Black & White Thinking
An informal fallacy where two options or an “either/or” situation is presented when more possibilities exist. This fallacy is ostensibly logical, but, on closer evaluation, it becomes clear that it is actually sophistry as there exist more than the two possibilities that were presented. This type of thinking obfuscates the nuances that accompany most situations in life. That is, in general, life is quite complex and to reduce it to two options (often extremes), is lazy thinking.
It is important to note that this may or may not be intentional. Often times, people are subconsciously lazy with their thinking and reasoning in binaries is easier than engaging one's metacognition in order to reveal the full details of the situation. It is up to you to dig a little deeper to reveal the intentions of the other person as it's possible that they're just being careless or they may indeed be doing it deliberately with insidious intent.
Further note, this fallacy is also known as the following:
Bifurcation
Either/Or Fallacy
False Dichotomy
False Dilemma
Logical Form
Either A or B is true.
In reality, there's additional options beyond the two presented.
Image source here
Examples
The following abbreviations are used in the examples below:
PN = The Nth premise for N = 1,2,3,…. (e.g., P1 is the first premise, P2 is the second premise, etc.)
C = Conclusion
1) In today's super-heated political atmosphere, which sadly appears to be primarily driven by the endless controversy surrounding the President, people are more polarized than ever. As a result, people tend to categorize individuals as either liberal or conservative where liberals tend to identify as Democrats and conservatives as Republicans.
Explanation: The reality of the situation is that most people have a mixed political philosophy. That is, they're far more complicated than the liberal or conservative label that we readily assign to them. What is more, what ever happened to the independents (i.e., the individuals who don't espouse a particular party or vote based off of policies versus party loyalty)? I can tell you that they still very much exist and that both parties are furiously working for their support on any given election. While it is easier to just assign a “liberal” or “conservative” label to someone, try digging a little deeper and I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that you have more in common with the other person than your initial binary thinking lead you to believe.
2) As an individual who used to be heavily involved with the anti-vaccination community, I often encountered pro-vaccination individuals automatically labeling us as conspiracy theorists. In other words, you were either pro-science and vaccinated or you were an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist as if there was nothing more to our story.
Explanation: Now, as you should know, vaccines are safe, effective, and are our best defense against certain infectious diseases and even some cancers. What is more, we know this through comprehensive scientific investigation over decades [1]. And no, there isn't some massive conspiracy between the world's scientists and Governments to poison your children or “cull the herd.”
Now that we have that out of the way, we can get back to discussing why this type of thinking, while justified to a degree (i.e., to choose not to vaccinate, given all the scientific evidence, is wholly irresponsible), isn't quite right. The error comes from choosing to ignore the complexities of why people choose not to vaccinate. Not all of the individuals who chose not to vaccinate are illuminati-the world is run by lizard people-conspiracy theorists. Are there people like this? Absolutely, but a number were people who believed that they were injured by a vaccine (i.e., the “ex-vaxxers”), they wanted to make the best health choices for their family but were confused by what they were reading on the internet, or had fallen under the spell of some ostensibly credible charlatan (i.e., an MD, PhD, etc.) who had convinced them that vaccines caused autism, etc.
As you can see, people who are vaccine-hesitant, anti-vaxx, or ex-vaxx, etc. come in a variety of flavors and if we ever have any hopes of changing their minds to align with the scientific evidence, we must first acknowledge why it is that they've chosen this position in the first place. Simply labeling them as conspiracy theorists and brushing them to the side will do nothing to change anyone's mind.
3) One of the positions that I often encountered during the anti/skeptical-GMO period of my life was in regards to statements surrounding Monsanto. In particular, there was a tendency to automatically couple Monsanto’s business practices with the integrity of the science surrounding GMO foods. However, this time, instead of coming from the science community, it was coming from the anti-GMO crowd.
Explanation: As I entered the tail end of the anti-GMO phase of my life, I began to realize that you can still be pro-science/GMO and disagree with Monsanto's business practices. That is, you can acknowledge the decades of scientific inquiry surrounding GMO foods and their safety while simultaneously acknowledging that their business practices are open for criticism. Prior to this revelation, I had always taken the position that what I viewed as rapacious business practices somehow polluted all of the science related to GMOs. Now, I might have a chance at a good argument here if all of the science came from Monsanto or other agriculture industry giants, but this simply isn't the case. The current consensus on GMO safety compiles studies that come from all corners of the world from every scientific avenue possible [2].
Ultimately, my initial binary thinking of an individual's position on this having to be either anti-GMO while tacitly censuring Monsanto's business practices or you're pro-GMO while tacitly approving of Monsanto's business practices did not allow for nuance. This nuance is incredibly important in this situation because if you can find some common ground with anti-GMO individuals over business practices*, you may have a chance of changing their minds regarding the science.
*Note, you may agree with their business practices, which is your prerogative. The point I'm trying to illuminate here is that science should be separated from business practices and it's okay to disagree over the business practices surrounding the product generated through science if you feel as though there is criticism to be had.
4) You will often find science deniers exploiting the concept of “proof” when it comes to the scientific method. The argument will go something like this:
P1: Only 97% of the world's scientists agree that humans are causing global warming, which means that there are still 3% who disagree.
P2: Because the agreement is not 100%, human-caused global warming remains unproven.
C: Therefore, we cannot say for sure whether or not humans are really causing global warming.
This script is used repeatedly by deniers to sow doubt in whatever area of science they please. A more generic script that could be applied to any area of science would look something like this:
P1: Only [insert percentage of world's scientists who agree here] agree that [insert scientific topic of interest here], which indicates that [insert percentage of dissenting scientists here] disagree.
P2: [insert scientific topic of interest here] remains unproven because all of the scientists clearly don't agree.
C: Therefore, we cannot say for sure whether [insert scientific topic of interest here] is true or not.
Explanation: Within science, the concept of “proof” does not exist in the same sense as it does in mathematics or logic. When you say that something is “proved” within math or logic, it can be taken as immutable, but in science, this isn't the case. Science can be viewed as a method that helps us to asymptotically approach objective truth (i.e., something that is absolute), but we can never claim to know anything with 100% certainty*. Hence the reason why “prove” is verboten within science and the phrase “scientific proof” or “science has proven x,y, or z” is not technically correct to use. All that said, science is the best instrument that we have for distilling truths about our world (i.e., it helps us to be less wrong about the world around us) and the best decisions can only be made when we acknowledge the best available evidence that is being provided to us by the scientific method [3].
*While it would be irresponsible to claim 100% certainty, we can, however, make claims vanishingly close to it. This is an example where a hypothesis becomes a scientific fact as it is firmly supported by volumes of evidence (e.g., anthropogenic global warming).
Conclusions
As you can see, black-and-white thinking can get you into trouble if you’re not careful. Separating a situation into just two camps (often extremes) glosses over the spectrum that resides in the space between. If you are confronted with this fallacious way of thinking, it is important to remember that it renders the argument bad and should be rejected as the world is far more nuanced than compartmentalizing it into just two options. What is more, if you find yourself engaging in this type of thinking, as a Critical Thinker, you must dig deeper, uncover the distinctions, and structure a good argument from there.
References
[3] Siegel, Ethan. Scientific Proof is a Myth. Forbes. November 2017.