So, by way of illustration, I've decided to compile a short list of statements that are so understated as to be absurd. Notice the use of diminutive phrases like "just", "nothing but", and "only" to enhance the effect.
- Human beings are just a bunch of atoms.
- A computer program is one enormous number.
- A human being is just a machine.
- Intelligent life coming from non-life is improbable.
- What a person believes comes down to personal preference.
- People only do what feels good.
- Space is big. (You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.)
- You'll win the lottery eventually if you keep playing it.
- The laws of nature can give us equations to determine the state of all matter at any given time if we know the state of all matter at any particular time.
2 comments:
I know that some of these are examples of a particular logical fallacy, but cannot think of the name. It is the fallacy that states something like: "Since x is made up of y, x is nothing but y." The whole is NOTHING MORE THAN the sume of its parts.
Thus, while I certainly believe in the biological relationship between us and simians, I hate hearing, "Humans are NOTHING BUT animals," (generally a caricature used by evolution's religious critics).
Some others I hate - made too often by biological reductionists - are:
"Human morality is NOTHING BUT an illusion proffered by our selfish genes."
"Humans are NOTHING BUT survival machines built by their genes."
"The human mind is NOTHING BUT neurons firing in synapses."
I would agree to all of these statements if we took out the "nothing but" part. I just don't like how reductionists tend to oversimmplify by falling in love so much with the parts that the whole is seen as parts, rather than a whole.
Exactly! I had considered adding most of those other examples to the list, but I wanted to keep most of my rants out of it. I still got a little carried away as it is.
I think "fallacy of composition" is the one you're looking for. (I didn't know it myself, but I looked it up). I found out Wikipedia's list of fallacies is quite fun to peruse. I also noticed one that might be useful to us relativists called Loki's Wager, a fallacy stating that you can't discuss something if you can't define it.
Everyone feel free to submit other random ideas for the list and I'll add my favorites into the post.
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