Overusing True Scotsmans

So, if you’ve not been living under a rock and actually interact with other people. You’ll notice there are certain people who like to proclaim their ability to handle the logical and their ability to make decisions with a more proper decision format.

If you’ve spent more time out from your hiding underneath that rock — you’ll notice many of these people aren’t so much rational, so much as delusional and completely misusing various things they think will make them not appear delusional.

The flavours of “properly well thought out people” change. At one point, being a Neo-Pagan was a sign of being rationale. At another it was being Muslim. In another case it was worshipping Satan. One that keeps coming back is the notion that being an Atheist will make you into a logical reasonable person able to make great decisions. By simply answering “There is no God” to “the God Question” — they think they are of the logical sort. Nevermind the logical answer is to point out that the God Question is not properly definition or any kind of rationale inquiry in and of itself — and without understanding the question, you cannot understand the answer.

The next is to make use of simplistic tests to showcase they are capable of logic — even though that should be a huge sign that logic is not what is being used here.

Up until recently, the simplistic logical test was to indicate the notion of “the burden of proof” — and to state that “Great claims require great evidence”.

This has fallen down, as the fallacies that counter the ones they were relying upon are “Lacking of Evidence is not Evidence of Lacking”, “Fallacy fallacy” and “Appeal to a Stone”. Which the first one points out, “just because we don’t have evidence, doesn’t mean it isn’t true”, the second one points out that just because the argument for something has issues, is not proof that what is being argued for is not in accurate… and the last one is, “even a stance of denying something ALSO requires proof”

Since that simple litmus test to indicate they are in fact logical and good at making decisions has been found to be “poorly thought out nonsense”… it has since been moved to people misusing the “No True Scotsman” logical fallacy.

It mostly goes like this,

1 (a) Somebody makes a claim that a certain group is doing an action

1 (b) Somebody is claiming an item or element is to be put in a certain category, and thus has certain properties due to this

2 (a) Another party points out that the actions being done seem atypical of a certain group — and seem more to be the modus operandus of another group who pulls that shit all the time

2 (b) Another party points out issues with putting an item or element into said category — and then indicates the further guesses or conclusions are not accurate

3 First party, rather than own up to a possible flub up — just makes the claim the other party is making the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Now here is here the VERY important thing about how learning how to identify logical fallacies and where they are used and what not. It is not meant for other people. It is meant for you to spend years and years going through your own cognitive biases — and work on not doing as shitty of a job of making these logical fallacies yourself.

In fact, the most you can HOPE is that after years and years of practice in handling logical fallacies is that you stop making them as much. Then to be patient with other people who do flub up every now and again — as you spent a lot of hard work on figuring that crap out.

They are not meant for you to police other people with opinions different from your own. I mean… not unless you’ve spent like a decade doing solid work on not making them yourself.

If you think you can go to an internet website with a quick FAQ on common logical fallacies (which never have a full list — just one that cherry picks their favourites for silencing other people — and other ways to misuse them) and then be free of any irrationalities. Well… you are clearly crazy.

Now in the case of misusing the No True Scotsman fallacy. Suppose I had a wooden object in the shape of an pentagon — with each side being one metre in length. It is a nice sky blue colour. It has five wooden dowels that allow me to have it perched up on the ground so the wooden octagon is elevated roughly onemetre and twenty centimetres above the surface the five wooden dowels underneath it (in this orientation) is propped up upon…

Got a good mental image?

Because I just described a banana.

Anybody who argues this wooden sky blue pentagon with each side one metre in length with 1.2m wooden dowels at every angle perpendicular to the wooden material is in actually a table is clearly making a No True Scotsman logical fallacy.

I mean… just because it fits into the definition of a “table” much better than it does fit into the definition of a “banana” does not mean it is more likely to be a table than it is a banana. Who are you to decide what is and is not a banana?

Well, I mean, language does change and shift (well, ones that are not dead anyways). English has many different dialects — and each of those become completely different once a decade.

However, if you call a table a banana, and I correct you on it — you do not have grounds to claim I am making a No True Scotsman Fallacy.

This is a trend of people who have statistically zero experience in handling logical matters and doing formal debates trying to pretend like they do — that is just puzzling at best.

Look… you don’t just put on a different hat or fly a different flag to be a better person. Sure, sometimes it is not possible to be a better person without doing that first… but being a better person requires constant work on self-improvement. With slow results that take a while to step back and notice having compiled.