Not even wrong

{{bronze}}[[File:Deepak Chopra.jpg|thumb|right|165px|If you look up "not even wrong" in the dictionary (or at least on RationalWiki), you will find [[Deepak Chopra]]'s face. Indeed, here it is.]]{{logicnav}}[[File:Jumanji.png|thumb|right|This. ([http://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/books/ Source])]]
{{cquote|That statement's not even [[Ignorance|ignorant]]. That statement is like ignorance resin. Like, if you just take all of the stupid and just cook it down, and then scrape just the pure ignorance. Like crystal "duh." It's like crystal "duh."|||Jon Stewart, ''The Daily Show'', referring to one such insane statement<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150925022053/http://www.cc.com/video-clips/k42ti0/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-democalypse-2016---fox-news-correspondent-auditions January 26, 2015 -- On the Iowa Freedom Caucus 2015]</ref>}}
{{cquote|If someone genuinely can't tell what the difference is here I struggle to understand how I could even begin to explain it to them. It's like if an adult came up to me and asked "Hey, what's the difference between a seagull and jealousy?" I would not know what part of that they were struggling with.|||Jay Exci<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TVSfHbpR6k Hasan Piker, Jinx, and the Issue of "Reaction" Content]</ref>}}
'''Not even wrong''' refers to any statement, [[argument]], or explanation that can be neither correct ''nor'' incorrect, because it fails to meet the criteria by which correctness and ''in''correctness are determined. As a more formal [[Logical fallacy|fallacy]], it refers to the fine art of generating an ostensibly "correct" conclusion, but from premises which are known to be wrong or inapplicable. In other words, an argument that is valid, but not sound. 

The phrase "not even wrong" describes any argument that purports to be scientific, but fails at some fundamental level, usually in that it contains a terminal logical fallacy or it cannot be [[Falsifiability|falsified]] by experiment, or cannot be used to make predictions about the natural world.

The phrase implies that not only is someone making an invalid point in a discussion, but also that they don't understand ''the nature of the discussion itself'', or the things that need to be understood in order to participate. In other words, a wrong answer is still worth analyzing, but an answer that has no analytical value at all is not even wrong.

==Origin==
{{cquote|What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.|||James Downey, ''Billy Madison''<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKjxFJfcrcA ''Of course'' it's on YouTube.]</ref>}}

The phrase apparently originates with physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who used the phrase (in the form "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!" — "That is not only not right, it is not even wrong!") to describe an unclear research paper. Pauli was known for his detestation of sloppy writing and arguments, and for his somewhat "colourful" objections to such things. The term has since gathered some popularity, particularly amongst those involved in refuting [[pseudoscience]], to reference the difficulties faced in dealing with some of the more out-of-this-world arguments. Examples include so-called [[creationist escape hatches]], which are a series of irrefutable (but equally unprovable) claims that defy correction with conventional [[logic]].<ref>[http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/sep/19/ideas.g2 ''The Guardian'': Not Even Wrong]</ref> It also applies to [[science stopper]]s.

==Form==
{{cquote|[[9/11 conspiracy theories|Jet fuel]] can't melt [[anti-vaccination movement|thimerosal]]!}}
A correct argument or explanation is easy to spot; it may look like this:<ref>https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-proof-of-2+2-4</ref>

{{Aquote|<math>2+2=4</math>|}}

A wrong argument has an incorrect conclusion, but is presented in such a way that we can evaluate it, like so:

{{Aquote|<math>2+2=22</math>|}}

The above two examples can be shown to be right and wrong; they at least make enough sense for us to spot where the error is, or the logic leading to the error. Something that is '''not even wrong''' is usually so far out of the ballpark or so far from [[reality]] that it is, quite simply, flabbergastingly irrelevant. For example:

{{Aquote|<math>2+\left(\frac{\text{Zebra}+\sqrt[\pi]{\text{Glockenspiel}}}{\text{A Suffusion of Yellow}}\right)^{\text{Quantum}}=\text{homeopathy works}!</math>|}}

