How Tom Tancredo "Divides" a Red Herring while Grinding his Axe
Sunday, 8. July 2007, 21:10:55
Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo answers Jeff Young's question, "What evidence would convince you that global warming is a serious threat to the planet?" as follows:
("10 Questions," Time 169 No. 24 (11 June 2007), 8.)
Congressman Tancredo initially sidesteps Mr. Young's question by granting that global warming is a problem presumably without political import since he thinks the causes and cures of global warming are unknown. Generalizing, however, that the problem of global warming is an environmental issue, Congressman Tancredo implicitly proceeds to assign the cause of global warming to the pollution caused by energy consumption in the U.S. from the increase in population by immigration. (Time's preface to the article notes that Tom Tancredo is "hoping to win over primary voters with his hard-line stance on illegal immigration" (Ibid, 8)).
So in grinding his axe, the Congressman commits both the fallacy of division and the red herring fallacy. The fallacy of division is a fallacy committed by reasoning from the fact that since the whole of something has one or more specific characteristics, the parts must also have one or more specific characteristics as well.
In this case, Mr. Tancredo reasons that since the property of high energy consumption and the consequent property of pollution is true collectively of persons living in the U.S., then these same properties must be true as well for each individual distributively living in the U.S. Since legal immigrants in the U.S. are persons living in the U.S., the Congressman fallaciously concludes these immigrants necessarily become bigger polluters when they cross the border.
The red herring fallacy, of course, occurs in the intentional shift from the problem of global warming to the problem of illegal immigration in the U.S. The red herring fallacy is the kind of ignoratio elenchi or fallacy of irrelevant conclusion in which the ultimate conclusion is a diversion from the original question. The fallacy gets its name from a folklore account of intentionally dragging a herring across the trail of a fox in order to divert the foxhounds.
I have no doubt that global warming exists. I just question the cause and what we can do to ameliorate it. But I wonder why the Sierra Club isn't going crazy about the environmental aspects of massive immigration into the U.S. The fact is, Americans consume more energy than anyone else, so if a person moves here from another country, they automatically become bigger polluters.
("10 Questions," Time 169 No. 24 (11 June 2007), 8.)
Congressman Tancredo initially sidesteps Mr. Young's question by granting that global warming is a problem presumably without political import since he thinks the causes and cures of global warming are unknown. Generalizing, however, that the problem of global warming is an environmental issue, Congressman Tancredo implicitly proceeds to assign the cause of global warming to the pollution caused by energy consumption in the U.S. from the increase in population by immigration. (Time's preface to the article notes that Tom Tancredo is "hoping to win over primary voters with his hard-line stance on illegal immigration" (Ibid, 8)).
So in grinding his axe, the Congressman commits both the fallacy of division and the red herring fallacy. The fallacy of division is a fallacy committed by reasoning from the fact that since the whole of something has one or more specific characteristics, the parts must also have one or more specific characteristics as well.
In this case, Mr. Tancredo reasons that since the property of high energy consumption and the consequent property of pollution is true collectively of persons living in the U.S., then these same properties must be true as well for each individual distributively living in the U.S. Since legal immigrants in the U.S. are persons living in the U.S., the Congressman fallaciously concludes these immigrants necessarily become bigger polluters when they cross the border.
The red herring fallacy, of course, occurs in the intentional shift from the problem of global warming to the problem of illegal immigration in the U.S. The red herring fallacy is the kind of ignoratio elenchi or fallacy of irrelevant conclusion in which the ultimate conclusion is a diversion from the original question. The fallacy gets its name from a folklore account of intentionally dragging a herring across the trail of a fox in order to divert the foxhounds.
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