Guest Essay by Kip Hansen
In the current round of discussion over at Climate Dialogue, which is about the effects of the Sun on Earth’s climate, one of the participants, Dr. Mike Lockwood, in his essay “The sun plays only a very minor role”, lists the following item as one of seven fundamental considerations which are often overlooked in discussions of climate issues:
“7. Logic based on the name given to a phenomenon, interval or feature is bad science, because the name is often inadequate and misleading.”
— Mike Lockwood
Dr. Lockwood later gives a specific instance saying “The ‘Little Ice Age’ — I dislike this name as it has been used to build arguments that rely on the name which, as mentioned in point 7, is inherently bad science.”
His point 7 struck me as much more widely true and as a logical fallacy or error in critical thinking of which I was aware, and which I would often call out in discussions as invalid logic, but not quite in that finished sense.
Presuming much more learning and authority than I have, I suggest in the title of this essay a proper Latin name which might be used for this error: Propter nomen with a casual translation of “Because of the name”.
We could restate Dr. Lockwood’s consideration this way:
“Propter nomen: A logical argument in which the assumption of truth or logical validity is based on the name or title of a thing. Such logical assumption, based on the literal name or title given to a thing, is fallacious, because the name or title itself may be false, self-serving, inadequate and/or misleading.”
This informal logical fallacy can lead to, depend on or contribute to other logical fallacies: take the World Bank whose name appeals to authority (which grants itself, by name, worldwide authority in financial matters — which it does not have) or the self-serving organizational name Center for Science in the Public Interest which, by name, claims appeals to the scientific authority of “science” and assures us that their efforts are “in the public interest”. (CSPI is really a Washington lobbying organization, not necessarily made up of scientists, sometimes called “The Food Police”, infamous for being nearly always scientifically wrong about the issues it lobbies for, thus almost never acting in the real public interest). If we were to base our logic on the names of either of these organizations, we might think that the World Bank must be honorable, well-meaning and in charge of world finances or that CSPI was certainly operating in our best interest out of concern for us poor benighted ignoramuses. Then we have the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project and its products which some people use while literally accepting the acronym as fact, Propter nomen — “because of the name”.
How many studies and news articles have we seen in which the authors claim that such and such a local or regional phenomenon is caused by Global Warming? — without any data in the study about the temperature record in the region or at the locale under consideration — assuming that since Global Warming is named “Global” Warming, that such data is not needed…after all, the whole globe is warming — it’s right there in the name.
We often see this with Global Mean Temperature. Giving this data set such a name is not the same as it actually being global or the mean or the temperature. It is not meant to be the temperature of the globe itself as a three-dimensional object. It is not strictly a mean but could be seen as “an average of averages of averages”. It does not literally represent an average (mean) of Earth temperatures at any given time. Thus, when some specific phenomena is listed as caused by an increase in Global Mean Temperature, it is nearly invariable false. Propter nomen — fallacious logical assumption that Global Mean Temperature is actually literally as named, thus, like Global Warming, if it is rising, it must be affecting all things everywhere on the globe.
We have seen in the main stream media, and especially in the environmental media, articles which refer to “the 6th mass extinction” or “current ongoing mass extinction” which is fallaciously granted power and magnitude by its name alone — even though it is apparent, based on data from the IUCN, that it is not only not ongoing, it is not great and there is no mass extinction (nor has there been any in the 19th, 20th or 21st centuries). The IUCN Red List has as “extinct” only 828 plants and animals since records began to be kept, the vast majority of these occurring on islands and other isolated niche micro-environments: island extinctions almost invariably caused by arrival of rats, cats, dogs and pigs brought by sailors and colonists. The Red List has not yet been updated for the re-discovery of Rhachistia aldabrae — the Aldabra Banded Snail — so there are only 827 correct listings. Many of these articles start with “the 6th Mass Extinction” as a given, assumed true because of its name, and go on to build a logical house of cards from there. Propter nomen — you can’t create something just by giving it a name — the name does not grant actual existence nor physical (moral, natural, chemical or any other kind of) properties to the thing — to assert or assume so is a logical fallacy, an error in critical thinking.
