Style over substance

	Cogito ergo sum; Logic and rhetoric
	Key articles
	Logical fallacy; Syllogism; Argument;
	General logic
	Science doesn't know everything; Overprecision; Invincible authority; Relativist fallacy; دوگانگی مرتن; Sunk cost;
	Bad logic
	Adding epicycles; Not even wrong; Spotlight fallacy; Mistaking the map for the territory; Argumentum ad dictionarium; Appeal to the minority; v - t - e

“”If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

—(Unknown. Not W.C. Fields)

Style over substance is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone bases their argument on compelling language, obfuscation, and various terms of art, instead of legitimate logical analyses. The fallacy works in two ways. It can propose an idea using style rather than substance, or it can reject an idea by attacking its style and presentation rather than its information content. The writing might be wonderful, and the references seemingly deep, but what matters is the content of the argument — the substance. If the argument is valid and sound, others will make it pretty. If all that is good in your argument is the "style", please, write novels instead.

The fallacy is an emotional appeal and an informal fallacy.

Form[edit]

P1: X is presented well/poorly.

P2: Things presented well/poorly are true/false.

C: X is true/false.

Examples[edit]

Example one[edit]

Person 1: Who needs a smoke detector? No one ever has a fire in their house, smoke detectors are a waste of money!
Person 2: What?! You'd rather save a bit of money than ensure your family's safety? Don't you care whether they burn to death, you idiot?
Person 1: Clearly someone so rude can't have a valid point, go away!

While it is not a fallacy to not desire to continue speaking with someone who is rude, it is a fallacy to use their rudeness as proof that they are incorrect. It is often used as a red herring attempt to redirect the topic to the opponent's rudeness rather than the subject at hand.

Example two[edit]

The style over substance fallacy is very common in the corporate world.

Person 1: So therefore, you can see by this detailed logic-state diagram that our inventory flow can be optimized with this minor software change to the inventory control and tracking modules.
Person 2: I don't like the color of the font you are using, so I don't think we should implement these changes.

In this case we see Person 1 has performed a detailed logical-flow analysis and determined a correct modification to achieve a desired and correct result. Person 2 then dismisses this (ostensibly) entirely because of the fonts and colors and thus avoids the business benefits of the analysis.

Homophobia[edit]

The "style over substance" fallacy played a central role in a video by YouTube user dprjones about the homophobia expressed by VenomFangX, although dprjones didn't mention the fallacy explicitly.^[1] In fact, this example can show how subtle the fallacy is and how easy it is to mistake an argument with a worse style as having worse substance. Upon originally taking VenomFangX to task for homophobic bigotry, dprjones received some criticism for the fact that VFX isn't a raving homophobe like some preachers, who shout and scream and are very, very explicit in their views — particularly from another user named PeaceInChristAlone. However, ChristAlone's response was an application of the style-over-substance fallacy; and dprjones pointed this out by distilling out the main arguments used in both the shouty-shouty preacher video, and VenomFangX's more solemn "because God said so" video. By doing this, stripping back the words used to three core points, he managed to show them to be, in fact, very much identical in substance. The conclusion is that people shouldn't be blinded by the style and presentation of an argument, and shouldn't mistake preachers shouting about hellfire and brimstone as a more flawed or more bigoted argument in contrast to more calmly delivered ones.

Alternative medicine[edit]

Modern day woomeisters like to cover themselves in the style of real and applied medical science; they will use a range of different scientific-sounding words, some of them real things and sometimes completely made up to sound like an authority on the topic even though the actual content of their claims is ultimately nonsensical, unproven, or downright wrong (read: batshit insane). The reason this works is because many people don't know enough about the topic at hand and do not do the research to check the validity of these claims. Other popular alternative medicine like Homeopathy will talk about the "spirit" of substances and make themselves sound more like they are an authority on religious matters than medical ones, but y'know, whatever you can say to convince people. Radionics is a prime example for true style over substance, which claims that it is detecting "imbalances in the body's electromagnetic field" which can be improved with the use of "energy waves". The device used for this purpose is an "AO Scanner" that is a "noninvasive bioresonance device" using the undefined "radionics" to "detect abnormalities" in the "various energy frequencies" of the body's cells. Woo! Are you feeling the flow? The flow of pure science bleeding out of your eyes reading this?

