Argumentum ad ignorantiam

Argumentum ad ignorantiam means “appeal to ignorance.” It’s an informal logical fallacy that asserts a proposition is necessarily true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). In other words, X has never been proven or demonstrated and so therefore X is/(must be) false. Or, in other words, “I’ve been bathing my innards in Scotch for fifty years and I haven’t gotten cancer yet - so I never will.”

Remember Ben Stein? You don’t? Well, there are a number of ways to jog your memory. He was a speechwriter for President Nixon and Gerald Ford. No? He was the valedictorian of his time at Yale Law School. Nothing? He was a professor of law at Pepperdine University. He created a creationist propaganda film called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” which equated evolutionary biology with Nazism. Still nothing? Oh, I know what’ll jog your memory. Remember that wacky teen movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?” He was that monotone-voiced teacher that said, “Bueller, Bueller.” Ah yes, now you know who I’m talking about. Well, about 15 years ago, he appeared on C-SPAN with Christopher Hitchens. A viewer emailed in – no wait, called in – no wait, FAXED in a question. (It was the 90’s, after all.) The viewer faxes,

“Please ask Christopher Hitchens to comment on the life and death of Mickey Mantle … He notoriously shares with the late Mr. Mantle some of the proclivities that brought about Mr. Mantle’s early demise. If Mr. Hitchens leaves the world too soon, who will be left to comment on such issues as the racial partitioning in the south, the failure of Western foreign policy, or the character of our elected leaders?”

The viewer had a point. There really aren’t enough people willing to comment on race in the South.

On the subject of his “proclivities,” Hitchens replies (and this is breathtaking),

“All I can say is, so far it hasn’t done me any harm.”

So far it hasn’t done you any harm!? Well, young Hitchens, old Hitchens has a chilling surprise in store. Not only HAS it done you harm, it WAS doing you harm the whole time. A cancerous tumor has grown gradually, over the course of many years. Just because you hadn't gotten sick yet doesn’t mean you weren’t ever going to “leave the world too soon.” Your argument from ignorance has fallen flat – and soon, so will you.

(Oh, and by the way, watch the full clip. This has been pointed out before on Hitchens Watch – but it ends with Hitchens telling a blatantly anti-Semitic joke. Enjoy!)