Complex Numbers

Expert Opinion

I wanted to share this, not because I have a stake in the topic being discussed, but because my lack of a horse in the race means I have some tangential thoughts to share.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/well/family/the-fallacy-of-the-i-turned-out-f...

The column is ostensibly about child-spanking. To summarize, a soi-disant "parenting expert" () from Down Under asserts that spanking should be a criminal offense (or offence or however they spell it in Oz), is nonplussed when a bunch of people disagree with him, and then goes on to demolish what he sees as their arguments.

I'm not overly familiar with the political situation in Australia, but first of all, it seems to me that "this practice is ineffective and probably dangerous" shouldn't automatically translate to "this practice should be a criminal offense." It's dangerous in itself to turn everything that we don't like into ban laws; also, a law of this sort strikes me as being especially easy to abuse. It's a basic idea in a so-called free country that not everything is either "permitted" or "banned." Some bad ideas can be handled with social pressure. For instance, I dare you to speak out against public breast-feeding. Go on. I triple-dog-dare you. There's no law against speaking out against public breast-feeding, nor, by our right to freedom of speech, should there be. But I guarantee that you will face a typhoon of scorn and ridicule that will make you wish you had never been born, let alone breast-fed.

I also wanted to point out that there is a such thing as making things too safe, for kids as well as for adults. Take away all the world's sharp corners, foam-pad all the walls and floors, and rope off anything that might pose even the slightest hazard to people, and that's what people will come to expect. They'll be wired to think that if something might be dangerous, there will be a barricade. And that if there is no barricade, it can't possibly be dangerous. Or, worse - you rope off areas of both minor and major hazard, so people get complacent about ignoring barricades. And that's how we get things like people sliding into the Grand Canyon   or boiling to death at Yellowstone.  

Life, in short, is full of risk, and there may be paradoxically more risk in protecting people all the time than in allowing for the occasional bump on the noggin. Or, to stay more on topic, the occasional light swat on the tuchis.

Unfortunately, if you don't foam-pad everything lawsuits happen, so the world just gets more and more covered with the illusion of safety.

Getting back to the article I originally linked, however, I'll just point out one fallacy that the author didn't even consider, which is the survivorship fallacy. "We didn't have car seats when I was a kid and I'm still alive." He covers that as "anecdotal fallacy" but doesn't go far enough. It doesn't take into account the loose kids bouncing around in station wagons who didn't make it to adulthood. Such a logical fallacy doesn't even require hazardous situations. You see it all the time in articles with such titles as "The Five Traits of a Successful Business Leader." The implication is that anyone with these traits will be successful, and completely ignores the vast majority of people with those traits who are standing in line at the food bank.

Well, that's enough for now. But I did want to say, one more time: "parenting expert."