My third Critical Thinking about COVID video examines the false analogy fallacy, also known as a faulty analogy or weak analogy. A false analogy assumes wrongly that because two things are similar in one way, they’re also similar in some other way.
How do you spot a false analogy? When you’re presented with an analogy, ask yourself if there are any differences between the two things being compared. If there are differences that are relevant to the conclusion, then it’s a false analogy.
This video looks at three examples of false analogies. The first example involves Rudy Giuliani arguing against contact tracing – which is where you track anyone who may have been exposed to a new COVID case, in order to control new outbreaks of the virus. He’s basically arguing that obesity and COVID are both deadly diseases, and we don’t contact-trace obesity, so we shouldn’t contact-trace COVID either. But obesity and COVID differ in a crucial way – obesity isn’t contagious while COVID is a highly infectious disease. This difference is relevant – contact-tracing won’t make any difference to curbing obesity but is necessary to contain the spread of COVID.
Rudy Giuliani mocks contact tracing by asking why we don't also do it for cancer, obesity and heart disease pic.twitter.com/QzyBMGilhv
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) April 24, 2020
The second example of a false analogy is Dr. Phil arguing against shutting down the economy to stop the spread of the virus. Dr Phil is arguing that car accidents and swimming pools cause deaths and we don’t shut the economy so we shouldn’t shut the economy for COVID. But again, the difference is that COVID is a highly infectious disease that spreads exponentially, which would overwhelm hospitals if we don’t practice social distancing. This isn’t the case with car crashes and swimming pools. This difference is relevant to whether we should social distance or not, so it’s a false analogy.
The third example features Kellyanne Conway arguing that we should force people to stand in line to vote during a pandemic. In her analogy, she equates cupcakes to voting. But the difference between the two is cupcakes are a luxury for those with the time and resources to wait for a treat, while voting is a constitutional right. Everyone should be able to vote. This difference is relevant which makes it a false analogy.
Kellyanne: If you can stand in line for a cupcake, you can stand in line to vote pic.twitter.com/iTEvPZjNu7
— Peter Wade 🤦♂️ (@brooklynmutt) May 27, 2020
These misleading arguments are why we need to be able to spot false analogies. When someone compares two similar things, does their conclusion depend on the two things being similar in some other way? If the two things are different and the difference is relevant to their conclusion, you’re looking at a false analogy.
Check out the full list of Critical Thinking About COVID videos on YouTube. Thanks to Prof. Melanie Trecek-King, Dr. Lori Byron, Dr. Robert Byron, and Dr. Elizabeth Del Buono for their feedback in the writing of this video.
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