Nowadays we often hear in the news journalistic items about religion and politics, or faith and something else, as the proposal "duo du jour" usually sit in opposition to one another. You could do this, of course, just as easily with other areas of human thought, as with sociology vs. history, or economics vs. psychology. But most people do not seem as interested in this exercise as they seem anxious to set "religion" before any other area where you might find interesting.
But this is rather a strange way of seeing things (at best), and could rightly be called propaganda (at worst) in many cases. You see, life does not come at us in slices, like a large pizza peppers go. When humans experience an event, not meeting in a parade of well-cut segments, as if the civil war first showed us its psychological effects, then came the economic aspects, then only after a look its technological innovations.
Just as with the runningback who grasps a fumbled football in the midst of many linesmen, life happens to us "all at once." Only after taking in an event of historical importance, and reflect on it a bit ', we can slice it to study some of the parts or aspects in isolation from others - as pundits might do, say, a textbook of economics. This of course makes the students especially prone to confuse the way things happen on paper with the way in which they occur on a battlefield, or in the midst of a revolution.
Now this error - the error of confusing real life with its written counterpart, does not appear in the texts of informal logic. But it should, because clearly many tricks these days.
So, what to call it? At first I tried the "fallacy of compartmentalized reality." I can hear the students now, "whatever". Then I thought, "the fallacy of reflective segmenting." huh? Finally, I landed on the label more user-friendly, "Pepperoni Pizza Fallacy. Surely students can take and digest this supreme combination of words (or was that" combination "supreme?).
For example, I recently took a lively supporter of Mr. Darwin's views. During our discussion, he suggested that evolutionary notions merely comprised of "biological theories, and had mistakenly informed the ethics of it all. Here, the peppers began to fly.
It did not seem to realize (as Mr. Darwin clearly did) that theories that could properly be called "organic" (or scientific) can - and often - have obvious ethical implications. Ideas have logical consequences not restricted to one academic field. You can not win a debate simply put a fence around an idea arbitrary and screams at his children involved "Now stay!" As illegal immigrants - tend to jump the borders when you try.
This means that Darwinism, neo-Darwinism and "Punctuationism," like all other ideas, have logical consequences (implications) that affect every aspect of human thought and life. That's why you can find evolutionary ideas discussed in psychology texts, history books, magazines and even pop.
In any case, evade or ignore certain aspects of the logical idea to have the upper hand in a debate - or to keep their ship from sinking altogether - now has a name. Armed with this knowlegde, you can clearly and distinctly show others when needed, that life tranpires only as a set of integrated circumstances, and that ideas have logical effects not properly limited to any one academic field.
Reality and logic are not made to order with extra cheese, so do not get a discount on them with a coupon. To make a good case, then we must follow the rules of valid reasoning and sound.
Who wants to see the above discussion can view it at: http://ophirgold.blogspot.com. Just look for the article with the title fool, "The failure of taxonomic evolutionary theory," and read the "comments". See if you can spot the fallacy pepperoni pizza there.
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