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Thread: No True Scotsman Fallacy -- Why Most People's Understanding of Socionics is BS

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    Default No True Scotsman Fallacy -- Why Most People's Understanding of Socionics is BS

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    When an assertion about a type conflicts people's experience in reality, instead of refuting the assertion or counterexample, they modify the subject of the assertion.

    All INFps enjoy literature.... Maggie doesn't enjoy literature and types INFp.... Well all true INFps enjoy literature, Maggie isn't one of them.

    The entire science is built on this fallacy, people make baseless claims on what constitutes a type and in order to uphold these claims they type people differently rather than actually attempt to refute the assertion or counterexample. Any attempt to form consistent claims with reality is considered to be "overly scientific and unfun" so instead most people's understanding are fallacious collections of stereotypes which contradict each other, when confronted with a counterexample to the universal claims with which they categorize types, instead of attempting the reconcile the counter-example with the claim or modify it, they immediately turn to re-typing or type-doubt.

    Of course the moment someone mentions socionics as being bullshit or mentions an XXXX type, gradients of dichotomies, or type change, everyone gets extremely serious and scientific about their justifications, and its no longer about "fun" but something much more serious.

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    Snomunegot munenori2's Avatar
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    Your mom's a true scotsman.
    Moonlight will fall
    Winter will end
    Harvest will come
    Your heart will mend

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    No you...

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    Quote Originally Posted by octo View Post
    It's pretty obvious that there are no generalisations you can make that will encompass ALL members of any type, apart from model A axioms like "They will have Ti as their base function" "They supervise SEEs". But that doesn't necessarily make finding correlations and type tendencies any less interesting or scientific.
    Well the real problem is the fallacy, instead of acknowledging one's universal claims as false given contradictory evidence, people like to attempt to reconcile these claims by "type doubts" or "re-typing" --This makes the preservation of the claims fall under the category of this fallacy.

    That's what this post is about -- I'm not accusing people as being wrong, I'm pointing out the fallacy so that hopefully people can grow intellectually instead of stay in their comfort zone.

    My hope is that some people will begin to actually attempt to reconcile their theoretical ideas about what a type is like with direct observation, so that intellectually the science can grow. Also, if people don't want to look at socionics as "science" that is fine -- its not like I'm into forcing people to do things, but they can't have it both ways, if they aren't willing to back up their claims with evidence, they can't be expected that their ideas will be taken with the same gravity as those that do.

    Finally I'll mention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correla...mply_causation -- so even if behaviors can be correlated to types empirically, it doesn't imply the psychological make up of their type is responsible for these behaviors.

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    Quote Originally Posted by munenori2 View Post
    Your mom's a true scotsman.
    How did you know?

    ^^

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    Glorious Member mu4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by blah blah blah
    All INFps enjoy literature.... Maggie doesn't enjoy literature and types INFp.... Well all true INFps enjoy literature, Maggie isn't one of them.
    Where in socionics are these sort of assertions made? People make this sort of assertions sure, but it doesn't really say anything about socionics. I mean plenty of people try to prove 2nd law of thermodynamics wrong too and various other things.

    I think you're engaging in a strawman argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

    There are plenty of unproven assertions in socionics but nothing like this is there.

    Socionics isn't science, don't pretend it is until a objective means of measure is created, then the predictions can be analyzed. All we have is subjective measurement which is useful but not provable to others.

    Science is often a battle of instrumentation and there still lacks a instrument to produce a socionics type analysis which will provide a means to test the predictive side of socionics, or at least no instrument that would allow for a very accurate prediction.

    This sort of posts happens about once a year in this topic, and that post is generally as full of misunderstanding and problems as people's understand of socionics.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    Where in socionics are these sort of assertions made? People make this sort of assertions sure, but it doesn't really say anything about socionics. I mean plenty of people try to prove 2nd law of thermodynamics wrong too and various other things.

    I think you're engaging in a strawman argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

    There are plenty of unproven assertions in socionics but nothing like this is there.

    Socionics isn't science, don't pretend it is until a objective means of measure is created, then the predictions can be analyzed. All we have is subjective measurement which is useful but not provable to others.

    Science is often a battle of instrumentation and there still lacks a instrument to produce a socionics type analysis which will provide a means to test the predictive side of socionics, or at least no instrument that would allow for a very accurate prediction.

