As other concerns preoccupy me, I've not been spending much time blogging or reading the blogs as of late – which, I am sure, is of great relief to our resident social conservatives, fundamentalist Christians, or Bush Nationalists and apologists.

However, I have begun to notice this fallacy creeping quite a bit into the follow-up discussions on various posts. Not completely unsurprising, this fallacy is usually committed by defenders of George Bush (ie. Bush Nationalists afflicted by their own brand of Bush Derangement Syndrome) or other right leaning apologists for the soon out-going administration.

I hate to single them out as anyone can commit this fallacy in defense of the indefensible where creed, political, or religious values are concerned. Yet, they make themselves such easy targets - and I really have no love for this type of ethical knife twisting.

Again, this is not meant to be a complete analysis and for sake of brevity, I'll cite one example today.

Defined
The Tu Quoque is a rhetorical red herring which can take the order of an ad hominem. It is an accusation of likewise chicanery when one's actions or beliefs are exposed as either vile, or for the stark wrongheadedness of its inherent reasoning.

In short, when the petitioner commits this fallacy, it is an attempt to put the accuser on the defensive who correctly identifies the error in the petitioner's reasoning. It is a simple attempt to deflect criticism without actually confronting the basis for which the criticism was observed in the first place.

Functionally, this fallacy becomes a red herring - irrelevancies to the main issue.

Example
On the doctrine of torture by waterboarding by the Bush administration:

"Wrong again. Bush did not torture anyone. The waterboarding was approved by democrats like Pelosi. Anyway, what we do to the enemy is no different than a college hazing." Jim Heyatt. (Source)

Explained and Exposed
The example attempts to justify waterboarding as a legal practice because not only has Bush given his sign-off, but the current highest ranking Democrat, Speaker Pelosi, as an endorser as well.

The reasoning is simple here. If Democrats do it, then a Republican who does it has committed no harm, no shame. Hey, if both sides agree, then how can waterboarding be wrong?

For the sake of argument, let's assume this is true, both Pelosi and Bush agree that waterboarding – a technique of  "forced suffocation and inhalation of water" where the "subject experiences the process of drowning and is made to believe that death is imminent" is entirely legal and therefore not torture.

This argument implores us to suspend our judgment because of perceived political alignment and to ignore what waterboarding actually entails.

John Sifton of Human Rights Watch describes it as the person (waterboarded)  "believes they are being killed, and as such, it really amounts to a mock execution" and further observes  "is illegal under international law." Adding to this, former CIA officer Bob Baer states that "bad interrogation. I mean you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."

Essentially, in defense of Bush's policy of torture, the Bush-Nationalist (or any supporter of this doctrine), would have you forget that by all accounts and supportable evidence that waterboarding is not torture because they believe they've cornered the accuser out of similar political necessity and commitment. 

Suffice to say, the pro-wateboarder is easily and uncritically convinced by this reasoning.

As for others who do have a consistent moral grounding, we are not as blinded by political necessity or commitment.  

I'll call a spade a spade here.

If you believe that waterboarding is merely "college-hazing" – You are morally bankrupt.

In Conclusion
Just because Jimmy does what Janey does, does not make such an action or belief ethical in itself.

Criticisms of someone's beliefs or actions must be defended on its merits, not on the actions or merits of others.

When the Tu Quoque is evoked, there is a good chance that the petitioner who does is more than likely defending the indefensible and a person of questionable moral persuasion.  

Humans are quite naturally uncomfortable with ignorance. We are curious animals, evolved with an ability to reason and to discover insight into the phenomena that we find ourselves perplexed and enveloped in. Nature does not willingly yield her secrets to us. And while science can penetrate into some of nature's deepest mysterious, the theories it provides – like evolution for instance, can rival our otherwise conventional (or religious) wisdom.

Not all explanations are equal. Explanations that can not be falsified do not have a reliable attachment to reality. Scientific theories are testable. At any time, a theory can be overturned in light of new evidence or understanding. Explanations that can not be tested, are not science, but wishful thinking that relies on the authority of its dogma. (For a quick review of the scientific method, click here.)

