Transcript Logical Fallacies

Logical Fallacies
Argumentum Ad Hominem
• Attacking the person’s character or personal traits rather than
the argument at hand
• Rejecting a claim based on the person defending it
Anecdotal
• Using a personal example or
isolated experience instead of
concrete evidence
• May also occur when refuting
statistics with personal stories and
isolated incidents
Appeal to Authority
• Not meant to dismiss the
claims of experts
• Stating claims as true simply
because an authority on the
subject is in agreement
Appeal to Emotion
• Manipulating emotion (fear, pity, pride, and more) to win an
argument
• Argument lacks logic and factual evidence
Appeal to Nature
• Argument based on the concept that something is good because
it is “natural” or bad because it is “unnatural”
• Nature decides what is right/good
Bandwagon
• Appealing to popularity of
belief/choice or the fact that
many people agree with claim x
• Also called “appeal to the
masses”
• Offers the threat of rejection
(relies on peer pressure)
Begging the Question
• Claim includes the assumption the conclusion is true
• Also called “circular reasoning”
Black or White
• Presenting only two alternatives where more exist
• Also called “either-or fallacy” or “false dilemma”
• Over-simplifies an argument and narrows options
Burden of Proof
• Saying the burden of proof lies on someone else to disprove the
claim
• Essentially “guilty until proven innocent”
The Fallacy Fallacy
• Inferring that a conclusion cannot be true because the argument
constructed contains one or more fallacies
• Also called argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic)
Invalid Conclusion
• In a syllogism a fallacy whereby the major premise and minor
premise do not add up to the conclusion
• Or where fallacies exist within the premise(s)
Personal Incredulity
• The premise that because something is difficult to understand,
or you are unaware of how it works, it is not true
Slippery Slope
• Presuming one event will
inevitably follow another
without rational proof as
to why
• Post Hoc is a related
fallacy where it is
assumed that A causes B,
simply because A
happens before B.
Strawman
• Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier to attack
• Similar to the cliché metaphor of “putting words in someone’s
mouth”
The Texas Sharpshooter
• Also called “clustering illusion”
• Ignoring differences in data and focusing solely on similarities
• Inserts meaning into randomness
Tu Quoque
• Also called the “appeal to hypocrisy”
• Tries to discredit an opponents argument by stating they have
not consistently behaved in accordance with their conclusions