    This sort of posts happens about once a year in this topic, and that post is generally as full of misunderstanding and problems as people's understand of socionics.
    1 - I'm not giving any specific examples of people making assertions similar to the example I gave. I'm just showing how socionics is vulnerable to this particular type of fallacy, and everyone seems to be extremely defensive about it, which I find quite revealing. The title "Why most people's understanding of socionics is BS".... isn't meant to be taken literally, as in I have conducted a census of most people's understandings of socionics, the title is just a promotion thing to draw attention.

    2 - As for the "socionics isn't science" see what I said to octo, you're argument is basically "if socionics isn't perfect, fuck it all".... I'm not saying socionics is a perfectly accurate characterization of personality, what I'm saying is that its vulnerable to at least a single preventable logical fallacy.

    3 - No I am not engaging in a strawman argument, I could see your point if the topic was called "why socionics is bs"... but instead it's called "why most people's understanding of socionics is bs".... how about before you claim a fallacy on me you take the time to discriminate the difference between both titles.

    God damn zealots -- PROTECT THE SACRED THEORY!... ok maybe thats a little harsh, but I think some people need to take a step back and calm down, your precious inner world isn't under attack, just take a second and read what I've said, nothing to get hung about.

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    Glorious Member mu4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HaveLucidDreamz View Post
    1 - I'm not giving any specific examples of people making assertions similar to the example I gave. I'm just showing how socionics is vulnerable to this particular type of fallacy, and everyone seems to be extremely defensive about it, which I find quite revealing. The title "Why most people's understanding of socionics is BS".... isn't meant to be taken literally, as in I have conducted a census of most people's understandings of socionics, the title is just a promotion thing to draw attention.

    2 - As for the "socionics isn't science" see what I said to octo, you're argument is basically "if socionics isn't perfect, fuck it all".... I'm not saying socionics is a perfectly accurate characterization of personality, what I'm saying is that its vulnerable to at least a single preventable logical fallacy.

    3 - No I am not engaging in a strawman argument, I could see your point if the topic was called "why socionics is bs"... but instead it's called "why most people's understanding of socionics is bs".... how about before you claim a fallacy on me you take the time to discriminate the difference between both titles.

    God damn zealots -- PROTECT THE SACRED THEORY!
    I never said any of this, stop misrepresenting me. You don't even understand what I said. Seriously.
    The True Scotsman fallacy occurs in all fields of study, along with a number of other fallacies. People have misunderstanding of physics and other sciences all the time and there are still unsolved problems in that field of study.

    Do you even know why I call your argument a strawman, because it is. Because very few users uses the example and line of reasoning you posted very seriously. Can you even prove that a ton of users use that line of reasoning?

    The fact that you're calling me a zealot and using a ad hominem attack is even worse, because it just shows how many fallacies you're engaging in. You have to use a personal attack on me without even understanding my argument. Piss off.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    I never said any of this, stop misrepresenting me. You don't even understand what I said. Seriously.
    The True Scotsman fallacy occurs in all fields of study, along with a number of other fallacies. People have misunderstanding of physics and other sciences all the time and there are still unsolved problems in that field of study.

    Do you even know why I call your argument a strawman, because it is. Because very few users uses the example and line of reasoning you posted very seriously. Can you even prove that a ton of users use that line of reasoning?

    The fact that you're calling me a zealot and using a ad hominem attack is even worse, because it just shows how many fallacies you're engaging in. You have to use a personal attack on me without even understanding my argument. Piss off.
    Lol it is very well possible I don't understand what you said, but that is all well in my opinion as I'm willing to hear you out, but I'd appreciate it if you calmed down a bit and didn't react so defensively.

    I do agree the True Scotsman fallacy occurs in all fields of study. And I will re-iterate, the title "why most people's understanding of socionics is bs" is not supposed to be a factual assertion but a rhetorical device to get attention and draw awareness to the fallacy and its potential impact on people's thinking when dealing with socionics. Finally, I'm not seriously calling you a zealot, and I even jokingly said, ok... that's a bit harsh... but can you blame me, the voracity of your previous posts towards me seems a little over-zealous and unwarranted for just a run of the mill discussion. I have a great problem understanding why you are so pissed off, if someone came up to me and started to claim the sky was red and not blue, I wouldn't be pissed off by their faulty assertion, but if anything more amused. If you're so confident that my post just amounts to one big strawman argument then why are you so upset, if I am so obviously wrong, then what is there to be upset about?