Yes, I know that there are real, scientific definitions of Global Warming and GMT and that it is possible if one searches long and hard in the literature, one could find out exactly what is really meant — but there are many different data sets, all calculated differently resulting in different values and often based on different definitions — and yet still called by the same, sometimes misleading, names. Sometimes the names or titles themselves are mistakenly believed to be literally true and used as the basis for logical argument — Propter nomen.
I have no wish to argue or discuss Global Warming or to complain about the commonly used names of climate science things, everything must have a simple common name if we are to refer to it often in speech or text — this is about Logic and Critical Thinking — the error of assuming in a logical argument that the Name or Title of a thing grants it existence or properties, literally as named.
I would like to read your experiences in which Propter nomen has raised its head in providing a false logical step or false basis to a logical argument. Do you think that such an error in logic or critical thinking really exists? Would you like to supply a better definition?
# # # # #
Author’s Reply Policy: This essay is not about Global Warming, Anthropogenic Global Warming, Global Cooling, the effects of the Sun on Earth’s Climate, proper scientific calculation of Global Mean Surface Temperatures or any of that boring stuff. This is an idea about a newly defined (maybe — it might be on someone’s list somewhere) Informal Logical Fallacy or maybe just an Error in Critical Thinking. It is meant to be interesting, informative and fun. I’d like to read your examples and ideas. I’ll reply as I can as my wife and I are on the move again.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The political topic of illegal immigration in the US is another area where this common. Illegal Aliens become Undocumented Immigrants. US Immigration laws, which are similar to those of most developed countries, must be Reformed, and not just Reformed, but Comprehensively Reformed.
And if you can’t change the name, change the definition: Deportation, GDP and UE rates no longer mean what they once meant.
How far will they take it?
Will Burglars become Uninvited House Guests?
Will Vandals become Exterior Design Decorators?
Will Rapists become Unexpected Sex Partners?
One last thought: If George Zimmerman was defined by the media as a White Hispanic, what does that make Obama? a White African American? a White Black?
“Right Wing” and “Left Wing”. Essentially devoid of meaning. The original meaning was set based on which side of the building the folks sat in after the French Revolution. Business was on the “left” while religious leaders and royalty were on the “right”. So how did business and folks advocating for liberties (like Libertarians) end up on the “right”? A series of name changes. Similarly, calling the National Socialists “right wing” is a Propter Nomen based on Stalin saying they were ‘to the right’ of International Socialism (i.e. Communism). Discussion of Left Wing vs Right Wing here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/nationalist-socialists/
Then there is “Liberal”… a word grab by Centralist Socialists (a.k.a. “Progressives”) in America that still afflicts our speech to this day, since in the rest of the UK Derived World “Liberal” has the original meaning of one who advocated for liberties and change (that French Revolution “left wing” that had nothing to do with socialism and a lot to do with getting freedom from Central Authority oppression. Rather like the USA term Libertarian). So after the name “Progressive” was tarnished by WW II (where we had International Socialism fighting National Socialism fighting “Progressive” semi-socialism); the Progressives of the USA renamed themselves “Liberals”… trying to gather the honor of the Classical Liberal to themselves. Now, a generation later, in the USA Liberal means “socialism lite” while in the UK and Australia / New Zealand et. al. it means “Conservative”.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/i-am-a-liberal/
One of the fascinating things to watch is how the Progressive/ American Social-Liberal / Left Wing / Socialist / Central Authority Power Mongers constantly mutate their name in an attempt at Propter Nomen deception of the masses. I use ‘name change’ as a flag of such actions now.
I find it much more useful to simply ask: Are you advocating for personal liberties and power distributed to the lowest possible level? Or are you advocating for Central Authority and control of money and decisions (with reduction of freedom and choice)? Central vs Individual power. It is really that simple.
Not quite true. Whilst in Oz liberal is conservative, in the UK it is more associated with “champagne socialists”, and most expressed through the Liberal Democrat party. People holding such affiliations are tempted to vote Green as well as Lib dem. They have disdain for capitalism and tend to promote affirmative action for perceived victim groups or minorities, and have a visceral dislike of small c conservatives.
