22 How to Win Every Argument
Blinding with science
Science enjoys an enormous prestige because it has got so many
things right. In the popular imagination, the dedicated scientist
in his white coat is a fount of real knowledge as opposed to mere
opinion. The fact that he is using that knowledge to make
Frankenstein monsters scarcely diminishes the respect for his
pronouncements. Many people, anxious to invest their own
views with the authority of the scientist, don the white coat of
scientific jargon in an attempt to pass off their own assertions as
something they are not.
The fallacy of blinding with science specializes in the use of
technical jargon to deceive the audience into supposing that
utterances of a scientific nature are being made, and that
objective experimental evidence supports them.
The amotivational syndrome is sustained by peer group pressure except
where achievement orientation forms a dominant aspect of the educa-
tional and social milieu.
(Which means roughly that people don't work if their friends don't,
unless they want to get on. Now this may be true or false, but many
are daunted from challenging what is dressed up to look like an
expert view.)The white coat of technical jargon is so dazzlingly clean (never
having been tainted by any real scientific work) that it blinds the
audience to the true merits of what is being said. Instead of
evaluating contentions on the basis of the evidence marshalled
for and against them, the audience recoils from the brilliance of
the jargon. The fallacy is committed because this irrelevant
material has no place in the argument, just as loaded words try
to prejudice a case emotionally, so does pseudo-scientific jargon
try to induce an unearned respect for what is said. The