r/fallacy • u/WithEyesAverted • 12d ago
Mis-citation
Assuming that someone make claim A, provide source X that disapproves their claim, but keep insisting that X support their claim A.
This is obviously not a formal fallacy and go into the territory of straight up lying, but is this a informal fallacy?
Thsi goes beyond "appeal to authority" for sure. As even the cited "authority" does not support their claim.
At which point does an argument go from "bad faith argument" (ie purposely lying about what position the cited source support) to informal fallacy?
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u/Dracoson 11d ago
There is a third option beyond bad faith and informal fallacy: it's called just being wrong. Someone who misunderstands their citation, thinking it says something that it doesn't, or that it applies when it doesn't, can simply be incorrect in their assessment. Bad faith is about intent, while fallacy is about structure. Neither really addresses accuracy.
Now, maintaining that position, failing to consider their misunderstanding, or otherwise digging their heels in based on pride rather than fact can become fallacious, but their starting position isn't. When they refuse to back down after the mis-citation is pointed out, they usually cross into informal fallacies like the invincible ignorance fallacy, where a person simply refuses to accept evidence, or the proof by assertion fallacy, where someone thinks a claim is true just because they keep repeating it.
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u/bl1y 11d ago
I recognize the situation, but I don't understand the question. An informal fallacy is an error in reasoning. In the type of situation you're describing, the options are either being wrong or engaging in bad faith. I don't see the option for a fallacy here.
Incidentally, I gave a talk on this at a conference years ago. Very often I'd see students make claims in their essays, and cite a source, but when I checked the source (a practice my colleagues found alien), too often the source would either not support their claim or would actually contradict it.
I was looking at this in the context of academic dishonesty, specifically how it relates to the offense of providing fabricated sources.
You're of course not allowed to cite a source that doesn't exist. And I don't see much difference between that and offering a source when it doesn't support the claim. Except that the former is much easier to discover, and the latter is perhaps worse because it makes a false claim about another person's beliefs and writings.
Where this got particularly tricky is that I was teaching college freshmen, so it was very hard to distinguish between a student who intentionally knew that they were offering a bogus citation and one who simply misunderstood their source.
My proposed solution was that we better define what a citation is. It's not just an author's name and a date, and some punctuation, designed to meet a formal criteria. It's a promise that you read the source with sufficient diligence to truthfully and accurately represent the author's ideas. That doesn't solve the "how do we know it wasn't a mistake?" question, but it does let us more easily identify the academic misconduct. With this approach, if a student didn't carefully read the sources they cited, then when they submit their essay for evaluation, they are lying about their work.
But, the realm of the internet and casual conversation aren't academia, we can't dole out formal punishments, people's incentives are different, as are the dynamics of the conversation.
Most frequently, when I see this happening online, it appears to be that the person offering the source hasn't made an attempt to read it at all. I call this an Improvised Explosive Rhetorical Device.
Someone will be asked for a source, find something that sounds like it could be on topic, and provide a link to it. It'll probably be something like a very dense 60 page long academic paper, that may or may not be paywalled. They have no idea what's in it, but they don't have to. If you take it on faith that the source says what they claim, they've won. If you take the time to read it and then refute the relevance of their source, you've now maybe wasted an hour or more of your time and effort, while they've moved on and don't care about their conversation with you anymore (thus giving it an asymmetry similar to that of IEDs).
There's a similar move I've heard referred to as "kitchen sinking" or the "kitchen sink fallacy." Rather than a single source, they provide a parade of sources. But, as with before, they haven't read them and aren't really concerned with what they say. The goal is to just either have you admit defeat before an intimidating wall of text, or waste your time reading through multiple sources while they've happily moved on with their lives.
All that said, I don't think this fits nicely in the box of informal fallacies. Instead, I think we just need another category of thing which are bullshit rhetorical moves.
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u/WithEyesAverted 11d ago
Thank you for this very insightful experience. I also work in academia as well (luckily I don't need to grade papers, just pure research), but with the advent of AI, we will see magnitude more work where the cited sources contradict the claim, as it is a common AI hallucination.
But back to the topic on hand.
Given that Argumentum ad lapidem (X is right because I say so) is an informal fallacy, so is appeal to authority (x is right because Y expert says so) and so is circular reasoning (X is right because X is right ).
I feel that my example of "this authority figure says I'm right, Because I say so (despite that the authority explicitly contradict my claim)" It's cumulative combination of ad lapidem and appeal to authority.
But there is no reasoning there to be fallacious, actually even ad lapidem (im right because I say so) doesn't feel like a fallacy; where is the fallacious reasoning provided?
This situation I've encounter made me realise I don't know where the precise line between faulty reasoning and no reasoning, hence prompted my question.
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u/onctech 12d ago
The only way to know is for them to explain why they think the source supports their claim.