I nominate “solar activity” as one of the rather misleading terms seen frequently on the climate blogosphere. It is properly used as a reference to solar magnetic activity (e.g. “sunspots”) and other phenomena in the outer solar atmosphere related to the solar dynamo, which creates the Sun’s magnetic field. So “solar activity” is primarily manifested by the 11-year sunspot cycle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity
However, this term does not include “activity” in the solar core, where hydrogen is fused into helium at a rate of roughly a gigaton per second to generate the main energy radiated by the Sun (3.86×10^^26 joules per second).
True, the term “solar activity” encompasses almost everything we can directly observe. But it is not a direct measure of the radiant gamma-ray energy from thermonuclear fusion process, which takes about 100,000 years to reach the photosphere, where it is scattered into space as mostly visible light.
This is unfortunate because it creates an unwarranted expectation that the energy generated by the Sun is somehow the principal manifestation of ‘solar activity’
The name is not the item being named. The act of naming something in a conscious manner provides for a handy device for communicating ideas. Unfortunately, we poor humans often are unable to separate in our minds the object from its label and suffer miserably for trying to make our imagination equal to the reality of our world.
As an example we can use “global warming” two totally and widely diverse words (innocuous individually) which when combined together provide a “solid” handle in the unconscious mind which links all manner of “global” or even “local” events to “warming” add in a little judgement that “warming” equals “bad” then all things that happen on the “globe” are due to “warming” and it will all come to a “bad” end. The same applies to “climate change” and many other examples which can be found in our current social discourse.
Symatical gymnastics. Mostly Blah Blah Blah.
World Wildlife Fund
Leader of the Free World
Royal Family
Prince of Wales
Friends of the Earth
Critical Thinking
Christian Science
United Nations
Community Leader
BBC Trust
Michel Mann Nob Laureate
I find “Denier” particularly repugnant.
I think “propter nomen” is a propter nomen. Just because it is Latin it doesn’t mean it is scientific or valid.
Great article and well taken. I’ve always rebelled against the term “Federal Reserve,” which is nothing of the sort. It’s a propter nomen. lol
Lockwood writes on Maunder:
“This is undoubtedly invalid as most paleoclimate records indicate that the lower temperatures began at least 50 years before the start of the Maunder minimum.”
The 1620’s to 1650’s were generally warmer (CET reconstruction), the previous cold periods were nothing to do with the MM. The notable warm winter in 1685/86 in the coldest part of Maunder, occurs interestingly at the same type of major planetary ordering of solar activity as the small cluster of warmer years from 1727, 1796, 1826, 1865, 1934, 1948, 1975, and 2003.
Arrgh! Please learn how to properly reply, don’t blockquote your replies!!
“Propter nomen”… America, to designate the United States of America.
Cause you know, last I heard, Canada, Mexico, Brasil, Peru, Columbia, Panama… yeah… ALL part of America.
The US is definitely NOT… America.
propter nomen is happening whenever you hear this rhetorical judgment :
“What part of XXX do you not understand! “
UTC – Coordinated Universal Time
Used to be GMT. Greenwich Mean Time.
Completely bogus. UTC is hardly universal.
… and Greenwich Time was actually quite friendly back in the day.
Political Correctness.
Replacing the truth with something more politically acceptable. Giving a lie more power than the truth, because less people are offended.
Scientific Consensus
Determining scientific fact via the vote. A show of hands to determine if PI = 22/7. The force of gravity is determined by the number of scientists that believe in it.
“The American People”. I hate it when politicians use that one. Then go on to express exactly what “The American People” believe, think about, want, dislike, love, hate, etc. as if we are painted with one color and one wide brush.
And the corollary to that is that it is almost illegal (unless you’re a Dem) for someone born in the United States to call themselves a “Native American” on a federal form unless they have provable ancestry that includes the aboriginal tribes that showed up in North America before Europeans did. That’s kind of a Propter Non Nomen.
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation
why dark matter and dark energy had to be invented. to explain the difference between Universal and universal.
