Why "Immaterial Pink Unicorns" are not a logical argument

The purpose of this thread is to deal with a common logical fallacy that is used to argue against faith. The argument usually goes something like this:

1. If you believe in something without evidence, then you should believe in any other thing without evidence.
2. There is no evidence for immaterial pink unicorns.
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   ∴ therefore, you should believe in immaterial unicorns or admit that you cannot believe in something without evidence.

As a counter example we can propose alien life in the universe:

1. If you believe in something without evidence, then you should believe in any other thing without evidence.
2. There is no evidence for alien life elsewhere in the universe.
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   ∴ therefore, you should believe in alien life elsewhere in the universe or admit that you cannot believe in something without evidence.

Curiously, this does not seem as absurd as the belief in immaterial pink unicorns, in fact it seems quite possible - even if it may never be possible to prove that alien life exists.Then we can discuss the roll scientific hypothesis before there is evidence to test the hypothesis. For instance when it was first discovered that the rotation of distant galaxies did not match the theoretical rotation rates, one hypothetical solution was to propose dark matter: something invisible that caused more gravity than the current calculations used. Then when they ran the calculations it appeared that there has to be waaay more dark matter than all the kinds of matter that we know about. Somewhere around 80% of matter needs to be dark matter to make the equations work. This seems like a pretty silly concept to believe without any evidence.Today it seems very rational to believe in dark matter, even though there is still no "smoking gun" evidence of an invisible mass, and this is because it matches the current scientific theories.So there is a spectrum of concepts that are not based on known objective evidence, and they run from silly to likely to serious, and the reason there is this spectrum of different results when they all should be as silly as the immaterial pink unicorn if the argument was valid is because the argument is flawed.The fallacy is one of :

quote:

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Definition:
The size of the sample is too small to support the conclusion.

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Examples:
1. Fred, the Australian, stole my wallet. Thus, all Australians are thieves. (Of course, we shouldn't judge all Australians on the basis of one example.)
2. I asked six of my friends what they thought of the new spending restraints and they agreed it is a good idea. The new restraints are therefore generally popular.

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Proof:
Identify the size of the sample and the size of the population, then show that the sample size is too small. Note: a formal proof would require a mathematical calculation. This is the subject of probability theory. For now, you must rely on common sense.

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And of course "common sense" means referral to your world view, your subjective opinion of the "rightness" of concepts.As we have seen there are similar samples that do not have the same degree of improbability as the ad hoc invention of immaterial pink unicorns, so this sufficiently demonstrates that comparing this concept to other concepts of belief without evidence is indeed a hasty generalization.Consider this analogy:

1. If you believe you can see light waves of one wavelength, then you should believe you can see light waves of any wavelength.
2. You cannot see infrared lightwaves.
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   ∴ therefore, you should believe you can see infrared light or admit that you cannot believe that you can see light of one wavelength.

This is patently false, and yet this is the same form of argument as the one that uses immaterial pink unicorns (or whatever ad hoc fantasy comes to mind).QEDEnjoy.Edited by RAZD, : formatEdited by RAZD, : see Taz, Message 55

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Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I would say that your foundational statement is in error. What you seem to be saying in your example is that:B !-> A
C !-> A
Therefore, C = B.That isn't true. Squares are not circles. Triangles are not circles. But squares are not triangles, either.But that isn't what is being put forward. That is, the issue is not "if you believe in something without evidence, then you should believe in any other thing without evidence." Instead, the argument is:A -> B
C is an example of A.
Therefore, C -> B.All circles are ellipses. x² + y² = 1 is a circle. Therefore, it is an ellipse.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Terrible. The hypothesis that there's life elsewhere in the universe is based primarily on the observation that life exists here, then that the universe is immense, that life's building blocks are common, and that the process of abiogenesis is very much in keeping with what we know at present of chemistry and physics. God hypotheses are not based on the observation of existing gods.That's as bad as your blind men feeling elephants analogy on the other thread.As for invisible unicorns, they are relevant whenever a god is given a description, like my example of the racist god who particularly favours one middle eastern tribe. The proposition of unknowable, unidentifiable deities in general is usually argued against on the lines of: "what the hell is the point of saying you believe in something when you've no idea what it is you're believing in".It would certainly require confirmation bias to do the above. Edited by bluegenes, : typo

I'd phrase it more like this for your deism:If you believe that you know enough about any unknowable supernatural proposition to be able to believe in it, then that's just like believing in an invisible pink unicorn.The adjectives in the IPU are there to illustrate paradoxical beliefs, as well as evidenceless beliefs.

