Logical Fallacies

If you know anything about logic and/or debate, you undoubtedly have run across the term, “Logical Fallacy”. In short, a logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. Unfortunately, many people commit these errors unknowingly, and worse, some use them on purpose to further their deceptive endeavors.

Let’s look at a few of these errors as they relate to AdvoCare, their sales tactics, and the tactics often employed by the people pushing the products and business scheme. Ad Hominem: – This fallacy means literally “against the man.” This is a classic debate tactic. Instead of attacking an argument’s validity, the debater will instead attack one’s opponent. You might see this tactic employed in this manner: “What do you know about AdvoCare? I’ve been to Success School, you haven’t. You’re just a stay at home mom.” Being a stay at home parent (or any other non-AdvoCare job) doesn’t automatically render one’s knowledge of a subject nonexistent. But, by using the ad hominem tactic, the subject being discussed becomes derailed and made personal.

Ambiguity: – The fallacy of ambiguity is used when the debater uses vague language that could be taken in a variety of ways. One prominent place within AdvoCare where this can be found is in the “24 Day Challenge”, or any time someone talks about, “getting rid of toxins”. First off, the human body is perfectly designed to rid itself of any “toxins”; that’s what your kidneys and liver do.

“Toxins” is a scary word and evokes emotions, but what toxins are we talking about? A toxin is a poison. If your body can’t get rid of it, your only choice is to be admitted to a hospital because otherwise you’re going to die. Companies like AdvoCare use the word “toxin” but never tell you what, exactly, the poison their products are supposed to get rid of, where that poison comes from, or how their products are able to perform such a miracle.

Anecdotal: – The anecdotal fallacy is found when one uses one’s experience instead of a sound argument when making a case. For instance, one could argue that one person benefited from taking a particular medicine; therefore everyone should take that medicine. It could be that not everyone would benefit from that kind of medicine due to the differences in each person’s body.

Without the anecdotal logical fallacy AdvoCare would most likely completely fall apart; it’s a cornerstone of their sales tactics. This fallacy is built right into their “Bullet Proof Shield”. When an Advo-pusher is confronted with a question for which they don’t know the answer, they are instructed to employ the “Bullet Proof Shield” and say, “Well, I don’t know about that, but what I do know about is my personal experience where I…”

The anecdotal fallacy can also be seen on the “micro-sites” where most every page contains a personal story of transformation. While these stories sound great, there is no actual proof supporting their validity. These stories could honestly be complete works of fiction, but there is no way to know for sure. Appeal to Authority: – The appeal to authority fallacy is committed when one uses the beliefs of one in authority (scientist, medical professional, athlete, etc.) instead of dealing with the argument itself. It may be that the authority in question is correct. However, just because one is in authority does not make the authority figure correct! AdvoCare’s “esteemed Sci/Med board” is a prime example of this fallacy. AdvoCare employs doctors, scientists, and researchers in order to bolster the company’s appearance of validity. If you ignore this fallacy, and scratch below the surface of what they present, you find that the learned group of people AdvoCare parades as authorities has never made public any actual scientific proof in support of their product’s claims. In fact, the vast majority of “scientific proof” is nothing more than anecdotal (see above comments on anecdotal fallacy). Appeal to Consequences: – In this fallacy, one uses consequences without providing any real evidence that a consequence would follow the antecedent.

AdvoCare quite often speaks about a person’s predicament, whether it’s health related, financially related, or time related.

Think about it this way: “You won’t grow up to be big and strong if you don’t drink your milk.” Now, this statement seems logical on the surface, but there is no link between growing up big and strong and drinking milk. This doesn’t mean that milk has no role in growth and health, but the absence of milk does not directly link to growth.

AdvoCare works hard to convince people that NOT using their products, or working their “business”, will lead to failure in reaching your fitness, financial, or familial goals and that there is no other way but the AdvoCare way. Appeal to Emotion: – In this fallacy, the debater will manipulate an emotional response from the listener without providing any clear evidence for the debater’s claim. Very often you can find Advo-pushers saying things, “You’re not working hard enough.” or, “You don’t want it bad enough.” and, “Don’t you want _____ (health, weight loss, performance, money, etc)?” Their words and deeds target your desire for “freedom”, “health”, “more time”, “desire for money”, and others.

But, again, where is the factual evidence that anything from AdvoCare will provide you with any of these things? There aren’t any.

Emotions are a very powerful target and sales people of all kind are keen to manipulate them to get what they want. Appeal to Force: – The appeal to force is also known by its Latin name argumentum ad baculum. This fallacy is found when a person, or institution, forces their beliefs upon another by issuing threats. The person or institution has not proven its case but forces others to believe by force.

This is often closely tied to the appeal of emotion.

AdvoCare makes many of their events such as “Success School” mandatory. They demand that you attend. They demand that you spend the money and make the commitment or be reprimanded. Your up-line will work hard to ensure that you go to these events where you’re fed more logical fallacies and have your emotions preyed upon. If you don’t go, you can lose your distributorship. You can lose your discount. You can lose your “friends”.

Appeal to Nature: – This fallacy claims that just because something is “natural” it must be good. This argument is often employed by people wanting to legalize marijuana. They claim that it’s natural; since it’s natural, it MUST be good for you. The flaw in this line of thinking can easily be seen when it’s pointed out that wolfs bane, nightshade and monkshood are all “natural” plants that can kill you. Uranium is “all natural” but you wouldn’t want to be near it for very long.

