Hello folks! I simply can’t believe it’s time for another edition of Logical Fallacies Bootcamp, can you? Impossible!
And yet…. here we are!
And so, here we go to talk about the Appeal to Personal Incredulity (aka Argument to Incredulity)!
As you may suspect, I already opened with an example. The name of the fallacy describes it pretty well — asserting that an argument or statement made by another simply cannot be true because the party in question cannot believe it is true or does not understand it. Picture the argument running along these lines:
X does not understand Y. Therefore Y is false.
or,
X does not believe Y is true. Therefore Y is false.
So, let’s look at a few examples.
“I can’t believe that humans evolved from other creatures! Evolution is wrong!”
“I don’t understand how mRNA vaccines work. It’s all got to be garbage! No way I’m getting those shots!”
“There’s no way the moon landings were real! It’s all a hoax! I don’t believe we had the technology to put men on the moon and bring them back in 1969!”
The examples above are classic examples of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s comment that “That's the good thing about science: It's true whether or not you believe in it. That's why it works.”
Simply because someone doesn’t understand a concept or simply refuses to believe something is possible doesn’t mean it’s not true. Reality cares little for what frail human intellects can grasp.
Of course, if you recall my last post about the Fallacy Fallacy, you’ll recall that just because someone commits a logical fallacy, it doesn’t mean they’re automatically wrong. Someone can not believe something is possible — and it in fact is not true. If someone argues with me that they can fly by flapping their arms, well, my refusal to believe that is quite understandable without extraordinary proof to the contrary. And if I simply Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter...well, in that case, the ingredients will tell you that indeed it is not butter. But the point of the fallacy is that just because someone doesn’t understand or believe something, that doesn’t automatically make it false.
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp is a twice weekly series with posts dropping on Wednesdays and Fridays. A companion series, Cognitive Bias Bootcamp, drops on Mondays. If you are new to the series and would like to catch up on past offerings of either, or just want to revisit them, the linked titles are listed below!
Logical Fallacies Bootcamp:
The Strawman
The Slippery Slope
Begging the Question
Poisoning the Well
No True Scotsman!
Ad Hominem
False Dilemma
Non Sequitur
Red Herring
Gamblers Fallacy
Bandwagon Fallacy
Appeal to Fear
The Fallacy Fallacy
Cognitive Bias Bootcamp:
Bystander Effect
Curse of Knowledge
Barnum Effect
Declinism