Chuck Noll’s (Clever) Use of Logical Fallacies

“Leaving the game plan is a sign of panic, and panic is not in our game plan.”  —Chuck Noll (qtd by Tony Dungy in Quiet Strength)

The sentence above simultaneously constitutes one of my favorite and least favorite things in rhetoric. Let’s start w/ the favorite. Noll uses a sentence structuring technique called a chiasmus. The chiasmus is made up of 2 parts: the original statement and the inverse of that statement. 

The key to a chiasmus (or any trope) is to place emphasis on the main idea of a topic by uniquely presenting it. The most famous chiasmus in American history is Kennedy’s “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Because of their symmetry, these sentences have a quotability. Their rhythm pleases the ear, making them easy to remember. In writing, they work well at the ends of paragraphs. In speeches, they are good at the climax of the performance.

This leads to one of my least favorite things in writing (although, I don’t mind it in Noll’s quote). It’s circular reasoning, which, of course, is a logical fallacy. We don’t leave the game plan b/c we don’t panic, and we don’t panic b/c it’s not in the game plan. That’s like saying, “I only date good looking girls b/c all the girls I date are good looking.” It sounds good for about 2 seconds, and the more the audience thinks about it, the more the statement unravels. 

But here’s why Noll’s quote works: he’s not trying to be logical. He’s trying to motivate. He’s speaking to his players’ mindset, but it’s more psychological than intellectual. In formal logic, fallacies are not permitted, but in rhetoric, fallacies are permitted under certain circumstances. Knoll was not lecturing on the logic of panic, he was giving a speech on the importance of sticking to a game plan. That said, I don’t want to give the impression that every chiasmus equals circular logic. The form is circular but the content doesn’t have to be. In Noll’s case it doesn’t matter, but in other cases, it might.

And this is why rhetoric is interesting: you’re allowed to sacrifice a rule in order to make a point, but only if that point is worth the sacrifice (you see what I did there?). 

Matt Flynn, Peter King, & the Problem w/ Using Stories as Research

“As for the Flynn performance, I think it could be evidence that it’s the system and the supporting cast as much as the player that makes the quarterback in Green Bay. But how much stock do you put in one game? Is it anecdotal or absolutely proof?” —Peter King, MMQB 01.02.12

Stories are powerful. They instruct & inspire us. They scare, even scar us. Stories are an inexorable thread of the human condition. And b/c of this, we must pay special attention to them.

Peter King’s quote reflects proper caution when evaluating isolated stories. It’s easy to be seduced by them, especially if we want to believe them. Conversely, it’s easier to dismiss them when we don’t. The key, of course, is to understand their contextual value.

But this is hard b/c we need hindsight for context. Thus the problem w/ the anecdotal example. Is Matt Flynn’s performance an indicator of future performance or an anomaly? We simply can’t know…yet. He undoubtedly made himself richer w/ last Sunday’s game, but one game is surely not enough.

This is the problem w/ research. Our human fascination w/ stories–even true stories–distort our perception. They don’t do that to us all the time, but they can affect our decision making. For example, in Moneyball Michael Lewis talks about how general managers will ere because they mistakenly assume their baseball experiences are the norm. Their judgment can get compromised b/c they are projecting too greatly the past onto the present.

And this is why we must be wary of stories. Enjoy them. Tell them. Witness them. But be wary of them. The story of Matt Flynn’s game is a classic, but whether we can use that story to predict future stories is unclear. The good news for Matt Flynn is that, unlike writers who produce stories for a living, his 6 TD performance is gonna get him a heck of a book advance.

Rick Reilly, Tim Tebow, & the Law of Falsifiability

“All these believers who were sure God was rewarding Tebow’s faith with NFL wins. Will they now say God has forsaken him?”  –Rick Reilly, tweet (@ReillyRick)

Reilly’s rhetorical question brings applies a rule of logic called The Law of Falsifiability.   This concept essentially states that if an idea is true, then there must be a set of circumstances that would make it false. C.S. Lewis applies it in Mere Christiniaty when he argues that if you say that God doesn’t exist b/c there’s so much suffering, then how much (or little) suffering must there be for you to believe God does exist.

In this instance, Reilly and Lewis think along the same logical lines. If you say that a player ‘s victory is evidence of God’s favor, then what must the evidence say when he loses? Or more to the point, what are the set of circumstances that would show you that God is not w/ the player? Presumably, it’d be the absence of winning. If not that, then what? If no circumstances exist for you, if nothing can happen on the football field that will convince you that God is not w/ Tebow, then pointing to things on the field that show that God is with him is a fallacious (i.e. logically flawed) argument.

The problem w/ fallacies is that we often don’t notice when we’re making them. Our words can convince us (and people who agree w/ us), but if our audience catches them, then our credibility is damaged. I can tell you from experience that pointing out a fallacy in someone else’s argument does little to change their ideas or even the nature of their argument. Reilly’s tweet is probably the best you can do: ask an obvious rhetorical question that forces the speaker to confront their own flawed thinking.