I have been in my share of arguments, debates, fistfights, and / or brouhahas. In my extensive career as a boxer / idealogue, I’ve repeatedly encountered an argument that I just cannot understand. I have heard people use this argument against evolution, against determinism, against Barack Obama’s electability, and against any number of things that make complete and total sense. The fallacy is formulated as follows:
I can explain why something happens.
Therefore, it does not happen.
Logical person: Barack Obama won South Carolina by a landslide.
Illogical person: His victory there doesn’t count.
Logical person: What?
Illogical person: He only won that election because of his support from black voters, so it doesn’t count.
Logical person: But he still won that election. You said it yourself.
Illogical person: Yes, but it doesn’t count because we expected him to.
Me: Evolution has been observed by humans. The fossil record shows it conclusively. The mechanism is so simple and so obvious that I can build, and demonstrate, a computer program that shows it in a few minutes. It’s small changes from environmental pressure that add up over time.
Idiot: But you just said it was small changes from environmental pressure that add up over time. Therefore it’s not evolution after all!
Me: …Um, yes, that’s why evolution works.
Idiot: If you explain how a rainbow works, is it really a rainbow anymore?
Me: …Yes?
Idiot: But there’s no mystery there. There must be a mystery, or what’s the point?
Me: Understanding our world, maybe?
Idiot: I think what I’m trying to say is, anything true usually escapes my ability to understand, because I am in fact a dumbass. Evolution makes complete and total sense, so it must be wrong.
Fuckwad: We have souls.
High-school graduate: Occam’s Razor indicates that there’s no reason to assume that, since we have other explanations that cover everything. What do you think a soul does?
Fuckwad: Gives us emotions.
High-school graduate: Yes, but we have identified the areas of the brain that contribute to emotions.
Fuckwad: The soul makes us human.
High-school graduate: …?
Fuckwad: You just said we understand these areas of the brain that give us emotions. We understand that, we can quantify it, and it’s not particularly mystical.
High-school graduate: Yes, that is my point exactly!
Fuckwad: So there must be something else.
You’ll hear this about anything. And the next time someone uses this argument on you, use your karate / logic skills to smash their brain in half.
(While your at it, smash their soul in half too.)
