The Fallacy of the Golden Mean

2009 July 12

By Matt

“When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong.”

-Richard Dawkins

This is another one of my boring thinking-related posts which I know everyone loves so much. This time I want to talk about the fallacy of moderation, more commonly known as the Golden Mean. This comes about when you have two competing, and seemingly equal, points of view. Take for example the on-going “argument” between creationism and evolution, or Flat Earthers and people that pay attention.

In these cases, you have two opposing viewpoints that are both very charged. So how do you decide which one is correct? The fallacy of the Golden Mean assumes that the correct answer is the middle ground, compromising between the two viewpoints.

Now, I do have to stress that sometimes the middle ground or compromise is the correct answer. The fallacy arises when you assume that the middle ground is correct simply because it’s the middle ground. As I like to stress, the problem is not the answer – it’s the way you arrived at the answer.

As always, we can spin this concept to apply to the fitness industry. Take, for example, someone that’s demonstrably out of his or her league. This isn’t hard, the fitness industry is full of these – people that have been lifting weights for a year or two, post on Internet forums, and spend some money on marketing and putting up a blog.

For what reason I don’t know, these folks like to declare themselves Fitness Experts. It’s part of the marketing shtick, I get that. You have to exude authority to be taken seriously as an authority. The thing about being an expert, however, is that you have to actually demonstrate a reasonable command of your subject matter.

It’s always been taken for granted by many (most?) that someone in a position of authority is knowledgeable. That’s no longer the case. Ubiquitous blogging tools and social networking platforms have removed the correspondence between competence and (perceived) authority within online circles.

I’ve touched on all this and more before, of course, but it seems to bear repeating. It’s fine and dandy to be a technician, to go out and train clients and get results. I’d hope you have results to show from that, mind you, but if you do, then you’re doing just fine. It’s another thing entirely to talk about science as an authority when you make errors in physics and biology that a first-year university student wouldn’t make.

Which leads me back to the original point.

The Golden Mean fallacy would have you believe that any two competing viewpoints are equally valid, and thus the “true answer” must lie in between the two. This can be the case in some instances, which is why this isn’t automatically wrong; the fallacy lies in assuming that the middle ground must be correct.

If your guru is claiming impressive knowledge of some field or another, yet makes glaring mistakes with the underlying science, I’d seriously want to question that person’s competence. If you can’t grasp basic things like laws of motion or heat/entropy, you’ve got no business discussing more complex topics. And make no mistake, this is something I have to watch out for myself. I actually did take and pass the basic science courses (bio, chem, physics) while I was getting my degree, but I’m the first to admit my knowledge beyond that is purely recreational – which is to say, I get it, but if somebody better educated comes along and says I’m wrong on some detail or another, I defer.

Science is not a matter of competing viewpoints. In those instances, someone can be demonstrably wrong. So you’ve got an expert that says X and another expert saying Y. Both are authorities, right? Which is correct?

The take-home for you here is that the middle ground is not always the right answer. If X or Y can be shown that he or she doesn’t have a grasp on the subject, then he or she might just be wrong. I know, the horrors! But it’s true. When you’re determining authority on a subject matter, competence and demonstrable knowledge is what matters, not being fair.