As always, the following analysis is not meant to be complete.

Defined
This fallacy is not about a one's ignorance per se, but is committed when the petitioner asserts that a substitute explanation is more reliable if there are no apparent alternative explanations. Just because an explanation fails, does not necessarily make a competing explanation more plausible.

The Skeptics Dictionary supplies us with an accurate definition:

"The argument to ignorance is a logical fallacy of irrelevance occurring when one claims that something is true only because it hasn't been proved false, or that something is false only because it has not been proved true. A claim's truth or falsity depends upon supporting or refuting evidence to the claim, not the lack of support for a contrary or contradictory claim."

Examples

1. Those unidentified lights are proof of extraterrestrial life, since no other explanation is apparent.
2. If evolution is false, then creationism is true. A truncated example from the blogs, states: "Evolution according to Charles Darwin simply cannot be the truth. The only remaining popular theory is Creationism, or Intelligent Design. There is no scientific proof that it didn't happen essentially as the Book of Genesis describes. Creationism thus remains standing as the only plausible explanation for the existence of life on earth. Consequently, it is completely scientific, simply because it is the only "truth" left standing."

Example 1: To presume that a light in the sky is substantial proof of alien life is not sufficient evidence.The lights in the sky could have been anything. An unnecessary assumption is being attributed without demonstrating that the lights are, in fact, extraterrestrial life.

Example 2: Evolution may one day demonstrated to be false, it does not necessarily make the Genesis account necessarily true. Also notice, that in this example the creationist  invokes a special plead. There are countless other creation stories from a multiple of other religious traditions, yet the writer automatically disqualifies these creation stories because of his prior commitment to Biblical creationism. Simply, the creationist is stating because he believes creationism to be true, it automagically is. This is nothing but wishful thinking.

Sound scientific theories propose how a theory can be falsified. In fact, a favorite tactic of creationists is to "quote mine" Darwin himself. Darwin proposes: "The case at present (problems presented by the fossil record) must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views (the Theory of Natural Selection) here entertained."  (Read full the context of the quote, here.) At the time, Darwin had to inductively reason from the evidence presently known which the Theory of Natural Selection is predicated on. Creationist like to falsely state that Darwin knew that evolution was false. Not so.

Scientific theories make predictions that can be tested. Darwin was supplying his critics with the conditions that could overturn the Theory of Natural Selection. That is sound science. Sound scientific theories rests not only a preponderance of evidence, but by independent verification.

Also, I should mention that Darwin was proposing a theory for the origin of species, not an origin of life. Creationist like to muddle the two. (Strawmen are easier to defeat after all.)

What the creationist fails to tell you that after a 150 years of collecting fossils that demonstrate benchmark evolutionary developments that species have undertaken (transitory fossils) and research into genetics, the evidence against evolution has ceased to be inexplicable. Darwin's theories have proven their accuracy. From geology to biology, to other independent fields, the Theory of Evolution is as much as a fact as anything you will find. (Read more about evolution, here.) In fact, Darwinian evolution is the meta-theory that governs modern, biological sciences.

The most damning of all, of course, is that the creationist argues that no evidence can falsify creationism. If no evidence can overturn creationism, what evidence can? The other curious aspect of the creationist's argument, is while he argues that there is not "scientific proof" (proof meaning evidence) in favor of Biblical Creationism, he simultaneously claims that creationism is " completely scientific"  by fiat. Which is it? Does science prove creationism or not? 

And that is weakness of creationism. Creationism can not provide criteria in how the "design theory" may be discredited. All design arguments invoke a much larger question which must be surmounted: "Since the designer is necessarily more complex than his creation – like the watchmaker to his watch, how was the designer designed?"

An argument from ignorance is not an answer to the design argument, nor does it provide satisfactory evidence of the claim.