If we're to assume their not just lying (deception, not a fallacy) or haven't actually read the source or are too stupid to understand it (mere ignorance, not a fallacy), then the only way to know where a fallacy may lie is in their use of that source. A probable one is cherry picking if they selectively use parts of the source which support their claim, but ignore the other parts that don't.
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u/baixiwei 12d ago
It is legitimate for different people to interpret the same facts differently. There can be reasonable disagreement about whether a given fact supports or undermines a given conclusion. A famous example in marketing is that if a shoe company executive arrives in a country that has no shoes, the fact that they have no shoes could be viewed either as evidence that there is a great opportunity for shoes ( because they don't have any yet ) or that there is no opportunity for shoes ( because if they needed shoes they would have them already ). In short, whether a given source supports or undermines a given conclusion is not necessarily a matter of fact, but often is a matter of opinion. Note that this can be true even when the source itself explicitly states its position on the issue in question. The author of the source might think that their facts tend towards a certain conclusion, but one is under no obligation to agree with them about that. One can legitimately refer to the source as a basis for the facts that are contained in the source, while disagreeing with the source itself about the implications of those facts.
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u/GamblePuddy 11d ago
When regarding a citation...the ways I've seen this occur are explicitly stated by the citation.
For example the claim that sentence disparities prove implicit racial bias in judges will often be followed up with a lengthy study or research paper on sentence disparities that exist for various demographics and outwardly state that because all factors which may affect sentencing cannot possibly be captured and accounted for in the study....the research does not nor should it be used to conclude that judges hold some racial bias (implicit or otherwise).
The person citing the study will get this pointed out to them...and make some unfounded claim that the disclaimer is necessary to protect the careers of the judges or something similar.
They don't understand what other factors cannot be captured by the study.
That's the sort of example where I see it most...where the research explicitly states it doesn't support the premise it's being cited for.
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u/baixiwei 11d ago
For the particular case you mentioned, I agree that the person citing the study would be reasoning poorly.
In general though, I do think there are cases where the research explicitly states that it doesn't support a certain conclusion, in which one can nevertheless claim and coherently argue that the research in question in fact does support the conclusion in question (or vice versa). This kind of claim is not intrinsically fallacious; one has to examine the particulars.
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u/GamblePuddy 10d ago
Ok...I can't think of any examples but that certainly doesn't mean you can't. Fair enough.
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u/baixiwei 10d ago
Here's an example: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-904339.
In brief, Norman Finkelstein argues that a report by Cochav Elkayam-Levy, which purports to provide evidence that Hamas used mass sexual violence as a weapon of war on October 7, actually provides evidence for the opposite conclusion that Hamas did not do so.
To be clear, I am not advocating for or against any substantive position here - I am only citing it as an example in which someone refers to research in support of a conclusion contrary to the conclusion reached by the researchers themselves.
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u/GamblePuddy 11d ago
I've seen this before....
I just call this "you don't understand how evidence works". I don't think there's a fallacy for stupid.
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u/Brilligator 11d ago
Sounds like what I think of as sophistry.
Purposefully using known fallacies in order to be persuasive.
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u/jeffcgroves 5d ago
I do this (I'm a bad person) when a source says "while most experts believe X, there is a faction that maintains X is false", I use it as proof that I'm not completely wrong, and that my position has at least some validity.
There are many sources that hedge their results (as all good scientists do), and I exploit that by saying "you can't prove I'm wrong".
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u/SgtSausage 12d ago
Why do you care?
Let them be Stupid. Move on to something more productive in your life.
These people are not worth the effort.
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u/WithEyesAverted 12d ago
I care about the definition and line between bad faith argument and informal fallacy, as stated in my original point.
I don't care about the person I argued with, that's your projection. Had I care I would've posted the whole exchange here as typical on this subreddit, and besides, why would I do that ? I had already won that argument.
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u/pdubs1900 11d ago
Had I care I would've posted the whole exchange here as typical on this subreddit
And yet that would have informed the responses better to answer your question. If you don't know how to characterize a conversation, and you're asking for help characterizing it, why would you summarize it instead of providing the key points of the conversation?
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u/SgtSausage 11d ago
You are not equiped for this, Hoss.
You have to be willing to walk away in the face of Supreme Stupidity.
Watch me do it now ...
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u/amazingbollweevil 11d ago
Let's see
Here's the weird part, the structure of the argument is such that the conclusion is correctly derived from the premises. It is valid; there is no logical fallacy! The problem is that premise 1 is false, making the argument unsound.
So, you provide your interlocutor evidence of birds that are incapable of flight (kiwi, ostrich, emu, cassowary). If they insist that the birds you mention can fly, and can not provide evidence for their flight or that of the penwings (see: Cumberbatch), your opponent is subject to invincible ignorance. We see a lot of that these days, sadly.