Belief in paranormal events can easily proceed from a False Dilemma Fallacy:
- 4. Either John Edward is a con-man, or he really can communicate with the dead. He seems too sincere to be a con-man, and I'm not so gullible that I can be easily fooled, therefore he communicates with the dead and there is an afterlife.
Just such an argument was often made by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his defenses of spiritualists. He, like so many of his time and ours, was convinced of the sincerity of those who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead, just as he was convinced of his own superior abilities to detect fraud.
The argument above actually contains more than one False Dilemma. The first and most obvious problem is the idea that Edward must either be lying or genuine - it ignores the possibility that he has been fooling himself into thinking that he has such powers.
A second False Dilemma is the unstated assumption that either the arguer is very gullible or can quickly spot a fake. It may be that the the arguer is indeed good at spotting fakes, but doesn't have the training to spot fake spiritualists. Even skeptical people assume that they are good observers when they aren't - that's why trained magicians are good to have in such investigations. Scientists have a poor history of detecting fake psychics because in their field, they are not trained to detect fakery - magicians, however, are trained in exactly that.
Finally, in each of the false dilemmas, there is no defense of the option which is rejected. How do we know that Edward isn't a con-man? How do we know that the arguer isn't gullible? These assumptions are just as questionable as the point under contention, so assuming them without further defense results in begging the question.
Here is another example which uses a common structure:
- 5. Either scientists can explain the strange objects seen in the sky over Gulf Breeze, Florida, or these objects are piloted by visitors from outer space. Scientists cannot explain these objects, so they must be visitors from outer space.
This sort of reasoning actually leads people to believe many things, including that we are being watched by extraterrestrials. It is not uncommon to hear something along the lines of:
- 6. If scientists (or some other authority) cannot explain event X, then it must be caused by (insert something unusual - aliens, ghosts, gods, etc.).
But we can find serious fault with this reasoning even without denying the possibility of gods or ghosts or visitors from outer space. With a little reflection we can realize that it is quite possible that the unexplained images have ordinary causes that scientific investigators have failed to discover. Additionally, perhaps there is a supernatural or paranormal cause, but not the one being offered.
In other words, if we think a little bit deeper, we can realize that the dichotomy in the first premise of this argument is false. Digging deeper will also often reveal that the explanation being offered in the conclusion does not fit the definition of explanation very well anway.
This form of the False Dilemma fallacy is very similar to the Argument from Ignorance (Argumentum ad Ignorantium). Whereas the false dilemma presents the two choices of either scientists know what is going on or it must be supernatural, an appeal to ignorance simply draws conclusions from our general lack of information on the topic.