Conservative. I heard a liberal commentator say that conservatives should be environmentalists because they should want to conserve “It’s in the name” he said.
Pro life
Pro choice
Union of Concerned Scientists
Real Climate
Climate Progress
Social Security
Welfare
Environmental Protection Agency
United Nations
Propter nomen is a fancy name for a particular kind of lying. I like it. The sooner we recognize all the ways we are lied to on a regular basis, the better off we will be.
by any other name, would a rose truly still smell as sweet?
Oh, goody! A discussion of logical fallacies! Can I play?
Not only that, an inherently self-referential article, allowing me to kick in an amusing contribution from the contributions to logic of Godel! Heaven indeed!
So what you are saying is that we should give an impressive Latin name to an informal logical fallacy (because nobody could read it if it were Greek, but we are clearly trying to make it sound all Platonic and Greek — note well the picture that accompanies the top article!) so that people will eventually take it seriously enough to use the name alone as a persuasive feature in a discussion. So when we consider whether or not the World Bank is or is not in fact a development bank with a world-wide scope, we don’t need to analyze any actual details such as its offices in 120 countries worldwide (roughly 2/3 of the countries in the world) concentrated in the poorest of the available countries, which does some subset of things that a “bank” does — loan money, recover money from the loans — with a high level directive that the loans and other activities support development, we can just shout Propter Nomen and end the discussion! I like it!
It’s like magic the way that it refers to itself! Propter Nomen is a Propter Nomen! I mean there are informal fallacies on this list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies#Informal_fallacies
that don’t have high-falutin’ latinized greek sounding names — equivocation, for example. Or the Referential fallacy — assuming that all words refer to existing things as opposed to the possibility that a collection of words that has either no real world referent or where the words themselves are misleading.
But that sounds suspiciously like Propter Nomen, without the latin and with a bit more detail. It merely warns us that words alone are not proof of the existence of the things the words apparently describe or refer to. It does miss one essential feature, though — the “sound bite” advertising character, the creation of a Grand Title (expressed in Capital Letters to give it more argumentative force and authority), not propter nomen but Propter Nomen, not “warming of parts of the earth due to human activity” (something nobody would argue with who lives in the middle of UHI effect in a city) but Anthropogenic Global Warming. This is an admixture of False Authority and perhaps a few other informal fallacies, or better yet (since it is almost always associated with selling something, whether the something is a politician, a used car, or global warming) we could consider Propter Nomen to be a mixture of the referential fallacy and the Caveat Emptor informal fallacy that never quite made it to the list because in some sense it is the reason for the list.
Let the buyer beware, when someone tries to sell them a cute collection of sound-bite words. It is just possible that those words have no real world referent. Wisdom so old that it was doubtless used in the marketplaces of ancient Mesopotamia and Sumeria when seeking to buy a slightly used camel, never been in an accident, indeed a Fabulous Racing Camel, from Abdul’s Fabulous Camels incorporated.
This is probably distinct enough that it deserves inclusion on the list, possibly as a variant of the referential fallacy worth of special mention as it is so common on our society. I personally would drop the self-referential latin name as the Greeks and Romans never wrote this one down and the fancy name isn’t what gives it force — and call it something like the Advertising Name Fallacy or the Sound Bite Name Fallacy.
Naming something clever doesn’t make it real.
rgb
Twice to day I’ve made that formatting error.
Largely agree and understand the anti-classicism but…
Naming something cleverly does make it real if everyone agrees – in the world of ideas and in classifications.
Congealed blood is not food but I love eating Black Puddings.
An albino slave in 19th century Louisiana definitely knew the meaning of names.
All electable political parties combine many strands of political thought that ally into one – and then support each other regardless.
BBB, yes. But naming something cleverly can create new things.
No, I appreciate the joke. That’s what my reply is all about! I don’t disagree at all that this is an informal fallacy. I’m not certain that it is a unique fallacy — I rather thing it is a special case of an existing fallacy — but it is one that is probably noteworthy and common enough to deserve independent mention. I just love Godellian loops and Propter Nomen is most definitely a Propter Nomen!