Advo-pushers very often make the claim of “natural” but when you consider the single fact that the products are highly processed, and some contain ingredients not found in nature, it becomes clear that there is absolutely no validity to this argument. Appeal to Novelty: – This fallacy assumes that just because something is new that the thing, or idea, must be better. For the most part, we all learned in school to be wary of the claim, “New and Improved!” and to be very wary when we see such a claim. Yet, we still hear claims of, “Our products are unique”, “There is nothing else like it on the market”, and “No other product can give you what ours can”, and we fall for it. The reason why these claims are false is because there is no proof to back them up, other than the words being spoken.

Fall back on your common sense and you’ll see that these are nothing more than empty claims and attempts at getting you to buy into the hype.

Appeal to Poverty: – This fallacy occurs when one assumes that just because a view is held by the poor that it must be true.

This can be found whenever someone attacks the “9 to 5 work mentality”. The assumption is made that working a “normal” job will never get you “rich” because none of the “AdvoCare leaders” are working “normal” jobs and, instead, are working “the business side” full time; that’s the only way you’ll be able to become “better” than everyone else. It is assumed that only the poor, working class, 9-to5er’s, will never succeed and if you want to be better than the rest, you have to go the “AdvoCare way”. Appeal to Wealth: – This fallacy is opposite of the appeal to poverty fallacy. In this fallacy, one holds a view as true because its adherents are wealthy. This is also often tied to the appeal to emotion.

Example: AdvoCare’s Success School holds “pining ceremonies”, offers testimonies of success, and speeches by people who have reached the upper levels of the business. These displays are designed to motivate you to do what they do because, after all, it if worked for them, it’ll work for you. They want you to want what they have (wealth) and use their wealth to convince you that what they say is true and to get you to do what they tell you to do. Of course, their motivation isn’t to “spread the wealth” and make you successful, it’s to make them richer and richer.

Bandwagon Fallacy: – This fallacy is based upon an appeal to popularity. One claims that something is good based only on the fact that everyone else thinks that it is good. This one should be obvious.

“Get in now, everyone else is and, if you don’t, you’ll be left behind while everybody else will trim, fit, and rich!”

AdvoCare NEEDS this fallacy in order to get people to sign-up. Without constant fresh blood the money trail comes to a dead end. Black or White: – This fallacy is committed when only two options are presented when more options may be available.

An oft used sales pitch is, “You want to lose weight, but what you’re doing isn’t working. AdvoCare is your answer.” The reality is that the ‘real’ answer is to first see your doctor. Second, get a trained professional to advise you on your diet and exercise plans. But, of course, those pushing AdvoCare would never suggest such a thing because there is no personal benefit in it for them.

They would much rather have you think that you have no other option but AdvoCare, and that you should get on it as soon as you can. False Cause: – This fallacy occurs when someone finds a correlation and assumes a cause. It can also be stated as “correlation does not equal causation”. This one is a huge component in the testimonies AdvoCare pushes everyone to employ.

Just because you believe that using AdvoCare products caused you to reach your fitness goals does not automatically mean that the products have a direct connection with your results. That’s why clinical trials, with repeated results, are so important. We can only assume that because AdvoCare has never published any clinical trials to support their products, and instead leans so heavily on the false cause logical fallacy, that such scientific evidence does not exist. Red Herring: – The red herring fallacy came from fox hunters who sent out their dogs to chase foxes only to find that their dogs were distracted by red herrings (perhaps purposely placed by opposing hunters) which led them off the trail of the fox. This is a tactic used to get a person off their point.

This is another element of AdvoCare’s “Bullet Proof Shield”; When asked a question the person has no answer to, the “Bullet Proof Shield” teaches them to avoid the question by taking the conversation in a different direction. Example: “I don’t know about that, but what I do know is…”

The Texas Sharpshooter: – This fallacy gets its name from a sharpshooter who shoots holes in a barn and then paints a bullseye around the majority of bullet holes. The person committing this fallacy will choose data that only suits his argument or presumption. For instance, a drug company may only choose positive data that supports a drug that they are promoting without considering the negative data.

If you look hard enough yu can find a few clinical trials involving AdvoCare’s products (this blog has all that we know of). These trials are sometimes used to support/promote the products. In fact, elseware on this blog you can find where AdvoCare’s legal representative cited some of these trials. The problem with these trials is that, while the results cited appear positive, when you actually look at the trial specifics you find that the testing was done on animals, on a very small test group, using very specific test subjects, etc. These results, at best, are evidence that more testing needs to be done. But, when the “sharpshooter” falacy is employed, the negative aspects are ignored – or hidden – so that everything seems to be positive.

“If it sounds too good to be true…”

As you can see, in order for success to occur, misinformation, deliberate avoidance of the truth, and outright deception have to be the cornerstones of the business. Many of these aspects are all contained within the “Bullet Proof Shield” (it doesn’t seem that ‘bullet proof’ now, does it?). This simple fact has to make one wonder, why do they need to employ so much deception? The answer seems clear, their success is hinged on it.

While many businesses employ one or two of these tactics, most often the real value of the product or service still shines through. In the case of companies like AdvoCare, if people understood the truth behind the business model and products they would cease to exist.

#Advocare #BulletProofShield