Talk:Appeal to consequences

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Climate change

Surely the most common example of the argument from adverse consequences is that against the reality of anthropogenic global warming/climate change, which goes something like: reducing greenhouse gas emissions would require policies we don't like, therefore anthropogenic greenhouse gasses don't have any effect on the climate.

Perhaps we should have some example that plainly exposes the absurdity of the fallacy, such as:

The existence of gravity would make falling from a height onto a hard surface unpleasant. Therefore, gravity cannot exist. Booshank (talk) 19:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Formatting

Anyone else seeing the quote under "Form" running into the navbar? (I'm using Chrome) -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

This is happening to others, see RationalWiki:Saloon_bar#cquote_problem?. --Onion <talk> 19:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I know you hate to hear this, but...

Wouldn't the all-too-common "bad things have been done in the name of religion, therefore religion is evil" argument fall under this? --^{—signed by Lilfut} 17:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

No, the fallacy is when the consequences are used to assert the truth of a premise. The argument "bad things have been done in the name of religion, therefore religions are incorrect/false" would be an example. (surely it's not necroing when the concept of bumping is impossible) —Kazitor, ^pending 11:32, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Attribution

Some content from http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_Consequences Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 00:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Examples area contains some examples of a different fallacy

The examples area contains examples of two different fallacies, only one of which can actually be Appeal to Consequences - and the other one of which needs a different name.

One of the two fallacies (the one that I understand to properly be referred to by "Appeal to Consequences") states "A is not true, because if A were true then B would also be t rue" - presumably while forgetting to properly establish that B is not in fact true.

The first example on the list that I can find of this fallacy is:

• The existence of gravity would make falling from a height onto a hard surface unpleasant, therefore gravity cannot exist.

The other fallacy (which from what I understand is not Appeal to Consequences - but which many people persistently continue confusing it with such (thereby, among other things' preventing it from getting its own desperately needed name) states "A is not true, because believing A to be true / acting as though A is true / etcetera will result in B".

The first example on the list (but not the only example) of that other fallacy that you give where you should have examples of Appeal to Consequences is

• Belief in the theory of evolution leads to eugenics; therefore the theory of evolution is false

I strongly urge the editors to resolve which of these two fallacies is properly referred to as "Appeal to Consequences" - and to purge the examples area of the other fallacy.

Better yet - it would be even better if you figure out a name for that other fallacy (I believe that Argumentum ad Baculum is a subset of that other fallacy, but not the full range of that other fallacy) - create a page from that other fallacy (once you have resolved its name) put all the examples of that fallacy that you should purge from this page over there -- and maybe on this page add a "Not to be confused with" link to that other fallacy.

-- Red Angel Sophia (talk) Mon Sep 6 13:48:35 EDT 2021