting here is a type of argument by analogy.  Analogical reasoning is a fundamental mode of reasoning.  It is often used in reasoning about ethical and legal matters.  Indeed, it forms the basis of our precedent system of law. In an analogical argument one draws a conclusion concerning a difficult, unclear case (the primary subject) by comparing it closely with a more straightforward or agreed upon case (the analogue). The basis for drawing the conclusion in an analogical argument is the relevant similarity between the primary subject and the analogue.

The type of analogical argument that Gibson presents is one where an analogy is used for the purpose of classification.  A cogent argument of this type has a structure that looks something like this:


 1.The analogue has features a, b, and c.
 2.The primary subject has features a, b, and c.
 3.It is by virtue of features a, b, and c that the analogue is properly classified as a W.

Therefore,

     4.  The primary subject ought to be classified as a W.

Gibson is using this type to analogical argument for the purpose of classifying environmentalism as a religion.  He argues:
1.Religions have (a) a body of beliefs based on faith, (b) high priests who can speak ex cathedra and gain immediate belief, and (c) religious orders (Jesuits and Benedictines).
2.Environmentalism has David Suzuki, Al Gore and Amory Lovins (who have this otherworldly gravitas). Environmentalism has Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.
So,

     3.       Environmentalism ought to be classified as a religion.
As it stands, Gibson argument is not cogent.  He’s failed to include premises required to provide sufficient grounds for his conclusion.  This is easily seen when we compare it to the structure given above.  He’s missing the premise that the primary subject (Environmentalism) has feature (a) a body of beliefs based on faith, and he’s missing premise 3.

However, as we’ve discussed previously in this blog, the Grove Critical Thinking method of Argument Analysis involves reconstructing arguments by adding implicit premises as necessary in an attempt to make the argument cogent.  Our reason for doing so is to use argument analysis not merely for the purpose of seeing who we can refute, but to discover what we should believe. In addition, as we shall see, reconstruction can help pinpoint an argument’s flaws by uncovering hidden assumptions.  After reconstruction, Gibson’s argument looks like this:

 1.Religions have (a) a body of beliefs based on faith, (b) high priests who can speak ex cathedra and gain immediate belief, and (c) religious orders (Jesuits and Benedictines).
 2.Environmentalism has (a) a body of beliefs based on faith, (b) David Suzuki, Al Gore and Amory Lovins (who have this otherworldly gravitas) and (c) Greenpeace and the Sierra Club (religious orders?).
 3.It is by virtue of features a, b, and c that a religion is properly classified as a religion.

So,
  4.       Environmentalism ought to be classified as a religion.

At this point, one might quite reasonably think that Gibson’s argument should be rejected on the grounds that Environmentalism does not have a body of beliefs based on faith.   I’m not going to reject the argument on that basis.  Certainly, not all the beliefs of environmentalism are based on faith, but let’s be charitable and presume that Gibson merely intends that some beliefs of environmentalists are based on faith.  I won’t take a stance either way on whether this is reasonable to believe, but we should note that this interpretation requires us to interpret premise 1a as likewise claiming that some religious beliefs are based on faith. Nor will I reject the argument on the basis that Premise 2b is unreasonable.

Perhaps some people do believe the claims of Suzuki, Gore and Lovins merely due to their authoritative position.  But again, interpreting this premise as such requires us to interpret 1b as claiming that some followers believe the claims of high priests simply because they are high priests.  Nor will I reject the argument on the basis that Greenpeace and the Sierra Club are not akin to religious orders.  To establish that they are, Gibson would need to provide a cogent analogical sub argument.  Let’s just suppose that he could do this. No, the real problem with Gibson’s argument is Premise 3.

Before discussing what’s wrong with Premise 3, we need to address why premise 3 is necessary. After all, Gibson’s original argument didn’t include it.  So why did we need to add it as an implicit premise? The reason is that when we think critically about analogical arguments, we need to first ask ourselves whether the features of the primary subject that are highlighted by the analogy are relevant to the point asserted in the conclusion.  Do those features give us reasons to suppose that the conclusion is true of the primary subject?  But perhaps more importantly, we also need to ask ourselves whether there are any relevant differences and whether these differences outweigh the similarities.  The reason is that there are always similarities between any two things.  It is only if the two things are relevantly similar and not relevantly dissimilar that one would be justified in concluding they are of the same class.  Premise 3 amounts to the assertion that the similarities are relevant and that there are no relevant dissimilarities between environmentalism and religion.  This is why it is needed to make Gibson’s argument cogent.

But of course there are relevant dissimilarities between environmentalism and religion.  The relevant dissimilarity is in fact what distinguishes religion from science.  Environmentalists support their beliefs with evidence.  In particular those opposed to fracking provide evidence that fracking should be opposed:  They claim fracking contaminates both the air and the ground water (and provide evidence for this).

I’m not claiming that this does or does not provide good reason to oppose fracking, but if it doesn’t then Gibson should provide an argument for why it doesn’t.  He should engage the arguments of the environmentalist.  Show either that their premises are unreasonable (show that fracking does not contaminate both the air and the ground water) or that their premises do not support their conclusion (show that even if it did, we should nonetheless do it).  In other words, he should think critically. But rather than think critically, by engaging the arguments of environmentalists, considering their evidence, examining whether their conclusions follow from the evidence, Gibson ignores their argument and instead presents an incredibly weak argument for his doing so.  This is the hallmark of uncritical thought.