This is far more than just an argument leading to a wrong conclusion. The premises aren't even related to the conclusion or are themselves completely nonsensical. In a way, a "not even wrong" argument is often an extreme ''[[non sequitur]]'' — such as by the homeopaths who claim that observations (later debunked as a measurement error by the scientists who made them in the first place) of neutrinos breaking the [[speed of light]] meant that all [[Science was wrong before|science was wrong]] and therefore homeopathy works. The premises, their arrangements, the conclusion, ''all'' are so divorced from facts and logic that even attempting to rationally engage with it gives it too much credit. Bad science or pseudoscience either can be refuted with known facts, or at least raises intelligible questions that can then be addressed; the most interesting question that ''not even wrong'' can raise is "[[Drugs|What is this person on?]]" and perhaps "Where can I get some, because it might help me make sense of this?"

Most commonly, not even wrong arguments arise because of a lack of understanding in the person making the argument. For instance, a [[conspiracy theorist]] talking about people slipping "ionised radio waves" into someone's coffee — no one who knows anything on the subject could even think of a way that only one or two small misconceptions could lead to that, it really is ''not even wrong''. Either through [[willful ignorance]], or at best by being out of date with current research, they don't know enough about the subject to know what is needed to form a sensible argument. This can be caused by the [[Dunning-Kruger effect]], where someone makes a not even wrong argument but lacks the meta-cognitive ability to recognize that they don't know enough even to make a wrong argument, never mind a right one.

"Not even wrong" applies especially when the premises of an argument are ''known'' to be false (based on observational evidence or similar), or when they are used to describe [[theories]] which cannot possibly be [[Falsifiability|falsifiable]] or provide meaningful predictions. For example, any physical theory based on the existence of the [[Luminiferous aether|aether]] would be classed as ''not even wrong''.<ref group=note>However, the current state of knowledge should be the context in which this judgement is made. {{wpl|Phlogiston}} theory was actually scientific in the context of 18th-century science, but anyone advancing it today would surely have (let's put this charitably) some rather large gaps in his/her understanding of thermodynamics.</ref> In this case, it is a type of informal [[logical fallacy]] (an error in the content of an argument) as using incorrect or non-applicable premises will always yield an incorrect answer. As the premises are ''wrong'', the conclusion is certainly incorrect, but the conclusion ''is'' at least correct based on said premises. The term "not even wrong" therefore describes this situation. The less strict usage of the fallacy to describe people who have no idea what they're talking about on any known level — whether it be [[Dewey Larson]]'s model of the atom or [[Gene Ray]]'s [[Time Cube|cubic time]] — is usually the manifestation of this in practice.

For a clear but silly example, one can say that "this chair is made of hard, solid wood, therefore I can sit on it". This is perfectly true, except in the case where the chair is made of jelly. The conclusion is correct based on the premise, but the premise is clearly not applicable. Therefore the conclusion is ''not even'' wrong.

==Examples==
{{cquote|1=It's as if someone announced his revolutionary discovery that P=NP implies N=1, and then critics soberly replied that, no, the equation P=NP can also be solved by P=0.|4=Scott Aaronson<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1028|title=Shtetl-Optimized: I was wrong about Joy Christian}}</ref> (explanation here<ref group=note>For those who aren't familiar with the context of the quote above, P and N are not arithmetical constants in a multiplication equation, but rather P and NP are the full names for two very important sets in computational theory, or {{wpl|P versus NP}}. ĤΨ = EΨ is another common equation to suffer from this for people viewing it for the first time. Basically, P = NP comes down to whether all problems with solutions that are quickly verifiable are also quickly solvable, such as "I have 100 numbers, can I add or subtract some of them to sum to 0?", a huge deal as computers are asked to analyze ever larger datasets.</ref>)}}

The webcomic ''[[xkcd]]'' parodied the idea by suggesting that someone thought they had managed to disprove special [[relativity]] using a "racecar on a train" [[thought experiment]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.xkcd.com/675/|title=xkcd 675}}</ref> The blog [[Science and Math Defeated]] seems to be the real personification of what this comic strip is about; however, no one is 100% sure if it is [[Poe's Law|real or not]].

