How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2006)

116 How to Win Every Argument

yourself, even though they might simply never have thought of
it.

Are we to assume that we are cleverer than the thousands of the very

learned and competent people over the years who could have acted on a

proposal such as this, but wisely refrained from doing so?

(Any more than Beethoven was cleverer than the millions who could

have written his symphonies but did not do so?)

You will find the fallacy extraordinarily useful in resisting
trends towards emancipation. After all, if there were any merit in
having women and children participate in decisions, would it not
have been discovered long ago? The same approach will help
you to stand up against independent holidays, dining out, taking
exercise or eating courgettes.

If there were any connection between drinking eight pints of beer a day

and obesity, don't you think that countless beer drinkers would have

seen it before now?

(Why should they? They cannot even see their own toes.)

Novitam, argumentum ad

If it is a fallacy to suppose that age is a guide to correctness, it is

also fallacious to suppose something to be more right simply

because it is new. The argumentum ad novitam makes the mis-

take of thinking that the newness of something is a factor con-

tributing to its soundness. To hear support urged for something

because it is new is to hear the ad novitam being used.

These new tower-blocks are the coming thing. We should build some

ourselves.