Logical Fallacies, Taylor Hall And Edmonton Fans

In the comments section yesterday, Scott wrote:

I don’t think there’s any evidence to suggest Hall will develop better in the NHL than in the CHL (or vice versa). It’s time we all admit that’s an unknown.

Bruce responded:

I would accept GM after GM keeping the #1 overall up in the bigs each year as evidence that they all think he will develop better playing the big boys.

Now, I don't mean to pick on Bruce, because the same argument has been made repeatedly since Tyler breached the subject of sending Taylor Hall back to the OHL, but Bruce made the argument here and made the point stick out like a sore thumb.  The argument is a poor one.  This single sentence manages to invoke two logical fallacies in just thirty-one words.  Not only does the argument invoke an Apppeal to Authority - the previous general managers that have made this decision - it also invokes an Appeal to Antiquity - the notion that it's a good idea because it's always been that way.

The definition of an Appeal to Authority:

An appeal to authority is an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true.

Appeals to authority are always deductively fallacious; even a legitimate authority speaking on his area of expertise may affirm a falsehood, so no testimony of any authority is guaranteed to be true.

And the definition of an Appeal to Antiquity:

Appeals to antiquity assume that older ideas are better, that the fact that an idea has been around for a while implies that it is true. This, of course, is not the case; old ideas can be bad ideas, and new ideas can be good ideas. We therefore can’t learn anything about the truth of an idea just by considering how old it is.

Essentially what this means is the argument is not valid simply because an authority says so, or because it's been that way for awhile.  After the jump, I'll explore both.

First, let's explore the Appeal to Antiquity.  Below is a table containing the previous twenty-five first overall picks, the team that drafted each one, and the circumstances of that team at the time:

Of the previous twenty-four first round picks (Ovechkin's season was erased by the lockout), nine were made by expansion teams, five were made by teams struggling at the gate, and four were made by teams in financial distress.  Of the remaining six, one (Detroit - 1986) was made by a team coming out of what might be the worst period of play for any NHL team since expansion, and another (Tampa - 2008) was made by a group of mad hatters.

In the end, four of these picks (Toronto - 1985, Buffalo - 1987, Minnesota - 1988, Boston - 1997) were made by teams in comparable situations to the current Oilers. 

There is no long and rich history of a profitable, financially stable team with a five year run of sell-outs making first round picks.  Four picks were made by teams in similar, though not exact, situations.  The Appeal to Antiquity on it's face is a fallacy, and digging deeper, there is no historical record to call upon for support in this case.  If the Oilers were an expansion team, needed to be rescued from near-bankruptcy, or needed help in selling tickets, there would be better cases to make an argument with.  The fact is, the Oilers have the luxury of being in a position no team has been in since Boston in 1997.

Now onto the Appeal to Authority.  Below is a table containing the previous twenty-five first overall picks, the team that drafted each one, the GM tasked with making the decision, and how things turned out for that GM:

The previous twenty-five picks have been made by twenty different GMs.  We can discount George McPhee because the lockout prevented him from making a decision on Ovechkin.  Of the other nineteen, one (Garth Snow) still holds his job, nine of them were fired for what amounts to gross incompetence, two were fired after only one season, two were wildly successful but were fired for gross incompetence , and four can be considered successful (McNamara, Devellano, Meehan, Murray).

So once again, the Appeal to Authority is in and of itself a fallacy, and when the representative data is parsed, there is no basis to recognize that authoritative group as experts.

The Taylor Hall debate has been interesting, if mostly one-sided.  It's unfortunate that those believing Hall should stay in the NHL have argued the point so poorly to this point, but when someone relies on specious claims, logical fallacies and hypocritical litmus tests to prove a point, the argument is destined to be weak.