Examples in real life often involve "[[Pseudoskepticism|skeptics]]" arguing with established scientists. In [[climategate]], for example, where a thousand e-mails from leading [[climate change]] researchers were hacked and released publicly, most critics seemed to not understand the basic meaning behind some of the emails (climate science and atmospheric [[chemistry]] are complex disciplines), instead preferring to [[quote mine]] a few emails out of context and misunderstanding the use of the word "trick". Climate [[science]] is one of the areas where "not even wrong" arguments are common, owing to the complexity of the system under study. 

"Not Even Wrong" can apply to the [[Lenski affair]], where [[conservative]] website owner [[Andrew Schlafly]] demanded that Professor [[Richard Lenski]] "[[release the data]]" on his long term evolution experiment. This stemmed from Schlafly's misinterpretation of the research paper in question (if indeed he actually read it – as Lenski himself observed, Schlafly almost certainly hadn't at the time of the e-mail exchange). The paper did in fact mention all the relevant data one would need to appraise the experiment. Schlafly's further criticisms regarding the statistics reported in the paper were certainly in the field of "not even wrong", owing to his complete misunderstanding of basic practice when applying statistics as well as ignorance of the computer programs used — confusing the professional software package ''Statistics 101'' with an amateur website.

A classic example from evolutionary biology is the oft-asked question "[[Why are there still monkeys?]]" Another would be [[Scott Huse]]'s belief that [[Theory of evolution|evolutionary theory]] means humans are descended from birds. Outside of evolutionary biology, another common example is the assertion that "[[Homophobia|God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!]]"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvVAV09-dQ8 These two girls] descend into so many layers of wrong that it becomes nigh impossible to see where their first level of wrong began.

Lei Shaowu, a famous Chinese "folk scientist" (a group of pseudo-science supporters who call orthodox science "official science" to create opposition), eliminated the differential symbol "d" of dv/dt as an unknown when he listed the acceleration algorithm. Later, in response to the controversy, he claimed that "acceleration motion has no differentials."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://antimony.fandom.com/zh/wiki/%E8%B6%85%E7%90%86%E6%96%87%E7%8C%AE:%E9%9B%B7%E8%AE%BA#%E7%BA%A6%22d%22|title=Antimony Wiki site (in Chinese)}}</ref>

==''Not Even Wrong'': The Book (and website)==
''Not Even Wrong'' is a book about [[String Theory]] by Professor Peter Woit of Columbia University's [[mathematics]] department.<ref>https://books.google.com/books/about/Not_Even_Wrong.html?id=pcJA3i0xKAUC</ref> He also has a blog of the same name.<ref>http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress</ref>

In the book, Woit also devotes a chapter to the [[Bogdanov affair]].<ref name="Woit2006">{{cite book |last=Woit |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Woit |title=Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law |chapter=The Bogdanov Affair |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pcJA3i0xKAUC&pg=PA213 |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |year=2006 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/213 213–220] |isbn=978-0-465-09275-8 |oclc=1035851234 |url=https://archive.org/details/notevenwrongfail00woit/page/213 }}</ref> The Bogdanoff twins had produced works of theoretical pseudophysics which they managed to get past [[peer review]], but which later faced greater critical scrutiny. "The Bogdanoffs' work is significantly more incoherent than just about anything else being published." according to Woit. "But the increasingly low standard of coherence in the whole field is what allowed them to think they were doing something sensible and to get it published."<ref name=Butler>[https://www.nature.com/articles/420005b.pdf Theses spark twin dilemma for physicists] Butler, Declan. ''Nature'', 2002.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Banana fallacy]]
*[[Peanut butter argument]]
*[[Crocoduck]]
*[[Fractal wrongness]]
*[[Non sequitur]]
*[[Time Cube]]
*[[Willful ignorance]]
*[[Wronger than wrong]]
*[[WOMBAT]]
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==Notes==
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==References==
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[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Formal fallacies]]
[[Category:Philosophy of science]]

Categories: Philosophy, Formal fallacies, Philosophy of science