In Conclusion

There is nothing wrong with the answer, "We do not know." Only by a sound methodology that remains open to new evidence and understanding, we can hope to resolve some of our natural ignorance.

With the introduction of industrialization to society, we have become nations of specialists. No longer are we generalists whose sole task is survival. We have become niche workers in specialized fields. The more demanding the position, the more training and experience required.
 
A person today can not spend all the necessary time to train and to be expert in every field and in every sub-discipline of that field. Science would have died after its first practitioners, and the extant of society would be forever configured into small tribal units – eking a subsistence in caves and at the whim of migrating animals. There would be no transcendent knowledge base from one generation to the next.

Therefore, we must rely on experts, to determine what the facts are and how those facts describe the world around us.

Defined
This fallacy is very similar to last weeks fallacy,  instead of appealing to majority opinion, the appeal is either made to what an expert or a perceived authority feels, or a group as justification for a belief. Citing a person's belief as evidence is evidence of that person's belief, not that the belief itself is valid.

There are other varieties of this fallacy, but I am including the ones that are most relevant to the discussions at lcl.

Examples

1. Einstein believed in God. Are you smarter than Einstein?
   
2. A majority of democrats voted to authorize Bush to go to war with Iraq. Therefore, the war is justified.

Example 1: This is a non-sequitar. Einstein did not believe in God. In a letter to a philosopher Eric Gutkind (recently auctioned) Einstein reveals  "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

If you want to use Einstein as an expert for belief in god - that is fine by me.

Regardless of Einstein's beliefs, belief in God is justified only by the evidence. You've only demonstrated what someone else may or may not believe, not that the belief itself has any merit.

Example 2: This argument is deployed as a post hoc rationalization for the war in Iraq. While it is true that there was significant bipartisan support in Congress, that does not substitute for positive and explicit evidence for invasion.  As we all know, the evidence was never found. It's complete absence, is conclusive evidence that such an absence of WMD did not exist according to the explicit allegations made.

In Conclusion
While it is true that we must rely on the testimony of experts, the truth of a claim does not end with that expert alone. Facts on the ground can change and that is why any theory must remain falsifiable to have any value at all.

Otherwise, we succumb to dogma and doctrine.

A new poll reveals that 60% of all Americans believe that wearing a flag pin "indicates that a person is patriotic." If the majority believes that something is correct, then of course it must be true. Heck, if 90% of people said tomorrow that slavery was correct, we should repeal the 13th immediately.

Which must make Barack Obama as un-American as you can get I suppose. Last year, Fox news reported that Obama did not wear a lapel pin on some occasions. Asked why, Obama stated that the pin "became a substitute for I think true patriotism." But of course, when Obama wears a pin to soothe the right-wing's hurt feelings and to bolster their failing sense of patriotism, the right wing brands Obama as a flip-flopper. Ho-hum. Damned either way I suppose. (And so are these politicians.)

Well, we liberals are very found of litmus tests. Which is why, I 'd like to introduce one's love of country on this guy as the new baseline:

If we look at patriotism on scale with not wearing a pin with the value of zero, sometimes wearing a lapel pin with a 3, always wearing a lapel pin a 5, any combination of frequency of lapel pin with a flag tattoo on shoulder, back, or other body part with a 7, and getting one's face tattooed a value of 10 (extra points with lapel pin, of course), we can clearly see that McCain is not very patriotic. Well, as not as patriotic as he should be. So in the interest in fair and balanced punditry, we must also speculate about McCain.

Since we've established that it was fair to conclude what Obama feels toward America despite his own words to the contrary, we should also make a similar definitive conclusion on what John McCain's sense of patriotism is. We all know that McCain didn't love America until he was a p.o.w as he stated to Sean Hannity, “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her company.” Therefore, to balance Obama's fashion faux paux, we should definitely use McCain's quote out of context.

Since no true scotsman "puts sugar on his porridge" we can only conclude that both Obama and McCain must hate America because only a true patriot inks his face in total commitment to this, our God Blessed America.