    Not everyone is going to agree on everything, but can you at least not be an asshole about it, I should have the right to share my ideas on the forum without being attacked even if they go against the mainstream.... I haven't personally attacked anyone and even made it clear I wasn't going to make this topic about accusations.

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    Glorious Member mu4's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HaveLucidDreamz View Post
    I do agree the True Scotsman fallacy occurs in all fields of study. And I will re-iterate, the title "why most people's understanding of socionics is bs" is not supposed to be a factual assertion but a rhetorical device to get attention and draw awareness to the fallacy and its potential impact on people's thinking when dealing with socionics. Finally, I'm not seriously calling you a zealot, and I even jokingly said, ok... that's a bit harsh... but can you blame me, the voracity of your previous posts towards me seems a little over-zealous and unwarranted for just a run of the mill discussion. I have a great problem understanding why you are so pissed off, if someone came up to me and started to claim the sky was red and not blue, I wouldn't be pissed off by their faulty assertion, but if anything more amused. If you're so confident that my post just amounts to one big strawman argument then why are you so upset, if I am so obviously wrong, then what is there to be upset about?
    The devil is in the details they say and it often is.

    "why most"

    You sure about that?

    "why most"

    You sure this isn't the fallacy? I mean are you really calling most of the people here dumb or fallicious? How is that remotely justifiable.

    And you want me to calm down after you made a ad-hominem attack on me?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ashton View Post
    So, is that supposed to give the fallacy some kind of license to occur in Socionics? Not sure why you're even bringing this up.
    No, if someone makes a poor argument one should make the criticism. It's just this post seems to represent this as some sort of socionics peculiarity as if the study of socionics is somehow correlated with shoddy thinking which is not. Shoddy thinkers think shoddily. Should be obvious. Duh! Need me to explain more obvious things to you?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ashton View Post
    Socionics not being an empirical science is no excuse for shoddy thinking.
    The point is that even if it was an empirical science, there is no excuse for shoddy thinking.

    Socionics isn't based on "the true scotsman fallacy".

    People commit this fallacy in all fields of study, as well as make strawman arguments. Nothing new about this.

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    Most people's understanding of socionics is BS because they disregard the facts and bend the rules to have themselves apply to a type of desire rather than the type they really are. It's a shame.
    -
    Dual type (as per tcaudilllg)
    Enneagram 2w1sw(1w9) helps others to live up to their own standards of what a good person is and is very behind the scenes in the process.
    Tritype 1-2-6 stacking sp/sx


    I'm constantly looking to align the real with the ideal.I've been more oriented toward being overly idealistic by expecting the real to match the ideal. My thinking side is dominent. The result is that sometimes I can be overly impersonal or self-centered in my approach, not being understanding of others in the process and simply thinking "you should do this" or "everyone should follor this rule"..."regardless of how they feel or where they're coming from"which just isn't a good attitude to have. It is a way, though, to give oneself an artificial sense of self-justification. LSE

    Best description of functions:
    http://socionicsstudy.blogspot.com/2...functions.html

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    Yo. I enjoy literature am i infp ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ashton View Post
    Pretty much.

    Though I think the board in general has gotten a lot better about this over the years. If you check out old posts from '04 - '08, the kind of stuff that used to pass for rigorous type analysis was… well, pretty awful.
    Yea, like I said above I didn't write this to accuse the community so much as raise awareness.

    Quote Originally Posted by octo View Post
    I understand what you're saying... but at the same time, the evidence that's provided here almost 100% of the time is anecdotal evidence, so it really can't be "scientific". And this being a personality typology, an additional problem with the anecdotal evidence offered is the reliability of the typer in question. So I don't think this problem of people suspecting that someone is mistyped will ever go away, even if everyone realised their biases.

    In socionics correlation does usually imply causation, simply because most people believe type is inborn The main exception I can think of is along the lines of "SLEs tend to like masculine activities" "Males are more likely to be mistyped SLE" - but that would be one of those mistyping issues. I think a more important note is that a correlations are trends, not rules.
    The fallacy isn't about the perfection of someone's assertions as being absolutely correct, its a specific case where something which may appear correct is incorrect. I'm not pretending all errors can be eliminated from socionics... its not as easy to verify as a hard science and suffers from subjective bias horribly, but at least people can increase the quality of their typing by realizing at least one source of error -- that's all I'm saying. Your argument seems to be "well if its not perfect we might as well just fuck it all".

