Basic Logic

In theory, logic should be simple.

In practice, it doesn’t turn out that way. Humans really don’t seem to be hard-wired to be that logical. The ways in which our minds defy logic are potentially evolutionary in origin — the caveman who realized that he should avoid snakes probably was better off than the caveman who refused to succumb to the hasty generalization logical fallacy and needed to rigorously connect snakes with poison and death.

While this may have served Fred Flinstone and his compatriots well, this is a more serious issue when facing professions which ought to be more logical. The tendency of people to subscribe to bizarre conspiracy theories (e.g. the 9/11 was a hoax theory), the tendency of scientists to see and count only data which supports their hypothesis while discounting or ignoring data which doesn’t (e.g. the guy who claimed he’d done cold fusion, a lot of stem cell research reporting highly unlikely findings such as cross-lineage differentiation, etc.), and the tendency of businesspeople to subscribe to gimmicky growth strategies (e.g. most corporate Internet strategies during the bubble) are just some examples of how individuals who need to be logical jump to conclusions which aren’t well-founded.

The last example I mentioned, about businesspeople, is particularly challenging as there is no clear “science of business” in the same way that there is a rigorous study of physics. Businesspeople (and the consultants who support them) have to be able to make the tricky distinction between the correct “leaps of logic” and the incorrect and potentially disastrous logical pitfalls.

There is no clear guideline for when something is a “good” leap of logic and when something is a “bad” one, but at the very minimum, consultants and businesspeople should be able to understand the following two basic types of logical fallacies:

1. The inverse of a true statement is not necessarily true. While it is true that all hotels are buildings, it’s clearly incorrect to say that this means that everything which isn’t a hotel is clearly not a building (e.g. the White House isn’t a hotel, but it’s clearly a building). A more contemporary example comes from a recent Republican debate where Mike Huckabee claimed that, “The Air Force has a saying that says if you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target,” he said. “I’m catching the flak; I must be over the target.” No, Mr. Huckabee, a bomber deployed in Iraq taking fire because it crossed the Iranian border is certainly not over the target.
2. The converse of a true statement is not necessarily true. While it is true that all hotels are buildings, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all buildings must be hotels. This type of logical error is probably the most prevalent example, because it involves people confusing cause with effect. For example, just because a good marketing campaign boosts profits, it would be wrong to conclude that a company can attribute higher profits to its marketing campaign. Just because a good economic policy can mean an economic boom, it doesn’t mean that an economic boom is validation that the economic policy was done correctly. Just because, HIV causes a weakened immune system, it doesn’t mean that all patients with a weakened immune system have HIV.

While the examples I’ve listed seem self-evident when rattled off in list form, these are nevertheless very prevalent in the reasoning of all politicians, business executives, doctors, lawyers, and scientists. It’s why doctors are trained in medical school to avoid looking for symptoms which confirm their natural impulses. It’s why scientists are admonished when they don’t have sufficiently good controls. It’s why lawyers have to, at the bare minimum, pass a basic logic test (in the form of the LSAT) to get into law school. This is not to say that the goal is a completely logical world — the example of the caveman aside, one does not want to live in a world where doctors are paralyzed by indecision (it could be overexertion, but it could also be early stage Guillan Barre Syndrome) or where our political and military leaders wait for all the evidence to come in before acting (yes, we heard that terrorists attacked, but we wanted to see satellite pictures and get a complete situational report from a local investigation before we sent in national aid). But, given the sheer amount of illogical decision-making and its impact, I think its safe to say the world could use some basic logical training.