Argument From Votes

A variation on ArgumentFromAuthority whereby popularity is the metric being used. Example, "Microsoft X must be good because everybody else is buying it".

ArgumentFromAuthority is a FallaciousArgument, is this page implying that democracy and voting is a fallacious method?

It is implying that popularity is no better as a logical argument than authority is. As a political method, it suffers from the same weakness, but a) politics certainly aren't always about logic, and b) with a democratic method, at least the majority are (theoretically) getting what they want - or what they think they want - or what they've been conned into thinking they want - um, or something. -- MikeSmith

Nevertheless, voting is a notoriously bad method of resolving certain categories of issues. It is all well and good for a majority to conclude that Jane Doe will make a better mayor than Joe Blow -- the majority gets what they want and all that. It is something else again for the majority to vote on questions of fact or science. And of course, the differentiation between those is itself subject to heated debate.

This page certainly does imply -- no, it flat out states -- that "democracy and voting is a fallacious method" of determining, for example, whether or not Microsoft office software is good. I'd further argue that "democracy and voting" is a fallacious method of determining a host of superficially political questions, such as:

These are issues of fact, not opinion. Yet there is strong and increasing cultural pressure to apply the process of "democracy and voting" to address them. I suggest that this, too, is fallacious.

I respectfully disagree. The definition of the terms are opinion. Some define a WMD as a remote control airplane, others as a nuclear missile. I won't even try to define "lie" versus mislead, omit, or exaggerate", etc. See LaynesLaw.

Definitions, until they are clearly defined, are indeed, opinions. However, once a clear definition has been supplied, they cease to be opinions, and become purely a method of communication. Therefore, the above points are statements that, when applied to a given method of communication, express fact. They must assume a pure value of true or false, irrelevant of the majority opinion.

More specifically, the above contain an element of should which make them political questions. There may be factual elements as well, but the important issue in each of the above is "what should be done about it, if anything?" Which is a political issue--and democracy is a reasonable (though not perfect) way to resolve political issues.

Voting on things like the value of pi, or anything else that can be determined scientifically (to some reasonable degree of confidence), is just plain silly. Voting on issues which are matters of opinion (what's the best movie this year?) or matters of technical opinion/conjecture for which there isn't an agreed-on way to resolve (is OO better than functional?) may produce interesting results, but it doesn't prove anything other than providing a statistical summary of those who voted. Which may or may not be useful.

Were the programming community at large to vote on whether C++ or Smalltalk was better; C++ would likely win in a landslide due to the much greater number of C++ programmers out there? What would that prove? That more programmers like C++ and nothing more than that.

I agree with your comment here. But help me out -- where, in the above list of ten items, is "an element of should" present? I don't doubt that each has political implications (which is why I listed them), but to me, each of those bullets is a statement of fact, more like the value of pi than whether C++ or Smalltalk is better. I completely agree with you that the question of "what should be done" is political, but I think it is hugely important to begin with agreement on the statement of fact.

Each of them has a public policy question attached to it. You and I may agree with the answers to those questions, or not--but the questions are there. Did Iraq have WMD--as far as we can tell, the answer is "no". Even conservatives are coming around to that point. The question is--what should be done about it? Both you and I would love to remove Bush from power--given the makeup of Congress that won't happen at least until next year's elections. But some argue that WMD aside, the WarInIraq? was justified anyway. (Granted, the justifications being offered now that no WMD have surfaced are far different from those offered last year at this time, while we still were considering the question).

I think we're in agreement here. I want the public policy questions, which certainly do involve democracy and voting, to occur in a context where all participants strive to work from a commonly-held set of agreed-upon facts. The political discourse is currently rife with repeated, calculated and important mis-statements of fact. Large numbers of American voters believe that Hussein had ties to Bin Laden, and form their political opinions accordingly. Bush and Cheney know that there is no connection, but Cheney continues to repeat the assertion, even after Bush acknowleged the "error" and retreated from the claim. The Iraqi WMD claims are similar.

At the moment, millions of Americans think that a vote against Bush means a vote for terrorism. That is patent nonsense.

Fair enough, but I don't think there's a disagreement here. A political process can be used to arrive at a definition. But once a definition is in hand, the result of the question is more fact than opinion. Meanwhile, Bush and his administration was quite specific about the WMD's they were discussing: Nuclear weapons, biological weapons, nerve gas, remote drones, and so on. None of them existed. It is becoming more clear that the adminstration knew they didn't exist. They lied/misled/prevaricated/deceived/whatever. Let's not forget the most recent artillery shell episode. Millions of Americans were told by the news media that artillery shells filled with blister gas were found. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-01-11-iraq-shells_x.htm, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3925906&p1=0). The truth, after further testing, is that the test results were false. There was no blister gas. That story, however, does not run on page 1 -- in USA Today, it's buried inside another story (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-01-12-iraq_x.htm) and doesn't even get a headline.

