If it looks like a duck...

Is it a duck or a cat?

The following is a short essay I wrote last year, I thought it would be good filler for this blog.

"If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” This phrase is an expression often used in the English vernacular in order to demonstrate inductive reasoning. Often times, this is one of the most effective counters against those who argue against you by stating the existence of unknown and unspecified information. In the following discussion, I will attempt to show the practical implications of this expression and, more specifically, the use of inductive reasoning to nullify those who wield the unknown as a means to denounce the conclusions of your own observations. Occam’s razor shall also make an appearance while we are at it.

Consider a situation in which you observe a friend of yours who is involved in a romantic relationship with his significant other. Before this friend had begun the relationship, you have known him for several years and he had always had an optimistic outlook on life along with plenty of energy whenever you see him. Suddenly, not long after this relationship began, you begin to realize that he frequently appears to wallow in a dejected mood. He is visibly tired and although he tries to reassure you that everything is fine, everyone around him also notices his change in behaviour. At around the same time, while you and your friend is at gatherings with mutual friends, you begin to notice that he often steps out of the room to use his cellphone whenever his significant other calls. These calls sometimes last 30 minutes at a time and he frequently returns visibly exhausted. Despite repeated attempts at inquiring about his problematic mood lately, he will always vehemently refuse to place his relationship as a cause. When a friend suggests that perhaps the relationship might be a probable cause of his problems, he will often turn angry and reply saying that there are many things in which the inquirer is not aware of and thus his suggestion is invalid.

The aforementioned situation is one in which I am sure many can relate to. In fact, I have personally encountered this very same situation with my father’s previous marriage. Now of course I do not expect anecdotal evidence to take the place of statistical or logically complete evidence, but let us objectively analyze the problem we have worked out in front of us. Objectively, we can intuitively observe that all the signs of a bad relationship is present, and it features itself as one of the most probable causes of this friend’s bad mood. However, his abstruse argument insists that there are certain things that, we the observers, will not understand and therefore our conclusion should be invalid. This is a logical fallacy. Put another way, this friend can be described as having “poisoned the well”. Poisoning the well, a special case of the ad hominem logical fallacy, is a rhetorical device that essentially nullifies any other response you have because of a certain condition that they preemptively state. In this case, the friend is saying that whatever your conclusions may be, they must be false because there are simply certain things that you do not understand. While it is possible that our conclusion may be false due to the fact that we simply do not know all the information, it is certainly not logically sound to conclude that our conclusion is definitely false because of that. Rather, we would counter with the so-called “duck test” to infer that if a situation has all the signs of a certain well-conceived condition, it is likely to be the case (although we cannot be completely sure).

It is at this point that I would like to invoke Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor, also known as the law of parsimony, essentially states that an explanation with the fewest assumptions is most likely to be the correct one. Going back to the original statement, if you observe an animal that looks, acts, and sounds like a duck, what would you consider that animal to be? Is it more likely that this is some exotic species that you have never heard of nor seen? Or perhaps it is one of the many ducks you have seen, heard of, and learned about in the many years of your life?

In answering these questions, I hope you come to your own conclusions about what is most logically sound and probable. A more sensible response by our friend in the story above would be one in which he recognizes the probability (or at least possibility) of it and his own biased nature regarding the topic. He needs to realize that although we may be wrong, it is undoubtedly one of the more likely causes of his troubles. And for that, he would have kept an open mind and avoided a much too often used logical fallacy. Perhaps if we are more observant about our daily conversations, we will also find ourselves committing such logical mistakes. I cannot claim to be perfectly logical and rational at all times, and having written this article I find myself to be much more prepared to spot my own mistakes in order to make sure that I keep an open mind as well. I hope this has been an interesting read and I welcome any comments you may have.