As to the other remarks where people didn’t like “Naming something clever doesn’t make it real”, I agree that one can create new symbol collectives, clever or not, and that these symbols may or may not be in some sort of inherited correspondence with real world referents, and that whether or not the inheritance is valid those symbol sets can be accepted non-critically as describing something real even when they don’t. After all, one doesn’t have to stretch far afield to find such things: Pink Unicorns. God. Heaven. Hell. Global Average Temperature. In each case the terms are either familiar or concatenations of familiar words, and we can describe and comprehend a meaning, of sorts, that can be assigned to them at least in terms of other words including words that eventually are in concrete correspondence to the real world and/or part of the system of logical and semantic connectives.
In each case the words refer to things that one cannot objectively discover or demonstrate, either empirically or in the abstract sense that we can demonstrate “a triangle” without needing a physical triangle to point to.
The point is that My Little Pony doesn’t make pink unicorns real. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. One can define a way to compute a number, and one can call that number a “global average temperature”, and the computation can share at least some of the properties of computing a proper average from data that includes temperature and is drawn/sampled from parts of “the globe”, but that does not make it the actual global average temperature outside of the narrow range of the specific, non-unique definition that violates various specific precepts of the notions of “temperature”, “average”, and “global” along the way.
I don’t think that we are in any sort of actual disagreement on this. This is precisely what the referential fallacy is — building a set of words with some presumptive or assigned or inherited meaning doesn’t ensure that the object or concept they add up to exists or is real. Propter Nomen (caps and all:-) simply points out that we should be especially on our guard when we see assemblies like this that are being used to sell us something (including the conclusion of some formal or informal argument). It is a way of slipping false premises or even contradictions into an argument in the disguise of something true, and of course from contradictions anything at all can be proven and from false premises false conclusions may follow. It is a close cousin of the oxymoron.
So don’t get me wrong — I think that this is a valuable enough concept. It’s just that there isn’t enough space in the cognitive universe to address all of the problems inherent in its application. I mean seriously, God as a Propter Nomen (indeed, the original propter nomen in the literal sense of the term) is the basis for an entire globe-spanning human construct of enormous complexity in spite of the fact that no human can or ever has been able to point to a sense-object in the Universe or the Universe itself and say “here be God”. Then there is Number Theory — one hundred percent Propter Nomen, wouldn’t you say? Just because I can axiomatically define numbers and arithmetic and prove all sorts of contingent theorems, whence are the referents of the terms? No wonder we get into Godellian loop trouble with number theory.
The fundamental trouble with the Propter Nomen concept is that it is at the heart of the fundamental problem of epistemology and language. One can use it to demonstrate that reason itself is an informal fallacy, because it is. Hume pointed this out several hundred years ago. But that doesn’t really help us, since whether or not language itself is an informal fallacy, it is useful.
rgb
rgbatduke, thanks for acknowledging my missive.
Berkeley would say that the material world was the error and that the ideal is all that is real. Which is equally unprovable.
Rather more helpful is your final comment on language (and numbers) – is it useful?
So what makes something useful?
A) Well, it has to be self-consistent.
B) It has to remain consistent through time (GASTA was a good measure of AGW until it wasn’t… but if it was ever a sign of AGW it must now be sign of it not being so).
C) It has to be unambiguously understood by those who use it.
D) Its applicability must be understood – a tool is not always useful everywhere. How many is a sonnet?
E) As in all things, its use must be ethical (ahem).
Just a quick thought for discussion if anyone wants to.
Ouch. I guess that is why you are a professor and we are plebes. ;^). Good points, actually.
I posted an excerpt from http://editthis.info/logic/Informal_Fallacies#Fallacy_of_Composition
But failed to make the next logical step- that a redundant fallacy could be problematic……. a fallacy on my part I am sure.
Honest Politician
Honest Truth
To tell the truth, I ….
Unbiased Opinion
Very Nice Kip.
When I read Lockwood’s piece #7 also stuck out as a unique and important observation. I gave it no further thought, but reading your list of examples I think that you’ve made a clear case that the one example he cites ( LIA) is not isolated. Perhaps this informal fallacy does need a name.