Here are three statements of fact:

We can debate the implications, meanings, learnings, motivations, and all that stuff. But there really isn't much room for debate about the facts.

Although I agree in general that majority opinion is not an indicator of truth(often it's the opposite), remember that there are some valid reasons for going with the majority opinion. Using standards, social acceptance, wider markets, etc.

ArgumentFromVotes and ArgumentByTheMasses seem to be closely related. Perhaps the Iraq WMD claims should have their own page eventually, but it seems a topical (January 2004) example where questions that should be factual are being tossed about as if they were, instead, political.

I agree there is a lot suspicious about the Iraq WMD claims, but there is also a fallacy in prematurely claiming something is fact when it is still debated. For instance, the urls you referenced claimed preliminary tests show they contained blister agent - but that's a far cry from saying they tested positive for blister agent. That they did not contain blister gas is irrelevant in the face of the that(preliminary tests were wrong). As to what the media emphasized more - that's definitely subjective, there is no way to quantifiably measure that. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the assertions were misleading, probably used for propaganda purposes, and call into question the entire war - but saying something is fact is incredibly hard. That's the beauty of those skilled in politics - it's hard to call them on a lie because they have spin doctors, speech writers, and cooked intelligence. The thing may smell worse than the worst codesmell, but don't think you can crack the nut that easily.

Did you look at the USAToday coverage of the initial find and its resolution? The headline, and page title, says "Iraq mortar shells contain blister agent". No qualification. No "preliminary". No wiggle room. And it says that in bold-faced black type. The followup headline -- the only coverage in USAToday, according to my site search -- is a story that says "U.S. soldier killed in bombing; blasts rock central Baghdad". Sixteen paragraphs into an eighteen paragraph story, USAToday says:

Meanwhile, the Danish army said Monday that results of a new series of tests to determine whether 36 shells buried in the southern Iraqi desert contain a liquid blister agent could be expected by the end of the week. The shells, thought to be left over from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, were uncovered last week.

Are you seriously trying to argue that this doesn't reflect a clear bias in the USAToday coverage of this event? I think this micro-example of the USAToday coverage is neither subjective nor impossible to quantify. The initial story merited a headline. The followup did not.

I suggest that we need to relentlessly ArgueFromFacts?.

I'm trying to argue that it doesn't clearly reflect a bias. Headlines are always misleading, regardless of source. It's like Wiki naming - it is usually a shortening of a broader concept, or a grab for attention. I'd put more cynicism towards what wasn't reported at all, what with embedded reporters and all.

Again, did you read the stories, or the quote just above? Here's what wasn't reported in USA Today: There was no blister agent in Iraq shells. That's the BBC headline. Here's the subhead, from the BBC:

Three dozen mortar shells uncovered in Iraq earlier this month had no chemical agents, the Danish army says.

Here's the URL of the BBC story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3407853.stm

USAToday has not published the fact. They found the initial pro-war pro-Bush story "newsworthy", but not the actual results.

The bias in the USAToday's reporting of this story is a fact. If that fact isn't "clear" to someone, the problem is the unwillingness of that person to admit the fact.

I'd suggest that ArgueFromFacts? won't get you anywhere in the american political system. Here's the problem. If you use the powers-that-be's tactics, you need to come up with an enemy, convince everyone they are being attacked, and then sit back and then implement your power-plays - all while trying to avoid the conspiracy theorist/lunatic label.

Want real results? Find a harmless enemy, one that is easily defeated(not bush) - get everyone unified against them, then start directing the populace towards your agenda(hey, it worked for bush)

there is also a fallacy in prematurely claiming something is fact when it is still debated.

Um, no. People debate statements of fact. Those statements are either true or false. Their truth value does not change. It doesn't matter if they haven't been debated yet, currently are being debated, or the debate has finished. Voting cannot change their truth value.

Normally, statements of fact are debated when their truth value is not (yet) known. (Although some people continue to debate long past the point where that truth value has been demonstrated using a logical argument).

For example, the answer to "Is there a mile-wide asteroid on a collision course with Earth ?" is a fact -- it is either Yes or No. Voting on it can't change the fact. And it's the same fact for everyone on Earth. We just don't know what the facts are yet.

People also debate matters of opinion. For example, the definitions of newly-coined words. Opinions change over time, and vary from one person to another.

It seems to me that the smart thing to do is to find out the true facts, *then* vote on what to do about it. That's better than voting ignorantly. Although voting ignorantly is still better than being mislead as to the truth, and then voting.

We need to distinguish things that are appropriate to vote on (such as definitions), vs. things (including facts) that are inappropriate to vote on.

-- DavidCary

CategoryVoting

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