Critical Thinking To Go: Dodging The Pepperoni Pizza Fallacy

Today we commonly hear in the intelligence journalistic points about religion and politics, or faith and something else, where the recommended "duo du jour" usually sit down in resistance to one another. One could make this, of course, just as easily with other countries of human thought, as with sociology vs. history, or economic science vs. psychology. But most people make not look nearly as interested inch this exercising as they look apprehensive to put "religion" over against whatever other country they mightiness happen interesting.

But this stands for quite an odd manner to see things (at the very best), and one might rightly name it propaganda (at the worst) in many instances. You see, life makes not come up at us in slices, as though it were one very big pepperoni pizza pie to go. When world experience an event, we make not meet it in a parade of neatly snipped segments, as though the civil warfare first showed us its psychological effects, then came its economical aspects, only after which we then got a expression at its technological innovations.

Just as with the runningback who appreciations a fumbled football in the thick of many linesmen, life haps to us "all at once." Only after taking in an historically of import event, and reflecting on it a bit, can we slit it up to analyze some of parts or facets in isolation from the others -- as initiates might do, say, in an economic science textbook. This, of course, do pupils especially prostrate to mistake the manner things go on on paper with how they happen on a battlefield, or in the thick of a revolution.

Now this false belief -- the mistake of confusing existent life with its written counterpart, makes not demo up in informal logic texts. But it should, since it clearly misleads many these days.

So, what to name it? I at first tested the "fallacy of compartmentalized reality." But the pupils in my caput just blurted out, "WhatEVER." Then I mused, "fallacy of brooding segmenting." But I didn't understand that one myself. Finally, I landed on the more than user-friendly label, the "Pepperoni Pizza" fallacy. Surely pupils could catch and digest this supreme combination of words (or was that "combination supreme"?).

By manner of illustration, I recently engaged a lively advocate of Mr. Darwin's views. In the course of our discussion, he suggested that evolutionary notions merely comprised "biological theories," and that I had mistakenly inquired about the ethical motive of it all. Here, the pepperoni began to fly.

He didn't look to recognize (as Mr. Darwin clearly did) that theories we might properly name "biological," (or scientific) can -- and often make -- have got obvious ethical implications. Ideas have got logical personal effects not restricted to one academic field. You cannot win a argument by simply putting an arbitrary fencing around an thought and yelling at its offspring, "Now stay!" Like illegal aliens, they be given to leap the boundary lines when you aren't looking.

This agency that Darwinism, neo-Darwinism and "Punctuationism," like all other ideas, have got logical effects (implications) that affect every country of human idea and life. This is why you can happen evolutionary thoughts discussed in psychological science textbooks, history books, and even protrude magazines.

In any case, evading or ignoring certain facets of an idea's logical effects to derive the upper manus in a argument -- or else to maintain one's ship from sinking altogether -- now have a name. Armed with this knowledge, you can clearly and distinctly demo others when the demand arises, that life transpires only as a set of incorporate circumstances, and that thoughts have got logical personal effects not properly limited to any 1 academic field.

Reality and logic make not come up made-to-order with other cheese, so you don't acquire a price reduction on them with a coupon. To do a good case, then, we must follow the rules of valid and sound reasoning.