I'm unsurprisingly unconvinced.The IPU/FSM and Russell's Teapot are examples of unfalsifiable entities. It is an argument against not just believing in something which it is either impossible to verify or impossible to discount - but also it stands as an argument against those people that think unbelievers have committed some kind of error by doubting the existence of said entity.To quote Bertrand Russell:

quote:

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If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.

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The IPU can also be used to argue that a person might well have come to have faith in the IPU if only they had been brought up in a culture where it was ubiquitously held to be true - and that this demonstrates a certain arbitrariness to holding their own faith.

quote:

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If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

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We know that life exists on one planet. We know that it almost certainly arose naturally. We know there are other planets. Lots of them. It seems reasonable to me to suggests that there stands a good chance that life exists on one of those planets having naturally arose there too.One might even go as far as saying "I believe alien life exists", and it would still be a world away from saying "I believe God exists" or "I believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster/IPU exists". However, if a believer in alien life were to suggest that those that did not believe in alien life were unreasonable, or being illogical in some fashion...that would be a different prospect. It's a good job they have evidence for it then, isn't it?

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The IPU/FSM and their kith and kin are used primarily to argue this:the onus probandi rests on the believer

Thank you Rrhain for replying to the issue, A triangle is a multi-sided geometric forms
All rectangles are multi-sided geometric forms
Therefore, a triangle is a square. But the real comparison is thatC is an example of A
D is an example of A
Therefore C = DAnd you cannot logically say that C = D or C ≠ D because you don't know. Thanks.Nor does one circle necessarily = another circle.Enjoy.ps I use "C = D" to mean C is like D rather than C is identical to D, as in All A is B (All A = B) does not mean that A is identical to B (A==B)Edited by RAZD, : ps

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There is no direct evidence of alien life. But there is not a vacuum of evidence regarding this question. There are a whole host of rational reasons to believe that life on other planets elsewhere in the universe is possible and even likelyIt is not just preconceived world view.There is no direct evidence for or againt deities, pink unicorns or whetever else. But there is a mass of evidence that humans create such things regardless of them actually existing or not. Thus the claimed existence of any such unevidenced entity is rendered less likely to actually exist.It is not just a question of preconceived world view.I kept making these points to you in the deism thread and you ignored them there, preferring instead to concentrate on the perceived insult of being confronted with a ridiculous example of the logic you were applying, so I don't expect much of a response to this either.But in general if you don’t want to be faced with absurd examples then simply don’t base your whole position on a logical argument that fails to preclude logical conclusions that you will find absurd. If you fail to do this the absurd possibilities will be unremittingly pointed out to you. As you have experienced.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Message 1
Thanks

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Thanks Mod, Message 1It seems you agree that this is a reasonable position, even though there is no convincing evidence of alien life, and that it is reasonable even though we may never see convincing evidence of alien life. The question oncerns whether they had evidence when the hypothesis was first formed, not whether or not we have evidence now.It seems you agree that this was a reasonable position, even though at the time there was no convincing evidence of dark matter.Enjoy.

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I think you're misunderstanding both the form and the point of the argument.The fundamental problem is this: how do we know what is real or not? The answer, I, and others have come to is that we look at the evidence and reach the best conclusions we can; with the inevitable condition that we never end up 100% certain and instead reach a spectrum of certainties from things we can treat as certain (e.g. I'm sitting on a chair, the earth goes round the sun, things evolved) and so can reason from to things we accept on the basis that they make most sense given what we know but cannot be taken as certain enough to build arguments from (e.g. alien life).The problem with Theism and Deism is that they want to take something that is at best in that last category and treat it as certain without any sound evidence. This violates the criteria that we only allow things into the 'can treat as certain' with good, solid evidence, and instead allow things in based purely on subjective faith. Well, that - as a methodology - is incapable of determining real things in the world from false things in the world; as is demonstrated by the silly examples - and while last thursdayism or the flying spaghetti monster may be invented examples they're not any different from real examples that people do believe or have believed.

