You're saying that the specific manner of giving birth to a child you carry in a womb in your own body over 9 months that is of your own genetic makeup is "arbitrary," despite the fact that this is the exclusive mechanism of human procreation up until recent history.
Yes. If you're asserting that "giving birth to a child you carry in a womb in your own body over 9 months" is somehow inherently preferable or special compared to any other form of child rearing, your argument that "this is the exclusive mechanism of human procreation up until recent history" is an argumentum ad antiquitatem and/or argumentum ad naturam fallacy.
I am not making the argument that natural childbirth is a superior form of childbirth, nor ought it be preferred in all cases because it is the way things work normally.
I am making the argument that saying that that particular form of procreation is 'arbitrary' is ridiculous. It's clearly not arbitrary: it is the way healthy, normal humans have children, and is the form of childbirth that was selected by evolution. That may or may not mean that it should be preferred by couples (though in reality, it certainly seems to be) but that's a far cry from saying there is nothing particularly unique about it.
Of course, by assuming it is an arbitrary form of childbirth, which it's not, you fall into the trap of claiming that it should not be given undue weight for couples looking to have children. I'd argue that the burden of proof is on you to show this to be the case, since after all, you are (most likely) living, breathing proof of the multi-generational long term effectiveness of this method.
edit: Also, as an aside, your citation of an appeal to nature logical fallacy is only relevant if the argument being made is that something is inherently good because it is natural, full stop. When it comes to something like procreation, you can clearly make the argument that humanity itself is an existence proof of the effectiveness of that natural mechanism, therefore for that particular case (or really, any case where evolutionary pressure has resulted in a objectively effective solution to a problem) that logical fallacy does not seem to apply.
A meta observation: naming someone's logical fallacies seems to be positively correlated with being wrong and/or arrogant, and generally tends to derail discussions quickly.
The failure mode Eliezer used to write about[0] seems to be true - in many, learning about logical fallacies tends to induce dysrationalia. Instead thinking about what other side says, one can just pattern-match anything they disagree with to a fallacy and cry foul.
> Way to slam me without really addressing anything I said. You managed to say I was wrong and attack my character in one fell swoop!
I was trying to make a meta-point; I used your comment as an anchor. After re-reading my post I realize it might come off condescending and personal, I sincerely apologize. I stand by my meta-point though, i.e. most of the comments I see that enumerate logical fallacies are written as a way to implicitly attack the other commenter (I admit that my previous comment did exactly this to you), and are also often wrong.
As for addressing what you said: my belief is that the argumentum ad naturam here is justified given how the "natural" child bearing and birth processes are strongly tied to body chemistry, as well as being important in our culture since forever. It's not inherently special in an ontological way, but we are hard-wired to prefer it.
> Is there anything wrong with this? People should probably try not to argue anything that is obviously a fallacy.
Yes, because a/ just because something is a logical fallacy, doesn't mean it's wrong (see: fallacy fallacy, aka. argumentum ad logicam) and b/ you can pattern-match anything to some fallacy if you try hard enough, which people often do (one common failure mode is forgetting that all fallacies are defined with additional conditions that must be met; if those conditions are not satisfied, then the very same sentence becomes a perfectly valid argument).
> It's not inherently special in an ontological way, but we are hard-wired to prefer it.
I agree with you. However, being hard-wired for something doesn't make it right. One might argue humans are hard-wired for war, rape, etc.
>Yes, because a/ just because something is a logical fallacy, doesn't mean it's wrong (see: fallacy fallacy, aka. argumentum ad logicam)
An argument being a fallacy does mean it's wrong. However, it doesn't mean the conclusion is wrong. The fallacy fallacy is as follows:
A proves B → B (this is true)
¬(A proves B) → ¬B (this is the fallacy)
All the fallacy fallacy says is that "Just because an argument is fallacious doesn't mean that its conclusion is wrong".
It may well be true that "natural" births are better for some reason. I was simply saying that gfodor's explanation for why this might be the case is wrong.
I would suggest considering that rationality is not how people work and that it's easy for professing surprise when people don't happen to be rational to come off as a lil' bit douchey.
The counterargument is of course that transplants and immunosuppressant drugs are also artificial, and even more recent. Also, adoption has always been possible. I guess the main point is that it feels closest to the natural method.