    Most people believing type is inborn is irrelevant, if we lived in 14th century Europe its likely most people would believe the sun revolves around the earth. I'm not really interested in what the prevalent bandwagon ideas are, I'm interested in exploring new ideas and finding things out. Can you really say you enjoy personality typology as much now with everyone all niched in and in consensus or when you first learned about it and everything was novel and new? I personally enjoyed it a lot more when I was exploring out new ideas rather than jumping on the good ole' bandwagon.
    Last edited by male; 12-09-2011 at 07:04 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by HaveLucidDreamz View Post
    Blah blah blah

    What's your point again?


    If you don't like the theory, then don't use it? It's just a way to think about how to go about categorizing people. Theoretical frameworks aren't not magically infallible or perfect.


    Socionics framework for sure is incomplete, and non-precise, but is it a approximation of reality that is better then say something like MBTI and Enneagram. I think for sure it is, and that's all I need to know until I find another framework to study the human psyche.


    The whole point of this post actually is about how understanding of socionics only plays a very small part in type diagnostics. And how the fact that there is no instrument for analysis of type which we can objectively rely on forces people to attain a high level of subjective knowledge of people which corresponds which corresponds with reality to make accurate typings. Even then it's a tenuous judgement.


    Anyways, The No True Scotsman fallacy basically doesn't exist in socionics, because you could never prove that a person is Type Z in the first place to use as a counterexample to whatever universal claim was being made.


    "All INFps enjoy literature....
    Maggie doesn't enjoy literature and types INFp....
    Well all true INFps enjoy literature,
    Maggie isn't one of them."


    Alice: All Scotsmen enjoy haggis.
    Bob: My uncle is a Scotsman, and he doesn't like haggis!
    Alice: Well, all true Scotsmen like haggis.

    You actually made a poor example of this fallacy, because the basis of the fallacy is a factual counterclaim, which doesn't exist in socionics.

    "All Infp enjoy literature"
    "Maggie is an INFp and he doesn't enjoy literature" (This can't be ascertained conclusively in socionics)
    "Well, all true INFp like literature"

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    collection of random snippets
    Factual counterclaim does exist in socionics as much as it exist anywhere else.

    The issue of what a scotsman is can also be equally confounding..... are we talking about a national scotsman or an ethnic scotsman?

    Likewise the qualifiers for what a type is are confounding as well in their own unique ways -- every base of knowledge suffers the kind of entanglement you've brought up between theory and practice.

    However like I've said several times this is a needless complication about what the fallacy is about, its about an ad hoc attempt after the fact to make something work out. In socionics this can apply by people changing typings to make their understandings work out after the fact -- it doesn't mean they are wrong but it's definitely not evidence of a strong understanding.

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    Quote Originally Posted by HaveLucidDreamz View Post
    Factual counterclaim does exist in socionics as much as it exist anywhere else.
    If you have a example factual counterclaim that can prove anything please provide it. The fact remains that any counterclaims in socionics are just opinions and althrough some opinions may be more accurate then other, there is as of yet no means to measure that opinion.

    You started this post with a intellectual dishonest title, which you have admitted to, the fallacy you present is not yet prevelant in socionics.

    In socionics, a very good rule that one can make concerning behavior is that one cannot make a universal claim about a behavior being related to type. This is what you should have said in the first place.

    I think you've tried to defend yourself and your fallacies with a lot of smoke and mirrors, it's simple, just realize that this fallacy isn't that important as of yet, and that universal claims about behavior are not substantiated by socionic theory. This way you can say that people who make universal claims about behavior as being related to socionic theory as being against the theory and making unsubstantiated claims.

    Anyways most people don't do this, most people don't make universal claims, just probabilistic claims.

    Then you can concentrate on one of the really important thing that is missing from socionics, a valid mechanism to produce a socionic typing that can be validated empirically by observing the quality of relationships between individuals based on intertype relations.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    If you have a example factual counterclaim that can prove anything please provide it. The fact remains that any counterclaims in socionics are just opinions and althrough some opinions may be more accurate then other, there is as of yet no means to measure that opinion.
    At least some of his counterclaims are factual. He's observing the behavior of people in the forum. Whether you think socionics should be applied through a forum, then that's different, but it is factual.

