Title: The Dread Tomato Addiction
Author: Mark Clifton
Originally Published: 02-1958
Periodical: Astounding
Classification: A Logical Fallacy using statistical reasoning written in the form of a scientific article.
COMMENTARY by Brad Wardle:
This short story written by Mark Clifton illustrates how statistics (data) can be mis-interpreted to invoke a logical but incorrect conclusion.
When taken in absolutes, the statistics lead you to conclude a logical, but unsound conclusion otherwise known as a “Fallacy1” or Logical Fallacy, or in layman’s terms: A Dishonest Argument forcing incorrect conclusions.
I received this article in journalism class about 8th grade and have cherished its play on statistics and words ever since.
I never dreamed I’d see this type of logical fallacy used to skew major truths in my lifetime.
I post it here as an example of the damage that can be done by selectively endorsing some data and omitting other relevant data to the set because you are in a position of authority and suppose that you can without prejudice or reprisal.
It is painfully obvious that this has now become the tactic today for many government officials, sudo officials, media and institutes of higher learning to get what they want, support, protect, or to promote an ideology of their choosing, despite the illogical consequences and damage done to others by omitting empirical, conclusional data from the argument.
The tactic of omitting empirical conclusional data or falsifying data to bolster a skewed ideology for purposes of deceit and/or tyranny is commonly known as PROPOGANDA.
This parody on statistics illustrates how using an incomplete “limited” set of even true statistics can lead a person to the wrong conclusion and outcome, by fallacy1.
NOTE: the original in-story dates were adjusted and highlights added.
THE DREAD TOMATO ADDICTION, by Mark Clifton -1958
92.4% of juvenile delinquents have eaten tomatoes.
87.1% of the adult criminals in penitentiaries throughout the United States have eaten tomatoes.
Informers reliably inform that of all known American communists, 92.3% have eaten tomatoes.
84% of all people killed in automobile accidents during the year 2006 had eaten tomatoes.
Those who object to singling out specific groups for statistical proofs require measurement within a total.
Of those people born before the year 1850, regardless of race, color, or creed and known to have eaten tomatoes, there has been 100% mortality!
In spite of their dread addiction, a few tomato eaters born between 1920 and 1940 still manage to survive, but the clinical picture is poor — their bones are brittle, their movements feeble, their skin seamed and wrinkled, their eyesight failing, hair falling, and frequently they have lost all their teeth.
Those born between 1940 and 1970 number somewhat more survivors, but the overt signs of the addiction’s dread effects differ not in kind, but only in degree of deterioration.
Prognostication is not hopeful.
Exhaustive experiment shows that when tomatoes are withheld from an addict, invariably his cravings will cause him to turn to substitutes — such as oranges, or steak and potatoes. If both tomatoes and all substitutes are persistently withheld, death invariably results within a short time!
The skeptic of apocryphal statistics, or the stubborn non-conformist who will not accept the clearly proved conclusions of others, may conduct his own experiment.
Obtain two dozen tomatoes — they may actually be purchased within a block of some high schools, or discovered growing in a respected neighbors back yard!
Crush them to a pulp in exactly the state they would have if introduced into the stomach, pour the vile juice and pulp into a bowl, and place a goldfish therein.
Within minutes the goldfish will be dead!
Those who argue that what affects a goldfish might not apply to a human being may, at their own choice, wish to conduct a direct experiment by fully immersing a live human head into the mixture for a full five minutes…
1 fal·la·cy
/ˈfaləsē/
noun
a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.
–Definition from Oxford Languages