Logical Fallacies in Finishing

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“I’m tired of working for Hitler! “Someone poisoned my diet soda!” “That machine tender thinks they know how to rack parts on the line but they’re just a temporary employee!”

Recognizing and labeling logical fallacies is an effective tool when debating the merits of an action or decision in a finishing organization and it can even be a bit entertaining to see the puzzled look on the face of a counterparty when one does so. For instance, saying to someone, “I’m not going to insult myself by responding to that argument ad hominem” often leaves the person on the other side of the table momentarily bewildered.

There are more than 100 different logical fallacies. Let’s explore a few and consider examples of how they manifest themselves in the world of surface finishing, beginning with the ad hominem one referenced above.

Ad hominem is an argument against the person, an example of which was used to initiate this edition of “Never Finished”. “That machine tender thinks they know how to rack parts on the line, but they’re just a temporary employee.”

Reductio ad Hitlerum sounds like a spell that Harry Potter would use, but it’s actually an attempt to compare a person or policy to Hitler. I witnessed a real-world example when a maintenance lead said, in reference to his supervisor, that he was tired of working for Hitler.

A circular argument restates the initial argument instead of proving the first one. “That machine operator is never on time for work because they’re not punctual.”

The tu quoque fallacy is an argument that answers criticism with criticism in an attempt to insinuate hypocrisy on the part of another. For example, a supervisor instructs a quality inspector to pay better attention to detail when performing the final inspection of a finished part and the inspector responds, “Yeah, well Steve’s a machine operator who doesn’t pay attention to the work instructions and you never say anything to him!” As if the latter behavior justifies the former.

I saw the straw man fallacy, one that attempts to exaggerate the position of a counter party to the extreme, used time and again when negotiating labor contracts with union leaders. “You won’t give our members a 20% raise because you’re greedy and couldn’t care less about your employees.”

The slippery slope fallacy occurs when an individual asserts an example that leads to another example and so on until they arrive at a major outcome, often a disastrous one. “If we raise the price on a part we coat for our largest customer, they’ll get angry and ask Finisher X to quote it and if their price is less, they’ll move the part to Finisher X and ask them to quote the rest of their work and then they’ll move all of their work and we’ll go out of business!”

A hasty generalization is when one rushes to judgment with limited information or facts. I witnessed a real-world example of a hasty generalization when one of our supervisors felt dizzy not long after taking a sip from his soda can and asserted that one of his team members poisoned his drink.

One hears the sunk cost fallacy quite often in the world of finishing. “That new rack design isn’t producing quality parts but we spent so much money on it that we should just keep using it.”

Likely we have all heard the ad populum fallacy, also called bandwagon appeal fallacy called out by our mothers. “But mom, everyone is going to the party on Friday night!” “Well, if everyone jumped off a cliff…” An example of this one I hear at least once a year is, “Matt, nobody wears a suit and tie in manufacturing anymore.”

The genetic fallacy occurs when someone makes an assertion as to the validity of a claim, or lack thereof, based on its origin. “You say we should attract more women to manufacturing, but you’re only saying that because you’re a woman.”

The causal fallacy assigns causation of one situation to another unrelated situation. “Last month, we ran out of peanut M&Ms in the vending machine and our on-time delivery dropped 10%, therefore to increase our on-time delivery, we must make sure the machine is properly stocked with peanut M&Ms.”

The next time you hear a logical fallacy offered up, be prepared to call it out. If anyone asks why you’re doing so, just tell them you read in “Never Finished” that you were supposed to and, therefore, it must be a good idea. That, by the way, is an example of the appeal to authority fallacy.