Flat Earth[edit]

Another example is from the 19^th century. One of the famous flat-earthers of that period, Samuel Rowbotham, would go around Britain lecturing on the flatness of the Earth, making all sorts of impressive, but wrong, pseudoscientific claims. Many of the listeners who knew nothing (or not much) about astronomy were swayed by his technical arguments. During the post-lecture discussion sessions, the arguments could get agitated, and the round-Earthers would sometimes lose their temper. Rowbotham, on the other hand, would unfailingly keep a calm, polite, professional air, with the result being that many of the attendants left the lecture with the impression that flat-Earthism had won the day.^[2]

Exceptions[edit]

Some cases where style appears to precede substance exist. One of the few such instances is the Sokal affair, where physicist Alan Sokal wrote a postmodern-style essay in the journal Social Text without really saying anything; the title of the article itself ("Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity") was nonsense. However, on closer examination, the style that Sokal uses is satirical, and therefore his logical argument is implicit; the style does not precede substance, it instead is the substance.

External links[edit]

Halo effect — i.e. every election in every country since the invention of TV. It's hard-wired into us.
Style Over Substance, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Style Over Substance, Stephen Downes

References[edit]

↑ "Venomfangx IS a homophobic bigot!" uploaded by dprjones on November 7, 2011
↑ Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood (2007) MacMillan. ISBN 1447272463.

[1] "Venomfangx IS a homophobic bigot!" uploaded by dprjones on November 7, 2011

[2] Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea by Christine Garwood (2007) MacMillan. ISBN 1447272463.

[1]

[2]

