Modern Wild Faunal Resource System Management
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The educated faunal system manager or "wildlifer" will attempt to improve his or her logic.
The major tool of logic is the syllogism.
Syllogism
a logical scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion which must logically be true if the premises are true (c)2000 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.
Efforts to improve analyses of syllogisms of others or to use them can be a life-long endeavor. Throughout the natural resource literature there are appeals to logic and people suggesting how illogical certain statements may be. Continuing studies are encouraged.
Fallacies of logic are abundant in literature and in daily use and need to be attacked as well as avoided when used by others. Students working, with each other, can rapidly learn to avoid these fallacies.
1. Over-generalizing - jumping to conclusions from one or two cases.
Example: All efforts at wildlife law enforcement have failed.
2. Thin-entering Wedge - a special type of over-generalizing involving predictions. (e.g., if this is done, then that (usually dire) will follow.)
Example: Since we have over-harvested the doe, our population will be wiped out.
3. Getting Personal - forsaking the issue to attack the character of its defender.
Example: This is not a suitable philosophy of wildlife management. Have you ever had a college course in philosophy?
4. You're Another - an irrelevant counter attack rotating a charge upon one's accuser. (e.g., My point may be bad but yours is just as bad, so that makes it "quits")
Examples: A. You are in error, Sir. The kill this year was highest in history.
B. Maybe the kill is greater this year than the past two years but the hunting conditions in my area were terrible; we couldn't get any deer. You're wrong about weather conditions! There's nothing more to say.
5. Cause and Effect - if event B came after event A, then it is assumed to be a result of A.
Example: We trapped for a week and we got no more reports of rabies. (No statement of when trapping was done, extent, of success, period of epidemic, or relation of the trapped animal to the disease.)
6. False Analogy - a situation is argued to be exactly like another situation, but it is not.
Example: An ecosystem is like a person; this erosion is like a sore.
7. Wise Men Can't be Wrong - clinching an argument by an appeal to authority.
Example: There really can be no argument on this point. Why, Aldo Leopold himself said it!
8. Figures Prove - a sub-class of the above.
Example: Figures never lie. The results of this study show 75% more deer in Big Levels Game Refuge than in surrounding lands.
9. Appeal to the Crowd - distorting an issue with mass prejudice.
Example: We've taken their land, their buffalo, their homes and their pride. Now we want to take away their fishing rights (on the dwindling anadromous fish runs).
10. Arguing in Circles - using a conclusion to prove itself.
Example: How do I know in what order of time I should arrange these fossils?
That is simple. Arrange them in accordance with the order of the earth's strata from which they were taken. But how do I know what the proper order of those strata is? You know it from the sequence of fossils found in them.
11. Self-evident Truths - trying to win an argument by saying, "Everybody knows it must be true."
Example: Everybody knows that highway construction has seriously depleted our wildlife populations.
12. Black or White - forcing an issue with many aspects into just two sides, and so neglecting shades of gray.
Example: We have only two alternatives to save the waterfowl population. We must close the season for three years or we must buy 200,000 acres of nesting habitat in the next three years.
13. Guilt by Association - making a spurious identification between two dissimilar persons or events.
Example: This fiasco is like last year's meeting. The program is organized the same way. I got nothing worthwhile out of last year's meeting. Nothing good can come of this meeting or any like it.
14. Appeal to Pity - obscuring the argument by using subjects that elicit pity.
Example: Remember the innocent fawn when you change from the bucks-only
season!
15. Appeal to Fear - obscuring the argument by efforts to elicit fear.
Example: Serious consequences will result. You will be ridiculed not only today but throughout history. I will personally see to it.
16. Appeal to Ignorance - a certain proposition or theory which cannot be demonstrated to be true is not in itself sufficient proof that an opposite proposition or theory is true. The inability to verify a given idea is irrelevant to the truth or falsity of some other idea.
Example: We must accept the fact that conservation education is the only answer to this problem, for we cannot prove to the contrary.
17. Multiple-Questions - ideas or propositions are smuggled into the discussion questions asked in such a manner as to imply some other question which has not even been asked. Questions usually begin with "why" or "how?" Example: Why does a dead fish weigh more than a live one? Why is the private game preserve so much more efficient than any government wildlife operation?
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Last revision January 17, 2004.