Crimes Against Logic: A segment that I’ll be doing from time to time on the Val Leventhal Radio Show on Sundays. The concept goes like this: I’ll find someone in the media who is using a fallacious argument. We’ll find out what logical errors they are committing, explain how their argument commits these errors, and proceed to file charges against them for committing crimes against logic.

Here is the first one.

Logical Criminal: Stacy Washington, host of “Stacy On The Right” radio show and co-chairwoman of the Project 21 National Advisory Council. She writes for numerous right-wing blogs like NRA America’s First Freedom, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, and Newsbusters.

On April 16th, Stacy Washington was on the Thom Hartmann radio show. For those who aren’t familiar, Thom Hartmann is a left-wing radio host who frequently invites right-wing pundits on his show to debate political issues. Stacy raised a long-running argument that black citizens’ economic conditions in a select few cities are a direct consequence of the Democrats they have elected into office over the years. The logical crimes being committed here are the “Sampling Error” and “Illusory Correlation.” Before we examine this argument, listen to the clip of the exchange between Thom Hartmann and Stacy so you can hear these logical crimes being committed in real time.

(The clip of the exchange starts at 1:58)

The First Logical Crime: “The Sampling Error”

The Sampling Error is committed when the characteristics of a population are estimated from a sample of that population. Since the sample does not include all members of the entire population, the conclusion drawn from that sample is not an accurate representation of the entire population.

The Second Logical Crime: “Illusory Correlation”

Illusory Correlation is committed when someone suggests a correlation exists between two variables when no such relationship exists.

How does this argument commit the Sampling Error?

The argument cherry-picks districts that have elected Democrats as their representatives, while not comparing those districts to all other districts that have also been presided over by Democrats.

How does this same argument commit Illusory Correlation?

The argument suggests that there is a correlation between Democrats and poor economic districts, while not accounting for prosperous economic districts that are also presided over by Democrats.

How to attack this argument? Reconstruct it in its most simplified form.

Example: The economic conditions of a district are the direct consequence of the political party that has predominantly been voted to preside over said district.

By framing it this way, you now open up all districts in the United States for examination. The person presenting this argument will be forced to apply this logic to all districts. This means any poor district that has predominantly voted Republican will have Republicans to blame for their economic condition. But it also means that an affluent district that has predominantly voted Democratic can attribute its prosperity to the Democrats.

To further illustrate the faulty reasoning in this argument, present these lists:

1. The 10 Richest Black Communities in America, listed by the website “Atlanta Black Star.” The median income of these communities ranges from $75k to close to $200k per year.
2. America’s Richest Cities, listed by the website 24/7 Wall Street.

Provide a list of the poorest cities, poorest counties, poorest states, richest counties, and richest states.

By doing this, we are now looking at the correlation between political parties and the economic well-being of all those districts. This forces the peddler of this faulty argument to explain why the correlation is not consistent from district to district. The inconsistency suggests that the economic conditions of a district are far more complex than simply looking at which political party has presided over it.

Crimes Against Logic Stacy Washington Listen here on Sound Cloud
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Further Reading
1.The Sampling Error
2. Illusory Correlation – How to spot this common mental error
3. Changing Minds – Illusory Correlation
4. Race Violence and Illusory Correlation