v - t - e Articles about logical fallacies
Informal fallacies:			Appeal to tradition • Appeal to novelty • Appeal to nature • Argument from morality • Argumentum ad martyrdom • Big words • Certum est quia impossibile est • Morton's fork • Friend argument • Exception that proves the rule • Extended analogy • Hindsight bias • Race card • Moralistic fallacy • Release the data • Gish Gallop • Terrorism-baiting • Uncertainty tactic • Greece-baiting • Ham Hightail • Red-baiting • Gore's Law • Nazi analogies • Mistaking the map for the territory • Red herring • Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur • Presentism • Sunk cost • Two wrongs make a right • Flying carpet fallacy • My enemy's enemy • Appeal to ancient wisdom • Danth's Law • Argumentum ad lunam • Balance fallacy • Golden hammer • Loaded question • Escape to the future • Word magic • Spider-Man fallacy • Sanctioning the devil • Appeal to mystery • Informal fallacy • Common sense • Post-designation • Hyperbole • Relativist fallacy • Due diligence • Straw man • Good old days • Appeal to probability • Infinite regress • Circular reasoning • Media was wrong before • Is–ought problem • Ad iram • Just asking questions • Pink-baiting • Appeal to faith • Appeal to fear • Appeal to bias • Appeal to confidence • Appeal to consequences • Appeal to emotion • Appeal to flattery • Appeal to gravity • Appeal to hate • Argument from omniscience • Argument from silence • Argumentum ad baculum • Argumentum ad fastidium • Association fallacy • Broken window fallacy • Category mistake • Confounding factor • Counterfactual fallacy • Courtier's Reply • Damning with faint praise • Definitional fallacies • Equivocation • Fallacy of accent • Fallacy of accident • Fallacy of amphiboly • Gambler's fallacy • Imprecision fallacy • Moving the goalposts • Nirvana fallacy • Overprecision • Pathos gambit • Pragmatic fallacy • Quote mining • Argumentum ad sarcina inserta • Science doesn't know everything • Slothful induction • Spotlight fallacy • Toupee fallacy • Genuine but insignificant cause • Argument from incredulity • Appeal to age • Argumentum ad nauseam • Phantom distinction • Appeal to common sense • Argumentum ad hysteria • Omnipotence paradox • Argument from etymology • Appeal to trauma • Countless counterfeits fallacy •
	Ad hoc:		No True Scotsman • Moving the goalposts • Escape hatch • Handwave • Special pleading • Slothful induction • Nirvana fallacy • God of the gaps • PIDOOMA • Ad hoc • Tone argument •
	Arguments from ignorance:		Science doesn't know everything • Argument from incredulity • Argument from silence • Toupee fallacy • Appeal to censorship • Science was wrong before • Holmesian fallacy • Argument from omniscience • Willful ignorance • Argument from ignorance •
	Causation fallacies:		Post hoc, ergo propter hoc • Correlation does not imply causation • Wrong direction • Counterfactual fallacy • Regression fallacy • Gambler's fallacy • Denying the antecedent • Genuine but insignificant cause •
	Circular reasoning:		Infinite regress • Argument by assertion • Argumentum ad dictionarium • Appeal to faith • Circular reasoning • Self-refuting idea •
	Emotional appeals:		Appeal to fear • Appeal to emotion • Appeal to confidence • Deepity • Argumentum ad baculum • Appeal to shame • Appeal to flattery • Tone argument • Appeal to money • Argumentum ad fastidium • Appeal to gravity • Appeal to consequences • Loaded language • Appeal to pity • Appeal to hate • Pathos gambit • Shaming • Degenerate • Abomination •
	Fallacies of ambiguity:		Fallacy of accent • Equivocation • Fallacy of amphiboly • Quote mining • Fallacy of ambiguity • Moral equivalence • Scope fallacy • Suppressed correlative • Not as bad as • Etymology • Continuum fallacy • Wronger than wrong • Definitional fallacies • Code word • Phantom distinction •
Formal fallacies:			Confusion of the inverse • Denying the antecedent • Non sequitur • Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise • Not even wrong • Chewbacca Defense • Affirming a disjunct • Illicit process • Four-term fallacy • Negative conclusion from affirmative premises • Fallacy fallacy • Substituting explanation for premise • Enthymeme • Syllogism • Formal fallacy • Existential assumption • Masked man fallacy • Self-refuting idea • Argument by gibberish • One single proof • Affirming the consequent • False dilemma • Conjunction fallacy •
Fallacious arguments:			Bumblebee argument • Fatwa envy • Gotcha argument • Hoyle's fallacy • Intuition pump • Logic and Creation • Not Circular Reasoning • Peanut butter argument • Great Beethoven fallacy • Fallacy of unique founding conditions • Evil is the absence of God • Argument from first cause • How do you know? Were you there? • Argument from design • Argument from beauty • Appeal to nature • Solferino fallacy • Religious scientists • Nothing to hide • Argument from fine tuning • Creep shaming • "I used to be an atheist" • Atheism as a religion • Argumentum ad populum • Argument from morality • Anti-environmentalism • Appeal to bias • Apophasis • Argumentum ad nauseam • Appeal to censorship • Argumentum ad sarcina inserta • Blaming the victim • Bait-and-switch • Danth's Law • Chewbacca Defense • Canard • DARVO • Demonization • Escape hatch • Friend argument • Everyone is racist • Gish Gallop • Greece-baiting • Gore's Law • Ham Hightail • Just asking questions • Leading question • Loaded language • Linking to authority • Loaded question • Lying by omission • Motte and bailey • Nazi analogies • Moving the goalposts • One single proof • Pink-baiting • One-way hash argument • Pathos gambit • Quote mining • Poisoning the well • Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur • Race card • Red-baiting • Red herring • Release the data • Science was wrong before • Shill gambit • Straw man • Silent Majority • Uncertainty tactic • Terrorism-baiting • Weasel word • What's the harm (logical fallacy) • Whataboutism • Bullshit • Logical fallacy • Banana argument • Scapegoat • How come there are still monkeys? • Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white • Ontological argument • Omnipotence paradox • Presuppositionalism • Just a joke • Countless counterfeits fallacy •
Conditional fallacies:			Slippery slope • What's the harm (logical fallacy) • Special pleading • Conditional fallacy • On the spot fallacy • Appeal to the minority • Argumentum ad populum • Galileo gambit • Professor of nothing •
	Genetic fallacies:		Genetic fallacy •
		Appeals to authority:	Ipse dixit • Appeal to confidence • Argumentum ad populum • Argument from authority • Linking to authority • Silent Majority • Invincible authority • Appeal to celebrity • Ultracrepidarianism • Appeal to the minority • Galileo gambit • Appeal to identity • Weasel word • Professor of nothing • Euthyphro dilemma • Divine command theory •
		Ad hominem:	Ad iram • Argumentum ad cellarium • Bulverism • Poisoning the well • Blaming the victim • Tu quoque • Whataboutism • Nutpicking • Jonanism • Demonization • Shill gambit • Appeal to bias • Fallacy of opposition • Association fallacy • Damning with faint praise • Pathos gambit • Appeal to identity • Argumentum ad hominem • Nazi analogies • Not an argument • Nothing to hide • Scapegoat • 地下室论证 •
	Imprecision fallacies:		Apex fallacy • Overprecision • Cherry picking • Overgeneralization • Texas sharpshooter fallacy • False analogy • Appeal to fiction • Spotlight fallacy • Pragmatic fallacy • Selection bias • Anecdotal evidence • Category mistake • Nutpicking • Imprecision fallacy • Confounding factor • Fallacy of accident • Neyman's bias •
Valid logical methods:			Rapoport's Rules • Negative evidence • Reductio ad absurdum •
Fallacy collections:			SeekFind • Nizkor Project • Fallacy Files • Your Logical Fallacy Is • Logically Fallacious •