Yes. By logical extrapolation of the evidence that we do have. Well on what basis was the hypothesis derived?Your relentless insistence that all claims for which there is no direct evidence operate in a vacuumm of ALL evidence is just bizzarre.

Hi Straggler, It seems you agree that this is a reasonable position, even though there is no convincing evidence of alien life, and that it is reasonable even though we may never see convincing evidence of alien life. Message 1The issue is that what you are saying is:C is an example of A
D is an (intentionally absurd unbelievable) example of A
E is a (believable) example of A
Therefore C = D but not EThis is still a logically flawed argument, and all you have is your preconceived ideas of what is reasonable to believe, and what is not, within the bounds of (all A).Enjoy.ps I use "C = D" to mean C is like D rather than C is identical to D, as in All A is B (All A = B) does not mean that A is identical to B (A==B)Edited by RAZD, : ps

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Thanks Mr Jack And thusly we form our world view of how things work. Different people have different world views. Opinions on the credibility of different concepts is relative to how well they conform to your world view.This is a side issue to the logical validity of the argument though, and one I have explored on the Perceptions of Reality thread and they are off topic here. Message 1The argument isC is an example of A
D is an example of A
Therefore C = DAnd this is a logically flawed argument.Enjoy.ps I use "C = D" to mean C is like D rather than C is identical to D, as in All A is B (All A = B) does not mean that A is identical to B (A==B)Edited by RAZD, : ps

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I'm not arguing whether atheism is a logically valid position. I was simply pointing out what the function of the 'unfalsifiable entity' argument was from the very pen of one of its most famous proponents. Are you trying to say it is off-topic in a thread about about the logical argument behind IPUs to describe their origination and logical reasoning? You might even choose to argue that this supports your position if you think other people have used it in a way that is significantly different from this purpose.As bluegenes pointed out, quite rightly, the IPU serves an additional purpose of showing the absurdity of giving an entity certain contradictory properties (is both invisible and pink).The FSM is designed to show the absurdity of the 'equal time' argument in classrooms.The Teapot is designed was to show the problem of 'if you can't disprove it is unreasonable to disbelieve it'And so on and so forth. Their centralised theme is, as I said:the onus probandi rests on the believer and not the other way around. Yes, that's what I said. There is a strong reasoned argument that takes evidence and logic, that concludes, alien life forms could very well exist. Of course, if a person believed it without a suitable level of tentativity, they'd open themselves up to the charge of unreasonable degree of certainty or somesuch. Well, they certainly had evidence that something existed that had the effects of something with mass - you even told us what that evidence was in the OP. That 'something' was clearly not shiny like stars. So there was evidence of either one of two positions:1. Most of astrophysics is massively wrong.
2. There exists a crap load of entities with mass that don't give off light.Since we have evidence that the latter can actually exist, it was reasonable to think it could be true - especially given the amount of evidence the former was not true. After all - the only reason we hadn't previously thought they existed was because we don't see them, them not giving off enough light to be seen and all.It certainly was a little odd, and I certainly would have no problem with cosmologists who were sceptical (could be a measurement or mathematical problem, after all). Then again, it being a falsifiable and verifiable claim, they went ahead and accrued further evidence for it.That being the difference between belief that god exists and a belief that dark matter exists - one can be verified and/or falsified. Even the aliens hypothesis could be falsified in principle (it turns out that there are no such things as galaxies and stars, they are just paint on a black cloth etc etc). The similarity between the belief that 'god exists' and the belief that 'the IPU exists' is that (depending on our wording) neither can.Without further argumentation on behalf of the believer, the IPU and god are no different as far as believability. And that's the argument. Is there some actual reason one might believe in god and not the IPU (other than the known provenance of the IPU's made up status?) If the IPU being made up interferes with your thinking about it, choose an entity that is 'silly' that has been believed in like the Leszi or something.