Henderson's Shady Syllogism

Writing opinion pieces on a regular basis must get difficult. Just imagine: the drum you continually beat only plays one political tune and regardless of the topic under discussion you’ve got to ensure you get a few good thumps in. I’m convinced Henderson’s conservative drum is used by the Sydney Morning Herald to rile up left-leaning readers like myself and make sure the letters’ page never runs dry.

To keep my blood pressure low over breakfast I usually ignore his articles but I had to laugh at the following totally unconvincing arguments he put forward to warn us of how “intellectual life in Australia is dominated by the left wing”.

Exhibit A:

As the 2006 Lowy Institute poll showed, 42 per cent of Australians regard the alliance as “very important” to security. Twenty-eight per cent regard it as “fairly important”, with 22 per cent believing it is “somewhat important”.

This leaves just under 10 per cent maintaining that the alliance is “not at all important” - about the vote of the Greens.

Henderson is trying to suggest that the Greens voters are entirely responsible for the “not at all important” responses in the Lowy Institutes’ poll. Those dastardly Greens, why oh why do they hate America so?

Of course, to be convinced by Henderson’s suggestion you must believe the following syllogism “10% of X is A, 10% of X is B, therefore B causes A”. To see through this nonsense you can simply substitute the phrase “about the vote of the Greens” for any other group that makes up around 10% of the population, say left-handed males or female Anglicans.

He goes on to scare us of the potential dangers of losing the new centre to the lefties in Exhibit B:

The evidence suggests opposition to the alliance is significantly higher among academics, artists, commentators and professionals than it is within the general population. Yet it will be from this group the centre will recruit its staff.

Good point, Gerard. To make sure that we do not inadvertently hire applicants for a US Studies Centre from a pool of people with anti-American sentiments we should disallow people from all those groups you just mentioned. We especially don’t want those pesky academics and professionals as staff in a $25 million centre that hosted by a university. Best ensure we only hire unprofessional lay-people instead.

Perhaps that’s the recruitment policy Henderson uses at his own think tank?