The Geek Logical Fallacy

Not to be confused with Geek Social Fallacies.

The Geek Logical Fallacy is basically when a person (generally a geek) says, “I have an opinion. I’m an intelligent person who uses logic and reasoning. Therefore, my opinion is objectively correct because it’s backed by my superior logic and reasoning abilities.”

Like many flaws in arguments or understanding, the Geek Logical Fallacy is derived from positive sources. Intelligence is great and so is the confidence to acknowledge one’s own intelligence. Logic and reasoning? Both important facets of life and especially debate. However, there are many situations where these good qualities can all fall apart and lead to the Geek Logical Fallacy. Here are the big ones.

1) When Emotions are Involved

Whether it’s because the topic involves emotions, e.g. love or religion, or because the person is somehow emotionally involved with the topic at hand, the result can often be a mess when one tries to use their heightened logic abilities to tackle a subject that involves more than simply the rational mind. At best, the person misreads a situation or argument. At worst, the person confuses their own feelings for logic and reasoning, and simply assumes that through this odd Emotional Scientific Method they have arrived at the only right answer.

2) When the Arguer Cannot See Beyond Their Own Experiences

This is the situation where it becomes hard for the Fallacious Logic Geek to fathom and acknowledge opinions other than his own, even if they too have been derived through the power of intelligence and reasoning. This often stems from being unable to see beyond their own experiences in life or to realize that people may have lived a life different from them or even worse, that their limited experience and circumstances in life has somehow imbued upon them a unique, i.e. more correct perspective upon the world. Working on their own past experience, and again believing themselves to be logical beings of reason, they remove the possibility of anyone thinking otherwise.

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I’m sure you’ve seen this in action before, and there’s even a very good chance someone else has mentioned this before under a different name. It’s probably even a mixture of existing logical fallacies though I haven’t looked at which ones they are specifically.

The obvious advice of course is “DON’T DO THIS,” but it might not be so easy to correct if you feel you have this tendency. So what to do about it?

I feel like the main ways to prevent the Geek Logical Fallacy are somewhat simple. First, you must be able to empathize with others. Second, is that you have to realize that intelligence and logic do not run the whole world and thus there are situations where they do not quite work out, or at least not alone.