Countless Counterfeits

Countless Counterfeits

David Kyle Johnson

The existence of [a great deal of] counterfeit money strongly argues for the existence of real money somewhere.

—Peter Kreeft

The countless counterfeits fallacy occurs when one argues that the fact that there is an abundance of unreliable evidence for a conclusion is a good reason to think there is reliable evidence for that conclusion. A countless number of counterfeit pieces of evidence are seen as a good reason to think that some such evidence is legitimate. In the quotation above, taken from an article about belief in ghosts (see Townsend 2013), Kreeft is arguing by analogy that, even though most ghost sightings are fakes or hallucinations, the fact that there are so many is good reason to think that some such sightings actually are of ghosts.

Indeed, this fallacy is committed most often in discussions regarding what James Randi (1982) calls “flim‐flam” (i.e., pseudoscience and the paranormal). It’s utilized to defend belief not only in ghosts, but in UFOs, demons, alternative medicine, and even conspiracy theories. Such discussions usually go something like the following.

As evidence that (for example) UFOs are alien craft, the true believer touts a remarkable story about people seeing a UFO – let’s say the Phoenix lights. But you point out that in Skeptic Magazine, Tony Ortega in 2008 demonstrated that what people saw that night was National Guard Airplanes in formation that dropped flairs. So the true believer points to other evidence, say the 1991 videos of a UFO during a solar eclipse in Mexico City. But you have them watch the 2005 National Geographic’s Is It Real? episode on UFOs, which exposed the fact that what people were videoing was the planet Venus. (It was made visible by the eclipse but was a blurry out‐of‐focus dot on cameras; astronomers already knew that Venus would be visible in that exact spot.) “But what about Roswell?” the true believer insists. In 1995, Dave Thomas from Skeptical Inquirer (not Wendy’s) revealed that what was found that day was a (rather mundane) grounded aerial device from Project Mogul (a then secret military program) – not an alien craft. “Crop circles?!?” Admitted elaborate hoaxes. You might even point out that many UFO pictures that true believers still find convincing today were literally the result of kids taking pictures of pie tins they had thrown in the sky.

“But they can’t all be fake,” the true believer insists. “I mean, there are just so many examples – so many stories, so many photos. Sure, the ones I mentioned are bogus, but they can’t all be bogus, right? And if just one of them is true, that means aliens have visited Earth!”

It’s difficult to pin down exactly what’s wrong with this line of reasoning, but its fallaciousness becomes obvious once you realize that you could give such an argument for just about anything. Ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, conspiracy theories, demons, alternative medicine cures, Elvis sightings – there are lots of stories and “evidence” for it all. So you could give the same “they can’t all be counterfeit” argument for any of it. Yet, even for the true believer, it’s a stretch to believe in every bit of flim‐flam.

Besides, such conversations usually begin with the most compelling evidence that exists – UFO enthusiasts utter stories about Roswell or the Phoenix lights. Ghost (and demon) hunters go with Ed and Lorraine Warren and The Amityville Horror. Bigfoot believers broadcast the Patterson–Gimlin footage. Nessie non‐naysayers note the famous “Surgeon’s Photograph.” Often the cited evidence is even what started all the hubbub in the first place. Yet each is known to be bogus (see Novella and DeAngelis 1997, for example). If the most compelling evidence can’t stand up to scrutiny, what chance does some story you found on the net have?

But still, there’s more wrong with the argument. As it’s stated, the argument actually rests on a false premise. “They can’t all be bogus?” Sure they can. That’s definitely within the realm of possibility. What the true believer means, however, is that it’s unlikely that all such evidence is bogus. In the example above, the fact that there is still a large number of (yet to be addressed) UFO stories is taken to be a reason to believe that at least one of them is true. In the Townsend (2013) article, Kreeft suggests that an abundance of counterfeit ghost sightings “strongly argues for” the existence of real ones.

