| McNamara Fallacy |
|
You are here:
Meaning
>
Christian Witness
>
Encyclopedia of Logical Fallacies
>
Fallacies of Omission
>
McNamara Fallacy
|
McNamara FallacyThe McNamara Fallacy occurs when a conclusion is made based solely on quantitative observations and ignoring all others. The reason given is often that these other observations cannot be proven. “The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.” Daniel Yankelovich What Makes this a Fallacy?Every fallacy is either a method of making a bare assertion or a method of hiding a bare assertion. The McNamara Fallacy is a method of making a bare assertion in a way that makes the bare assertion seem to be based on sound reasoning. Examples of the McNamara FallacyIn clinical trials of treatments of certain tumors, the length of time during treatment when patients don’t get worse is easy to measure but not very meaningful. Overall survival and quality of life after treatment are more meaningful but harder to measure. When the easy measurement is taken and the harder measurements are ignored, this is an example of the McNamara fallacy. Young girls are told that if they are normal they will be happy. It has become normal for young women to get romantically involved with young men in temporary relationships. The things that are easily measured are taken into account. On the level of the physical, what is not taken into account is that a cuddle or a kiss releases oxytocin into the young woman's system. "By design, oxytocin promotes trust and serves to bond a woman to the man she is with." On the level of the soul and spirit, there are elements that God has not yet revealed. God does reveal that He has set an order for various aspects of life, the Church, the home, personal relationships, business relationships, etc. For instance, intimacy between a man and woman are reserved for marriage. In marriage, the man is to love the woman as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for the Church. The woman is to reverence and obey her husband. Distorting these ordinances cannot produce long-term success and happiness. A young woman is going to be unhappy if she lives a lifestyle that is in conflict with everything that God designed her to be. (If I'm so Normal, Why Am I so Unhappy?) 
How can we know anything about anything? That’s the real question |
Other Pages in this sectionStacking the Deck Ambiguity Effect Head in the Sand Suppression of the Agent Fading Affect Bias Unteachable Selective Refutation A-Priorism Audiatur Et Altera Pars Ignoring Historical Example Overlooking Secondary Consequences Uncontrolled Factors Missing Link Moving the Goal Posts Gravity Game Demanding Impossible Evidence Unfalsifiability / Untestibility Invincible Ignorance Argument from Ignorance Ad Ignorantiam Question God of the Gaps Argument from Silence No True Scotsman No True Scientist Fallacy of Opposition Frozen Abstraction Falsified Inductive Generalization Argument from the Negative Accident Fallacy Reverse Accident Best-in-Field Abductive Fallacy Denialism Logical Fallacy of Reductionism / Oversimplification Very Simple Answer Reductionism Taboo Fallacy Recently Viewed |
