Can you outsmart the apples and oranges fallacy Elizabeth Cox
Baking apple pie?
Discount orange warehouse has you covered!
A fruit’s a fruit, right?
It’s 1988, and scientist James Hansen
has just testified
to the United States Congress
that global warming trends
are caused by human activity,
and will pose an increasing threat
to humanity in the future.
Well, well.
That’s unusually prescient for a human.
Looking for a wedding dress?
Try a new take on a timeless classic.
It’s sleek, flattering and modest—
just like the traditional dress.
Commercials.
Could anything be more insufferable?
It’s 1997, and the United States Senate
has called a hearing about global warming.
Some expert witnesses point out that
past periods in Earth’s history
were warmer than the 20th century.
Because such variations
existed long before humans,
the witnesses claim the current
warming trend
is also the result of natural variation.
Ah, there is something more insufferable
than a commercial.
Luckily for the humans,
there’s one more expert witness.
What are you looking at?
We’re all dressed.
At least we are by the logic
you just used.
It’s as if you were to say
apples and oranges are both fruits,
therefore they taste the same.
Or that underwear, wedding dresses,
and suits are all clothes,
therefore, they’re all equally appropriate
attire for a Senate hearing.
The European wars of the 19th century
and World War I were all wars, right?
So World War I couldn’t be any more
devastating than those other wars,
could it?
Let’s say two people have a fever.
They must have the same disease
that’s causing that fever, right?
Of course not.
One fever could be caused by chicken pox,
the other by influenza,
or any number of other infections.
Like your claim about rising
global temperatures,
these claims make a false analogy.
You’re assuming that because two phenomena
share a characteristic,
in this case warming,
they are analogous in other ways,
like the cause of that warming.
But there’s no evidence
that that’s the case.
Yes, there have been other warm periods
in Earth’s history—
no one’s disputing that the climate
fluctuates.
But let’s take a closer look at some of
those older examples of global warming,
shall we?
The Cretaceous Hot Greenhouse,
92 million years ago,
was so warm,
forests covered Antarctica.
Volcanic activity was likely responsible
for boosting atmospheric carbon dioxide
and creating a greenhouse effect.
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum,
55 million years ago,
was so warm, crocodiles swam the waters
of the Arctic Circle.
This warming may have been caused
by the drying of inland seas
and release of methane,
a potent greenhouse gas,
from ocean sediments.
Even among these other warm periods,
you’re making a false analogy.
Yes, they had natural causes.
But each had a different cause,
and involved a different amount
and duration of warming.
They’re as dissimilar as they are similar.
Taking them together,
all we can reasonably conclude
is that the Earth’s climate
seems to change
in response to conditions on the planet.
Today, human activity is a dominant force
shaping conditions on your planet,
so the possibility that it’s driving
global warming
can’t be dismissed out of hand.
I’ll grant that the more complicated
something is,
the easier it is to make
a mistaken analogy.
That’s especially true because there are
many different types of false analogy:
that similar symptoms must share a cause,
that similar actions must lead to similar
consequences, and countless others.
Most false analogies you’ll come
across are far less obvious
than those comparing apples to oranges,
and climate is notoriously complex.
It requires careful, rigorous study
and evidence collection—
and making a false analogy like this
only impedes that process.
It’s 2013, and the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
has found,
aggregating decades of research,
that there is more than a 95% chance
the global warming trend
since the mid-20th century
has been driven by human activity,
namely the burning of fossil fuels.
You’re both pets,
and he likes living in water,
so you should, too.