Michael D Lawrence - Slippery Slope

Michael posted this on Facebook. Excellent, must be preserved.

OK friends, I’m digging back to some things I learned years ago in one of my favorite courses “Introduction to Logic”. Any of you that are writers or in the legal profession are probably much more familiar with this subject that I will ever be.

One of the interesting things about the expansion of the internet and social media, I think, is that FACT is being replaced by OPINION. Sure, this has always been an issue in any type of mass media, but now anyone can be "published" and our writing can be immediately shared with thousands or more. Someone writes an article/blog and populates it with opinion, falsehoods, slanted statistics, half-truths, and emotionally-loaded words/phrases presented as facts. We read these invalid arguments and share them on FB and other social media outlets. Someone else shares our post and soon other people may accept these opinions and lies as fact, without any real evidence or sound argument.

Reading these articles with a critical eye, one may find fallacies of logic over and over. One of my favorites is "The Slippery Slope". That is, a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, and Y, then Z will happen too. So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either. "One thing inevitably leads to another." Such as, "If you two hang out together, one thing will lead to another, and soon enough you'll be pregnant and end up spending your life on welfare living in the projects," or "If we cut and run in Afghanistan, pretty soon all of southwest Asia will be run by Al-Qaeda." This may sound good, but is not a sound argument in and of itself. Another of my favorite logical fallacies I see in social media is “Name Calling”, which is a variety of the "Ad Hominem" argument (attacking a person’s character). Perhaps when one cannot effectively present their ideas and support them with sound evidence, their only choice is to start the name-calling. What a way to try and convince people that you are correct and others are wrong!

Some of my friends have talked about the "dumbing down of America", suggesting that we believe almost anything. I think they are correct, in that we read some of these ridiculous claims and "conspiracy theories", accept them as fact, and then encourage others to do so as well.

Here's a novel idea: go to the source, read all the facts (and even opposing opinions), look for logical fallacies in an author's arguments, test what people say to see if it is indeed truth or not, look for verifiable evidence, and then make a decision on the issue. Ah, but this takes time and effort. It’s easier to just pass on these opinions-presented-as-fact that agree with our own positions. The danger here, as I see it, is that some of these people vote. Scary. At least, that’s my opinion.