    In socionics, a very good rule that one can make concerning behavior is that one cannot make a universal claim about a behavior being related to type. This is what you should have said in the first place.
    Anyways most people don't do this, most people don't make universal claims, just probabilistic claims.

    Then you can concentrate on one of the really important thing that is missing from socionics, a valid mechanism to produce a socionic typing that can be validated empirically by observing the quality of relationships between individuals based on intertype relations.
    Probabilistic claims are not what people are making when they say someone is xxxx type or argue that their understanding of socionics is correct and another is not. It's different if they are arguing someone has a lack of knowledge on the matter and directs them to the knowledge, but that still doesn't mean that knowledge should be considered correct over someone who has found it to be unhelpful/misleading. All systems of thought have limitations on what they can do or exemplify.


    Think about it this way:
    Person A has an idea about socionics and wants to share it to broaden their understanding of socionics.
    Person B can either claim that idea is wrong and ignore it, claim it is right and use it as an ultimate principle, or can incorporate it into a broader, more inclusive, more tolerant scope of socionics.

    If Person B claims it is wrong, person A is going to be annoyed because person B is being provincial and person A isn't learning any more than they started with.
    If Person B claims it is right, person A is going to be annoyed because person B is being provincial and person A isn't learning any more than they started with.
    If Person B argues for its uses and problems, person A is going to be pleased because they are learning more than they did when they started.

    Do you agree with Person-A's approach, hkkmr? I really hope you do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    If you have a example factual counterclaim that can prove anything please provide it.
    I don't think this is a good idea as it will drive us down a further confounding tangent, if I did provide one, your next move would be to criticize it, and we would have another thing to debate on that would be further removed from the core issue of this topic.

    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    You started this post with a intellectual dishonest title, which you have admitted to, the fallacy you present is not yet prevelant in socionics.
    How about relax a little, its an internet forum, not an scholarly journal -- "intellectually dishonest title".... I don't see how I'm being dishonest, but even if I were umm who cares its just an internet forum.

    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    In socionics, a very good rule that one can make concerning behavior is that one cannot make a universal claim about a behavior being related to type. This is what you should have said in the first place.
    Yea but that's sloppy thinking in and of itself as that assertion, strictly speaking would have to be validated or proved somehow. Maybe it is possible to make a universal claim -- it hasn't been rigorously disproven. In fact I find the entire question of whether it is pure opinion or pure fact to be somewhat unrealistic, almost EVERYTHING in life is a mixture, an entanglement of both. So characterizing something like "scotsman" as pure fact and something like "socionics" as pure opinion seems shortsighted tbh.

    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    it's simple, just realize that this fallacy isn't that important as of yet
    Lol isn't importance subjective, I mean it seems a little grandiose for you to go around telling other people what is important and not. I found this topic to be important, not in a pompous intellectual scholarly journal way, but in a more interesting way -- I was hoping to spark discussion on sources of error in people's understanding in hopes of improving people's methodology.


    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    and that universal claims about behavior are not substantiated by socionic theory.
    This sounds equally as pompous and grandiose... I mean your acting like you have solid evidence of this assertion, when in fact its more like just what you think... which is cool, normally I'm fine with that kind of expression of thought, but your playing it off as something more, like your professing some infallable truth -- and there's this undertone of aggression to it as well, like your stuffing it down someone's throat and making them swallow because its so obvious your correct.... that's the pompous part.


    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    Anyways most people don't do this, most people don't make universal claims, just probabilistic claims.
    If you want to be strictly logical, then probablistic claims themselves are universal as your making an assumption that a system is characterized by probabilitys accurately.

    Quote Originally Posted by hkkmr View Post
    Then you can concentrate on one of the really important thing that is missing from socionics, a valid mechanism to produce a socionic typing that can be validated empirically by observing the quality of relationships between individuals based on intertype relations.
    Tbh I don't really care about the "quest for a valid mechanism" or anything, I just wanted to point out how logical fallacies and errors can apply to socionics because I found it interesting. The idea was that this knowledge could help people be more accurate in their typings. As to the future of socionics academically, right now I'm pretty indifferent to it.

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