Fallacy Terms

Fallacy

Flaw in reasoning

Scare tactics (emotional)

they use fear to make people agree, where fear replaces logic and makes people panic instead of using a clear train of thought (ex. If we let immigrants in, no one will have a job)

Either or choices (emotional)

they reduce the problem to just 2 options, 1 good one and 1 bad one, even though most situations are more complex and usually need more than 1 solution (ex. You're either with us or against us)

Slippery slope (emotional)

they claim that one small wrong step will lead into a bad terrible outcome and often exaggerate the outcome (ex. If we allow gay marriage, people will soon marry animals)

Overly sentimental appeals (emotional)

they use too much emotion to distract the audience from facts and make the audience feel guilty rather than thinking logically (ex. Think of the poor children)

Bandwagon appeals (emotional)

they encourage people to do something because “everybody else” is doing it, not wanting independent thinking (ex. Everyone supports the gay marriage, so you should too)

Appeals to false authority (logical)

they use a person’s position or name as proof, sometimes even if those people are not experts (ex. A celebrity says that a medicine works so it must actually work)

Dogmatism (logical)

they assume that only one point of view is right, shutting down open minded thinking (ex. Any other opinion is just wrong)

Ad hominem attacks (logical)

they attack the person they are arguing with/about instead of the argument, distracting from the actual issue (ex. One can't trust their opinion because they're divorced)

Stacking the deck (logical)

they only show one side of the story, usually supporting their POV, and makes the argument one sided and unfair (ex. A documentary only showing the bad effects of fast food while ignoring the healthy people eating it)

Hasty overgeneralization

they make a broad claim with little to no evidence, which is usually a stereotype or overgeneralization (ex. My car’s broken which means all cars are bad)

Faulty causality (post hoc)

they assume that because one thing happened after another, it caused it, even though events happening in sequence don't have to be connected (ex. I wore my lucky socks and won the game, meaning the socks made me win)

Begging the question (circular reasoning)

they use the claim as the proof, with nothing new proven and the argument going in circles (ex. He's honest because he says he is)

Equivocation

they use a word in 2 different ways to hide truths, and usually a word trick that makes lies sound true (ex. I wrote the paper myself, when they mean that they copied it by hand)

Non sequitur

they make the conclusion that doesn't logically follow the reason (ex. You don't love me because you didn't buy me a bike even though there's no connection between love and bikes)

Straw men

they misrepresent someone’s argument to attack it more easily, usually twisting the person’s argument into something extreme (ex. You want to cut military spending, so you must hate our country)

Red herring

they change the subject to distract from the real issue and often mislead to/or avoid answering (ex. When a politician is asked about taxes, he deferred the topic to how good schools are)

Faulty analogy

they compare 2 things that aren't alike in any way, which usually makes situations too different to compare fairly (ex. If students can bring phones to class, teachers should too)