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Writer's pictureBible Brian

Maslow's fallacies


In psychology, there is a concept known as Maslow's Hammer, also known as the law of instrument. This is a cognitive bias towards the reliance on a familiar skill. The common analogy is "when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." a quote attributed to American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, which is why we call it "Maslow's hammer".


By its nature, a hammer is a very useful, yet specialised tool. It's fantastic for the purposes for which it was designed, but there are obviously some jobs - even very similar jobs - for which a hammer is the wrong tool. Screws, for example, are similar to nails, but are slightly different, and as such, typically require a screwdriver. In the same way, Maslow's Hammer describes not only the phenomenon of relying on familiar skills, but also the effects this has. Namely, the reduction of creative problem solving abilities.


In apologetics, Maslow's hammer may manifest in many ways. For example, knowledge of fallacies is extremely helpful. If you know nothing about fallacies, you are more likely to make fallacious arguments, and less capable of spotting them. If you know a lot about fallacies, you are less likely to make a fallacious argument, and more likely to spot them.


But there is a third category: The apologist who has a vague familiarity with fallacies, but the result is they see them behind every bush. This kind of apologist is just a pest. They have their hammer, and they will swing it at whatever they perceive as a nail. That is, they will constantly accuse you of fallacies because whether you're guilty or not, they can identify something in your argument that reminds them of it.


Perhaps the most hilarious example from my own time as an apologist is a relatively recent debate I had with a young man who found one of my old posts about whether or not homosexuality is a heritable trait. He accused me of the bandwagon fallacy, which he listed along with several other fallacies he clearly did not understand. So, first, I'm going to briefly explain what the bandwagon fallacy is. Then I'm going to explain why he thought I committed it. You're immediately going to see why he made the connection, but also why he did so in error.


The bandwagon fallacy, also known as appeal to popularity, or, if you want to be fancy, argumentum ad populum, is an appeal to the popularity of a given proposition. In effect, it is the fallacy of treating truth as a Democracy. As if the number of people who believe a thing, in some way, increases the likelihood of it being true.


So, why was I accused of the bandwagon fallacy? Had I argued that my view was correct based on its popularity? No. What I'd actually done was made an argument that was similar to arguments used by other groups with similar views. Or, as he put it, my argument "...is just a popular proposition by the anti-LGBTQ group".


You can see where Maslow's Hammer factors in here. For this person, his familiar skill is identifying fallacies. In fact, in total, he listed 5 he believed I had committed, all of which fell short because he either did not understand the fallacy, or did not understand the argument. In this case, the bandwagon fallacy is about appealing to the popularity of a belief as the argument, not an argument merely being popular.


The reason this is so hilarious to me is that, realistically, the better arguments should become the most popular, but by this guy's logic, when a really good argument becomes popular, it suddenly becomes really bad because enough people are using it.


As ridiculous as this example is, it is just one example of what can happen when your understanding of fallacies is incomplete. In reality, it is possible for an argument to be completely sound, yet erroneous in some way, or even just lead to an erroneous conclusion. For this reason, while it is extremely helpful to be as familiar as possible with fallacies, it's also important to ensure it is not the only tool in our toolbox, as not every problem we encounter as apologists will be a nail.

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