Logical Fallacies Review

Appeal to Pity/Ad Misericordiam

• Justifying an argument by evoking feelings of pity and guilt; gain feelings of sympathy instead of making a relevant claim or address important part of an argument

• Flaw; relevance

• Ex:

Ad Hominem

• Attacking the speaker instead of their argument; focusing on the person who said it

• Flaw: relevance

• Distracts from the argument and shifts to person

• Ex: “Austin Palmer, creator of modern cursive, was a horrible person, therefore handwriting is bad”

Tu Quoque

• A fallacy that defends an accusation by turning it back on the accuser; arguing that the accuser is guilty of the same issue

• Ignores the root of the issue because it focuses on the accuser rather than the argument

• Flaw: relevance

• Distracts from the original argument by shifting focus back to the accuser's behavior.

• Ex: Person A: “Smoking is unhealthy!” Person B: “You’ve smoked for 10 years, you can’t say anothing about this!”

Slippery Slope

• Slippery slopes occur when a person asserts that a relatively small step will lead to a chain of events that results in a drastic change.

• This fallacy suggests that a minor action will lead to severe and often disastrous consequences without providing sufficient evidence for such a claim.

• Flaw: sufficiency

• Shows exaggerated events or consequences w/o enough evidence

• Ex: “A member of parliament says that if they were to allow for a lower voting age to 17, then 16 year olds would start insisting on the right to vote! ‘If we lower it to 17, why not 16? Before long, babies will be voting!’”

Post Hoc/False Cause and Effect

• False cause and effect — incorrectly states that one event has caused another. The events may seem kind of related, but the relationship is not a cause and effect.

• This fallacy assumes that because one event follows another, the first event must be the cause of the second

• Flaw: relevance and sufficency

• Ignores other factors or coincidences that could lead to the outcome (just bc an event occurred before doesn’t mean it was caused by it)

• Ex: “On the morning after it rained, George discovered that his bicycle tires were flat. ‘The rain must have flattened them,’ he concluded”

Circular Reasoning/Begging the Question

Circular reasoning is restating an opinion or conclusion in different words and trying to pass it off as a reason or as evidence.

• Flaw: sufficiency

• No actual proof

• Ex: “Jessica is the smartest girl in school because she is the most intelligent”

Straw Man

A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person’s argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it, and then attacks the distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making. (twisting words)

• By distorting it, makes the argument weaker

• Flaw: relevancy

• Ex: “One person says ‘I like Chinese more than Pizza’, and the respondent says ‘Well, you must hate Pizza’”

False Authority

• Fallacy where someone asserts a claim based on the opinion of an unrelated authority figure who says its true

• Flaw: relevancy

• Misleading because the authority is not qualified in the field/lacks expertise

• Ex: “My favorite actor says this diet is good, so it must be true!”

Appeal to Tradition

• Argument rests entirely on the fact that an idea has been accepted by a group of people for a long period of time

• Flaw: Sufficiency

• Old=good

• Opposite is appeal to novelty

• Ex: “Since we’ve used this method for years, it’s the best one and we should therefore continue using it.”

Red Herring

• When a person raises an irrelevant side issue to divert from a current issue; distracts/misleads from relevant or important qustion

• Flaw: relevancy

• Makes argument easier to refute

• Ex: A police officer pulls a car over for speeding. The driver complains, saying that they shouldn’t pay a fine since there are so many dangerous criminals out there and the police should be chasing them instead.

Appeal to/from Ignorance

• Argument that your conclusion must be true it hasn’t been proven to be FALSE

• Flaw: sufficiency

• Ex: "Since no one has proven that ghosts don't exist, they must exist."
  

Ad Populum/Bandwagon

• Appeal to common belief/masses, just because everyone else does it, it MUST be right

• Flaw: relevance

• Popularity=true/good

• Ex: Since everyone in my class isn’t learning handwriting, I shouldn’t learn handwriting too!

Either/Or, False Dilemma

• Argument provides two extremes and makes the point that the person has to pick only between those two choices (when there are many options/nuances)

• Lacks sufficiency

• Ex: You’re either a Republican or Democrat! (you could be independent, be just left/right leaning, be part of a smaller party, etc)

Weak Analogy/False Analogy

• False analogy or comparison that is created due to some similarities, but these similarities are not strong or relevant enough to create this conclusion (notable differences between them!)

• Oversimplifies the argument

• Flaw: relevancy or just completely false

• Ex: "Guns are like hammers – they're both tools with metal parts that could be used to harm someone." —- While both are tools and can be used to cause harm, their primary functions and contexts are vastly different

No True Scotsman

• Appeals to purity, authenticity, realness, originally

• An attempt to defend a generalization of a group by excluding examples for not being “pure enough”; defining terms in a biased wat

• Modifies the original claim to exclude counter-example arguments

• Denies truth of those counterexamples and adds premises to modify the claim to make it sound more true

• Flaw: sufficieny

• Ex: “All true scientists believe in the theory of evolution”

Gambler’s Fallacy

• Fallacy where luck-based outcomes must be balanced out

• Individuals believe the outcome of a random event is more likely to occur or not occur based on the outcomes of previous, unrelated events

• Ignores true randomness of events based on previous experiences

• Ex: A person flips a coin 5x, lands heads 5x. They assume it will be more likely to land on tails because they feel like it is “due” to land on tails. In reality, there is always a 50/50 chance of landing on heads/tails that isn’t affected by the previous coin flip (all independent events)

Pro Hominem

• Opposite of ad hominem fallacy

• Focuses on making the argument about a person’s character to validate it

• Ex: “Since she is known for her honesty, her statement about the company’s financial status must be accurate” — instead of focusing on how to prove the financial status is accurate, we are using the person’s merits to prove the validity of the statement

• Flaw: Relevance

Hasty Generalization

• Hasty generalizations are statements that are too broad. They are not true, do not apply in all cases, or are not based on enough evidence.

• Flaw: sufficiency and representativeness

• Ex: “Jeremy loves ice cream, so all kids must love ice cream, too” —Jeremy's individual case is applied too broadly to include all kids. While many kids do love ice cream, we all know that there are some kids who do not

Fallacy Fallacy

• The fallacy fallacy is the mistake of assuming that a conclusion is false just because the argument for it is flawed. (flawed logic because of seeing flawed logic)

• Essentially, just because the logic is flawed doesn’t mean the general takeaway can’t be applicable in a broader context (could be a valid argument)

• Your point is valid, your support/evidence is flawed

• Ex: “We should work when we feel the most energized because an influencer said it" (a fallacy based on an appeal to authority). If you reject the idea of working when you feel energized solely because the argument is fallacious, you're committing the fallacy fallacy. The idea of working when energized might still be a valid one.

Cherrypicking

• Definition: fallacious practice of selecting data that is in one’s interest or benefit while overlooking (intentionally or unintentionally) other available data.

• Flaw: representation and sufficiency

• Ex: Ignoring all the rotting apples on the floor and only focussing on the ones that “benefit” us. → harvesting fruit

Appeal to Novelty

• Something is good or better solely because it is new

• New= better

• Opposite of appeal to tradition

• Flaw: sufficiency, representativeness, relevancy

• Ex: Electric bikes were newly installed in the town, so they must be the best form of transportation!”—Disregards key factors like safety, time, price (factors that matter) solely because the bikes are new to determine whether it is a good form of transportation

3 Parts of truth

Relevancy, Sufficency, representativeness