Of all the nonsense I've seen, this is one of my favourites.
The MaM argument goes like this.
Premise One: Mammals are animals with mammory glands.
Premise Two: Males don't have mammory glands.
Conclusion: Therefore, males aren't mammals.
Each premise is based on a misunderstanding. If a conclusion rests on even one faulty premise, the conclusion is likewise faulty. Even altering the premises can't eliminate these barriers.
The MaM argument goes like this.
Premise One: Mammals are animals with mammory glands.
Premise Two: Males don't have mammory glands.
Conclusion: Therefore, males aren't mammals.
Each premise is based on a misunderstanding. If a conclusion rests on even one faulty premise, the conclusion is likewise faulty. Even altering the premises can't eliminate these barriers.
Problem with Premise One
A mammal is a species with mammory glands, not an individual animal with mammory glands. Hence the first premise of the MaM Argument is inaccurate.
Animals of the same species are more closely related to each other than to individuals outside their species. So dogs are more related to other dogs than they are to cats or peafowl.
Mammals belong to the class Mammalia, meaning that mammals are more related to other mammals than to other animal classes. For example, dogs to cats (both Mammalia) than dogs to peafowl (Aves).
If two individuals are part of the same species, by necessity they are part of the same order. Thus if the female of the species is a mammal, then their male counterparts are likewise mammals. Male dogs are mammals, just like female dogs.
Problem with Premise Two
The second premise states males don't have mammory glands. After all, it's female individuals that feed babies with milk, not males.
However, male mammals do have mammory glands. They're rudimentary, sure, but they're still there.
So if males have mammory glands, then saying 'males aren't mammals because they don't have mammory glands' is clearly insufficient.
Hence, even if we follow the premises of the MaM argument (that mammory glands equals mammal), the argument's conclusion (that males aren't mammals) is still wrong!
Premise Two with Alterations
To fix the problems with Premise Two, some modify it to 'Males don't have functional mammory glands'.
However, under specific conditions, male mammory glands are capable of producing milk. This would create a problem, in that males with functioning mammory glands are mammals whereas other males are not.
In the same way that some male mammory glands are functional, some female mammory glands aren't functional. But this doesn't mean that these female animals aren't mammals.
Nor does that mean female individuals are only mammals once they reach sexual maturity. (That is, at the point their mammory glands develop into functioning milk-producers.)
Adjusting the argument to 'don't have functioning mammory glands' creates multiple new issues without solving the initial one!
Logic
For an argument to be convincing, it needs two factors: truth and logic.
So, what is logic? Logic is about the structure of the argument, i.e. relationship between the premises and the conclusion.
Even hypothetically, if the premises of an argument are correct, then the conclusion would have to be correct by necessity. The conclusion couldn't not be correct.
The conclusion drawn from the MaM premises is the only one possible. Hence the MaM Argument is logical (despite the initial premises being false).
Conclusion
Is the MaM Argument persuasive?
As previously stated, considering both premises of the MaM are false, the conclusion is likewise false. However, the MaM is a logical argument. Credit where it's due.
Yet as the argument lacks both truth and logic together, it is not a good, sensible or convincing argument. As such, the MaM Argument is not persuasive.
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