Investigating the ideological maneuver immunization against criticism

Previous Chapter: Münchhausentrilemma (Münchhausentrilemma)

Next Chapter: False or doubtful lines of reasoning (About reasoning)

Example:

The green moonlight sleeps faster above the hills.

This is obvious nonsense, and therefore, it is impossible to be proven true or false in any way. That is the trump card of obscurantism. Hey, it must be right, because you cannot show me otherwise!

In most cases, it is not that obvious. The following example is taken from Rational Wiki, the dragon in my garage, a parable from Carl Sagan:

A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage

Show me, you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle — but no dragon. Where's the dragon? you ask.

Oh, she's right here, I reply, waving vaguely. I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

Good idea, I say, but this dragon floats in the air.

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon, and the paint won't stick.

And so on. I counter every physical test you suggest with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested and assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, me.

The dragon in the garage illustrates that perfectly [Sagan 1997]. It works because people do not know the consequences if you make a claim immune to criticism.

Consequences of immunization against criticism

Here are the consequences:

1. You can immunize any claim against criticism.
2. If you do that, the logical opposite of that claim is immune, too, automatically.
3. If you accept a claim because it cannot be criticized, logically, you have to accept the opposite claim, too, for the very same reason. But you can’t do that.
4. If you are attracted to one side of the claim, it shows wishful thinking. That is the only reason why one of the opposing claims appears to be better than the other.
5. For any meaningful claim you can make about the world, you can imagine facts that would render the claim false. If you can’t, you fell victim to an ideological maneuver.
6. If you cannot falsify a claim, there is no connection to truth. Truth can only exist when there is falsity. That is one of the reasons that science is based on falsification: if you can’t know that a claim is true, at least you can say when it is false.
7. For any claim immunized against criticism, there is no logical possible world where this claim is true. This follows logically from 2., 3., 5., and 6.
8. Any such claim has no logical connection to any fact. It cannot be proven; it cannot be disproven. There are no facts supporting the claim and no facts to disprove it.
9. Such a claim is meaningless. It cannot point to any fact, neither positively nor negatively. Other names for the same: nonsense, humbug, and bullshit (see Harry Frankfurt in On Bullshit).
10. Nonsense cannot be proven or disproven. If something cannot be disproven, first check if it is nonsense. Irrefutability is a vice, not a virtue!

Imunized claims = bullshit

It is as Harry Frankfurt said it:

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Quoted from [Frankfurt 2005]

Rules of critical thinking

See False or doubtful lines of reasoning and Münchhausentrilemma.

Footnotes