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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe - Podcast 272 - 9/30/2010
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The Skeptics' Guide To The Universe
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, LLC - dedicated to promoting critical thinking, reason, and the public understanding of science through online and other media. The first episode of the SGU podcast went online on May 4th, 2005. It soon became a popular science/skeptical podcast, and remains one of the most popular science podcasts on iTunes.
SGU Podcasting Awards: SGU on XM: You can listen to the SGU on America's Talk XM 166 every Saturday night from 8-9pm Eastern.
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Podcast
272
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September 30, 2010
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Interview with Bug Girl
News Items: New Moonlanding Footage, UN Alien Ambassador, Poor Science Education, New Force of Nature?, Goldilocks Planet
Who's That Noisy
Name That Logical Fallacy
Science or Fiction
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Segment: News Items
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Segment: Who's That Noisy
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Who's That Noisy
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Answer to Last Week: Brass Eye
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Segment: Name That Logical Fallacy
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Single Cause Fallacy
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There's a type of logical fallacy often used by magicians, creationists, televangelists, and others in the business of deception, that doesn't seem to fit cleanly in any of the named categories. I was hoping to suggest a name for what I consider a category unto itself.
The logical error I'm talking about is what I call the "Single Cause" fallacy. We've all found ourselves arguing with a creationist and, after thoroughly trouncing one of their claims, we're told that our explanation can't be right, because it doesn't explain something else. Their intent is to make us look like we're waffling when we're forced to say "No, that was caused by a different mechanism." After several rounds of this, it's easy to make it look like we're the ones pulling explanations out of our collective asses, rather than having one coherent theory (or dogma) that explains everything.
Magicians love this tendency. As soon as they've shown that there are no wires attached to their levitating assistant, they know they're free to use all the wires they want for the rest of the act. The audience will assume that there is only one trick being used at a time, and ignore evidence to the contrary.
I know that this contains elements of the false dichotomy and the non-sequitur, and maybe bits and pieces of others. Still, I think this fallacy is common enough, and so attractive to purveyors of nonsense, that it deserves a name of its own. So what do you say: do we launch a new meme in the skeptical community?
Jim Guibault (pronounced Gee-bo, hard "G")
Algonquin, IL
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Segment: Interview
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Segment: Science or Fiction [ Click Here to Show the Answers ]
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Segment: Quote of the Week
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Quote of the Week
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I'm a Youth Worker with the Boys and Girls Club. Specifically I work with kids at an after school program. It was towards the end of the day and I was sitting with a small group of kids playing Apples to Apples. I forget what led up to it but a little boy says, "I believe in aliens."
The little girl sitting next to me says, "Aliens haven't been proven yet. That's scientific!"
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