This is the second of my two posts dealing with James Lovelock's article about global warming, the former concerning his logos. When I began reading his article, I followed his facts and agreed with his points, but in about the span of a paragraph, he lost all my trust as a reader and interest in his article -- the results of terrible logical fallacies.
The main two that I noticed involved Hasty Generalizations and Post Hocs. The generalization hit home the hardest when Lovelock said:
"[Nuclear energy] fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway..." (Par. 14)
The argument was valid up until the last sentence. Purely from a logic standpoint, the claim that one-in-three die of cancer is quite eye-catching, but there is no source to acknowledge where these statistics came from. Also, the way Lovelock’s voice comes across is that he is quickly generalizing facts he's heard and just putting a number onto paper. This is not conducive to his persuasion.
This quote also has unsound pathos. No matter what side of the fence you're on, no one wants to hear that comment put so blatantly. Lovelock's comment on cancer is emotionally unsound, and is distracting to the reader to say the least. For me, all I remember is the cancer comment -- I don't even remember the logic that lead up to that.
Another fallacy I noticed involved a Post Hoc: whatever happens second is a result of whatever happened first. On multiple occasions, Lovelock suggests that the reason politicians aren't behind stunting global warming and nuclear energy is because it isn't what the lobbyists/Greens want. This is a premature statement, because we don't incorporate all the inner-workings of the political world. True, these are viable reasons, but until we look more in-depth, it is just merely an assumption put into the minds of the readers.
Between these last two posts, James Lovelock presents a very solid defense for nuclear energy. Nevertheless, even the strongest fortress can be broken if it is built on fallacies.
LOVE the title...could you link to the original article again here, though, so I can more easily refer to it? Also consider linking back to your previous post.
ReplyDeleteI think the cancer problem you describe is more a mistake in pathos than a logical fallacy. It might be logically sound, but ignoring the potential emotional connotations a statement will have for someone, as you experienced, can make them lose a sense of the logos you're constructing.