A Short Diatribe on Hidden Assertions.

tl,dr: I might be bitter about what some people call logic.

Suppose I posit and assert that both that A implies B, and that B is false. From these statements you would immediately conclude that A must be false. Given what I know about the LW crowd you might also be able to point out that an alternate explanation exists: one or more of my assertions could be false. When listed plainly like this, it can be hard to miss.

Despite the simplicity of the above, I’ve noticed a tendency of many pundits to fall into the trap of conclusively proving the falsehood of a statement they don’t like, without bothering to support their own assumptions or assertions. Or at least people trying to shut down arguments do.

Let’s decompose a few examples.

A trivial, but common, example:

Socialism leads to an abundant surplus.
Country D suffers from severe poverty.
Conclusion: Country D doesn’t practice ‘real’ socialism.

Another:

Atmospheric models suggest that increasing temperatures are causing massive climate impacts.
Current climate conditions are largely within norms of the last 200 years
Conclusion: ‘Global warming is a hoax.’

One example which has been standing out in my mind recently is usually posed as a question: “How could a loving God permit so much suffering?”

Recently this has been making the rounds on social media in the form of Niel DeGrasse Tyson quotes. Here’s one of them:

Interviewer: “That leads to the next question, because a few people on the lines are asking: ‘Do you believe in God?’”
Dr. Tyson: “I am not convinced. Here’s the thing. Every time I talk about God with someone who is a believer, God is all-powerful, and all-knowing, and all-good. Right? Good is a big part of this. And then I look at all the ways Earth wants to kill us. You know, a tsunami takes out a quarter-million people. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Tornadoes. Floods. And I add all of that up. Either the God is not all-powerful or is not all-good. But it can’t really be both, given all the ways the universe wants to kill us.”

-Opie and Anthony podcast #1889

For convenience I’ll use the common shorthand and take ‘God’ to mean ‘all-powerful,’ as in many Western religious traditions. As I understand it, the simplified argument proceeds like this:

A loving God would prevent suffering.
Extreme suffering exists in the world.
Conclusion: God does not exist.

As before, this conclusion is one valid inference if you accept points one and two. But dig a little deeper and we can find several more alternatives if we question the assertions, including Dr. Tyson’s alternatives:

God exists but is not omnibenevolent.
A loving God exists but lacks the power to end suffering.

And we can keep going:

A loving God somehow favors suffering.
The calamity, famine, and war we see in the world is not meaningful suffering according to an omnibenevolent God.

A detailed discussion of the above realistically depends on an exact definition of ‘omnibenevolent’ and ‘God’, and maybe we should be playing Taboo. But my point today is not about religion. My point is about hidden assertions. To make a convincing case for the conclusions, you have to be able to make a convincing case for the statements and implications you make along the way.^[1]

For the sake of brevity and instead of diving into the psychology that leads to this type of error, I’ll instead offer one slightly more self consistent alternative to the assertions above:

It is in the nature of an omnibenevolent God to permit, on occasion, suffering to occur.

Consider for example the analogy of a loving parent. While parents can range from imperfect to down right rotten, it is easy to imagine parents who would do everything in their power to help their children, at least to the best of their understanding. Do loving parents prevent their children from experiencing any pain? Some clearly try, but many of us acknowledge that this will likely have negative consequences for the child who grows up unused to adversity. Point number one above hits a little differently when analogously rewritten as ‘a loving God is an extreme helicopter parent’.

If we simultaneously accept the existence of a loving God and a world with suffering, we would need to posit some godly benevolence in letting people suffer. With children we might say they need challenges to grow, or need to learn the consequences of their own actions. Personally, I see the value of maintaining personal accountability, even at high cost. The kind of accountability that could not be brought about if a helicopter God saves us from our every mistake and trial. Put more simply, could we posit that an omnibenevolent God might care more about what kind of person we become than what circumstances we endure?

I’m not trying to make the case for or against the existence of an omnibenevolent God. Others have dealt with the problem of evil on a much deeper level than I can. (For example see Problems of evil.) But when I hear someone try to shut down any and all discussion by saying “How could a loving God permit so much suffering?”, I have a knee-jerk response: “Have you tried answering that question?”

^
I realize I’m committing the same mistake I’m critiquing. The argument decomposed as
1. Pundits use logic to win arguments.
2. Pundits rely on hidden assertions.
3. Conclusion: Pundits are bad at logic.
conveniently ignores the fact that pundits make flawed arguments because they prioritize rhetorical effectiveness over logical rigor. People often know their implicit assumptions wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, but they push the argument anyway because it’s persuasive to their audience. But being nuanced like that didn’t scratch the itch to complain about it.