Reading through the comments I think it’s important however to say the following. First, there is nothing inherently wrong with trying to name or rename things: Calling that period the LIA is of course every historians right. And of course the name will obscure certain details, potentially create a slant or bias.
metaphors are like that. On the other hand, Don’t let the name fool you.
For grins go back through the posts at WUWT and watch the reactions people have when I question whether there was a LIA. Simply because it has a name people have assumed that it actually happened. Its almost like an ontological argument of sorts. I’ll have to think about this some more. once again, thought provoking piece
The current term the climate obsessed use, “climate change” is deceptive.
The climate has always changed. Fighting so-called climate change is like fighting the lunar tides or gravity: a fool’s errand.
We adapt to gravity: we learn to keep things from falling; we build things that can fly inspite of gravity. We adapt to tides by adjusting our sailing schedules and building levees or adjusting where we build in relation to where the tides can go. But the climate obsessed not only want to fight the always changing climate, they think we can manage the climate by controlling CO2.
I need to look more closely but this might be related to the fallacy of reification or misplaced concreteness.
“For grins go back through the posts at WUWT and watch the reactions people have when I question whether there was a LIA. Simply because it has a name people have assumed that it actually happened. Its almost like an ontological argument of sorts.”
But, even one of your favorite of climate distortion sites agrees that the LIA was global:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Southern_Hemisphere
Obviously you or one of your buddies need to take care of that oversight.
i have no buddies. by design.
Mr. Mosher said; “i have no buddies. by design.”
That is the saddest statement I have ever read.
David Ball November 8, 2014 at 6:24 am
David, you might not have fully considered the backstory. First, you can’t put much weight on Mosh’s comments when he’s in drive-by mode.
Second, this was in response to BFL’s unpleasant accusations that a) Mosh’s favorite climate sites includes Wikipedia, and that b) Mosh is somehow in league with “his buddies” doing something wrong, and that c) Mosh or “his buddies” should run to Wikipedia and change something to agree with Mosh’s point of view. All of this is just BFL’s unpleasant fantasy. In addition, it is a clear ad-hominem attack devoid of any scientific content.
Had someone made the same set of ugly accusations about me, I’m not sure I would have replied in such an even tone.
Third, BFL is clearly using the term “buddies” to mean “co-conspirators in something underhanded” … I don’t have “buddies” like BFL is talking about myself, and by design.
Finally, Mosh is a decent, honest man who is totally transparent about his scientific work. I disagree with some of his scientific conclusions myself, but the idea that he’s screwing with Wikipedia like William Connolley is both ludicrous and vindictive. BFL should be ashamed … but then that’s one of the benefits of posting anonymously, you never have to say you’re sorry.
w.
once again willis, my buddy, explains it better than I ever could.
I am aware of quite a few people who believe in the Little Ice Age, not because the era has a name, but because of the abundant historical documentation of that period. The only question is the geographical extent of it, but most evidence points to it being a global phenomena (except for a tree in Yamal).
Evidence from every continent shows the LIA to be a real phenomenon. By whatever name, it was cold, stormy & wetter or drier, depending upon region. Even the tropics were affected. The transition from the balmy Medieval Warm Period to the bitter LIA was accompanied by crashes in human numbers, most notably in the last century of the MWP (the 14th), from which decline it took 200 more years to recover. Population also fell during the previous Cold Period, of the Dark Ages, particularly during the 6th to 8th centuries AD.
The phrase “Balance of Nature” has my vote. It conjures up some beautiful deity placing every plant, animal and physical feature of the planet on some intricately carved curio shelf in its own perfect, special spot where it should remain for eternity. Instead of portraying Nature as a the random interaction of billions of things heaped on a pile that will always be in a supercritical state… which is what reality is. Nature is anything but “balanced” its rather more along the lines of reactive chaos.
Wonderful article Kip, it makes people think about how they communicate and that is a good thing.
Reblogged this on SiriusCoffee and commented:
Have critical thinking skills been compromised simply by naming the problem “Global Warming”, or “Global Climate Change”?