| | There is a (vast) fallacy that I have been trying to name and would welcome any suggestions. Currently I am calling it the 'fallacy of the multitudes'.
It occurs in a debate about a subject that is so vast and offers such an abundance of evidence and speculative possibilities (the multitudes) that both sides can go one for years pretending that they are arguing when the subject is too vast for either of them to comprehend.
For instance, global warming. No one can measure the temperature of the earth, so only fools would argue about its history or consequences, yet they ramble on for decades, citing endless peer reviewed (PR?) studies that contradict one another.
And fools will debate about what did and did not occur during the first 18.64 seconds after the 'Big Bang', as if they could know such a thing. And they will tell you that the universe requires a god to establish it, knowing, as they do, all about the origins of universes.
Probably the most complex and least understood object in the universe - taking complexity per unit volume - is the human mind, and though no human can actually read the mind of any other, psychobabble and the pretense of measuring intelligence are veritable national (global?) sports, debated as if both sides could actually prove their positions.
I have come to suspect that most humans treasure acting smart more than actually knowing anything, but since I don't know what's going on inside of their fabulously complex and mysterious minds, I remain unsure.
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