by Shane Scott

The inaugural 21st Floor “Bad Argument Of The Week” award deservedly goes to Huffington Post columnist and self-styled expert on homeopathic medicine Dana Ullman for this gem in his most recent article for HuffPo:

“England’s Royal Family has been homeopathy’s strongest advocates, thereby confirming that this system of natural medicine is not some “new age” therapy.”

This is a ludicrous non-sequitur. The conclusion “[homeopathy] is not some ‘new age’ therapy” is completely unrelated to the evidence offered: “England’s Royal Family like it”. I’ve looked at his reasoning from the left and from the right. I’ve stood on my head and looked at it upside down. I’ve looked at it through both ends of a pair of binoculars. And I’ve looked at it through my third eye chakra. Still the two things refuse to fit. Just what is it, Dana, about the fact that Liz and her brood support homeopathy that proves it is not “new age” medicine? Even if homeopathy wasn’t “new age” bollocks (and Mr Ullman, with his history of attempting to shoehorn his bizarre interpretations of quantum mechanics into homoepathy’s repertoire of purported explanations, is certainly doing all he can to make it look like it is) Dana’s argument would still make no sense.

“My gran likes apples. Therefore apples are not biscuits.”

Ullman’s no stranger to the non-sequitur however. He has previously attempted to argue…..take a seat, here……that homeopathy is credible because atomic bombs work. The reasoning being along the lines of: atomic power relies on events at an enormously tiny scale, so why isn’t homeopathy valid too?

A microsecond’s analysis reveals this to be a preposterously stupid argument. Not least because it’s abundantly clear that just because things might exist in comparable dimensions doesn’t mean that they can be lent arbitrary properties from one another. There are pebbles in my garden about the same size and shape as potatoes, doesn’t mean I can whip up a nutritious topping for my shepherd’s pie with them.

So, congratulations Dana Ullman on being our first winner of “Bad Argument Of The Week”. The prize should you choose to accept it is a copy of “Logic: A Very Short Introduction” by Graham Priest. It’s sitting here on my desk, and if Mr Ullman would just like to furnish us with appropriate delivery details (e-mail: lesmondine@thetwentyfirstfloor.com ) it will be winging its way across the Atlantic to him by the end of the week.

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• Bad Argument of the Week XVII
• Bad Argument of the Week X
• Bad Argument of the Week XXV