And this is where we find the fallacy. Simply put, the true believer mistakenly thinks that whether or not a piece of evidence is good is a matter of chance, so that the more pieces of evidence there are, the more likely it is that one is reliable. “Throw the dice long enough and eventually you’ll get a Yahtzee.” But this is not how evidence works. I can’t pile up a 1000 pieces of bad evidence that you committed a murder and claim it’s likely that one proves you did. Whether a piece of evidence is good is not a matter of chance; it either is or it isn’t.

In fact, the more evidence of a particular kind of phenomenon I debunk with a certain kind of explanation, the more likely it is that all such evidence is explained by that kind of explanation. To see why, suppose I wonder whether magicians have real magic powers. After searching, I find perfectly mundane natural explanations for every trick I’ve seen. Now, there are still thousands of magicians doing hundreds of tricks that I have never seen (and never will). But that doesn’t keep “it’s just an illusion” from being the better explanation for each and every one of them. By explaining just a few magic tricks, I eliminate the need to explain the rest. Without even looking at them, I know it’s more likely that there is a natural explanation for each; I’d likely even find it, if I was able to look.

Of course, this doesn’t 100% prove that no magician has magic powers. (After all, it is only inductive evidence, and inductive evidence doesn’t 100% prove anything. Finding a million white swans is good evidence that all swans are white, but it’s not a guarantee than there are no black swans. But until specific evidence of a black swan is presented to me, the conclusion is justified.) And if a specific trick defies my ability to explain it, that is a different story. (Then I’d have to be careful to avoid the mystery therefore magic fallacy.) But I shouldn’t conclude that magic is real simply because there are thousands of magic tricks I haven’t examined. By finding the explanation for many magic tricks, I eliminate the need to examine the rest. I’m justified in believing that none involve magic powers.

The same applies for any evidence regarding flim‐flam. Cold reading (and sometimes hot reading) explains the “success” of psychic mediums (Hunter n.d.). The placebo effect and the variable nature of illness is the best explanation for anecdotes about the success of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy (Novella). And fakery, misleading perceptions, and/or human credulity/gullibility is the best explanation for all UFO and ghost sightings. I am justified in believing that there is a non‐alien/non‐paranormal explanation for them all. Once you’ve debunked a few, you’ve effectively debunked the rest.

In fact, such explanations reveal how easily fooled we are; it’s not surprising that there are so many flim‐flam stories out there. Given how gullible we are, we should expect a great number of such stories. So it’s actually quite likely they’re all bogus.

But we should also be careful not to confuse this mistake in reasoning with another that could go by the same name. Instead of suggesting that it’s likely that one piece of evidence is good because there are so many bad ones, sometimes people will try to combine a large number of individually weak pieces of evidence into one good one. To avoid confusion, we might call this mistake “the combining counterfeits fallacy.”

For example, a juror might make this mistake. As Arkowitz and Lilienfeld make clear, it is now known that eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Perception and human memory is far more unreliable than we assume and can even be molded by something as simple as leading questions. Knowing this, a juror might not be convinced by the testimony of a single eyewitness who was not carefully questioned. But what if the prosecution produced 50 such testimonies? Would he be convinced then? Probably, but he shouldn’t. By asking leading questions, I could produce as many such witnesses as you like, but that doesn’t mean the defendant is guilty – it just means I’m good at asking leading questions. “Weak evidence” plus “weak evidence” does not equal “strong evidence.”

The same is true for arguments. You can’t combine multiple failed arguments to produce a good one. I’ve heard some argue, for example, that even though there is wide agreement that (individually) the arguments for God’s existence fail, together they present a convincing case that God exists. (For a readable rundown of 36 such arguments, and why they fail, see the list at the end of Goldstein 2010. The novel itself is also well worth the read.) But this isn’t true. It certainly isn’t true of deductive arguments, which fail when they are invalid or have a false premise. But it also isn’t true of inductive arguments. Of course, in science, multiple lines of good evidence can come together to provide even better evidence for a theory. But if an inductive argument fails, it does so by either having a false premise or by failing to support its conclusion. So you can combine it with as many such arguments as you want, but you still won’t have a good reason to accept your conclusion.

So when it comes to weak evidence or arguments, size doesn’t matter. Pile up as much bad evidence, as many poor arguments, and as much flim‐flam as you want. It doesn’t establish anything.