How NOT to explain things

In a previous post (“On metaphors, analogies, and rigid thinking”(April 20th, 2007) I wrote about the limitations inherent in metaphors. I stated that while metaphors can be helpful to introduce a concept we do people a disservice in leaving them with the metaphor and not moving on to a more rigid understanding of the concept or principle under consideration. I wrote that when teaching a concept or principle we should avoid the trap of providing anthropomorphic, normative, and teleological explications—all of which lead to “fuzzy” thinking or confuse cause with reason.

My friend Bill asked that I provide examples of those three categories of explications we should avoid. Avoiding these three traps is most important when teaching principles (or what are called “Law-like statements” or “Law-like principles”). It’s easy to fall into these traps because principles, by nature, are causal.

Here are the three types of explications to avoid:

Anthropomorphic explications happen when we attribute human characteristics as an explanation for cause or as a reason. The classic example goes like, this:

Teacher: “Why do wind-pollinated plants produce more pollen than insect-pollinated plants?”

Student: “Because they need to produce more pollen, since the wind wastes so much of their pollen.”

In that example the student has attributed anthropomorphic characteristics (purpose, intent, will, agency) to a plant as an explanation for cause. Which means the student really does not understand the concept of pollination, much less the characteristics of plant life. Or, for example, when people use the phrase, “The Bible says….” they are attributing a human characteristic to a book or a text. As holy as Scripture is, it’s not magical nor personable.

Teleological explications is when objectives, outcomes, or purposes are used as explanation for cause. Simply put, it’s when we cite the effect of something as the cause. For example, if we ask, “Why do we sweat?” most people will answer, “Because it cools the body.” But cooling the body is the effect, not the cause. In terms of faith there are all sorts of unfortunate examples of this, many related to Christian behavior. The most blatant being, “Why should we be good?” Answer: “So we’ll go to heaven.” (positive). Or, “Why should we not sin?” Answer: “So we won’t go to hell.” (negative). Yikes!

Normative explications can be more confusing, but the fundamental error is the same. This is when we site a “rule” as the explanation for the cause (again, confusing reason with cause). The most blatant may be, “Why should we ________ (fill in the blank for any behavior)?” Answer: “Because God said so.” Or, for a double whammy: “Because the Bible says so” (anthropological and normative). Parents, of course, are often most guilty of perpetuating this rationale when the child asks, “Why?” and the exasperated parent replies, “Because I said so” (normative authority rule). The problem is that the rule is not the cause. To claim justification by saying “Because everybody does it” as normative behavior is not to address the cause for why everybody does it.

(It took me years to figure out that the cause for why I was never able to learn grammar or higher algebra in school is that when I asked my teachers for an explanation as to “why” they never did—instead they gave me the normative explication (“The rule is…”) without being able to explain WHY the rule is necessary. Like so many kids my brain could not accept “the rule” without grasping the reasons behind WHY the rule is necessary. But, I rant…).

“Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.”