Anyone who's prepping for or has taken the LSAT knows the premium the test places on strong logical reasoning skills. One of the features I hope to get up and running on this blog is a regularly occurring "Flaws of Logic" section where I look at news stories (or my personal experience) and discuss the logical flaws that appear to be pretty prevalent in the today's discourse.
I happened upon Lou Dobbs' CNN program last night as he was interviewing a leader of a organization that advocates making English the official language of the United States. Dobbs opened the segment citing a poll showing that 83% of Americans supported making English the official language of the United States, and 15% were opposed (I may be misremembering the numbers slightly, the outcome remains clear). He then went on to ask the guest why Congress wasn't taking immediate action to realize this policy, as if the poll alone made this policy the obvious solution. Clearly, it does not.
Dobbs appears to have fallen victim to a flaw known as argumentum ad numerum, which is Latin for "appeal to numbers". This flaw occurs when a person reasons that, since many people believe something to be true or right, it therefore is true or right. I'm sure that all of you can think of many examples where this is clearly not the case (for me, slavery and the geocentric model of the solar system immediately come to mind).
I do think it's important to note here that public sentiment can certainly be a useful tool in policy discussions. As representatives for their constituencies, the desires of voters should form a part of legislator’s decision-making process. However, it seems overly simplistic to say that voter opinion should be the only thing that influences politicians. While I'm sure there's an interesting and vigorous debate to be held among the various sides of the issue, I think viewers would have been much better served by a conversation regarding the merits of drawbacks of the language policy before asking why Congress has yet to act on it.
Monday, July 14, 2008
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2 comments:
i like ur blog so much :)
i think a more generous assumption about what dobbs is arguing (generous to dobbs, that is) is not "it's popular, therefore it's right" but "it's popular, therefore it's a politically smart thing to do in a semi-democracy".
this is uri, by the way.
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