English Fallacies

Ad Hominem

"Attack on the man/ messenger;" very common; speaker is attacked rather than the argument

Straw Man

Ignores the opponent's actual position by creating a misrepresented version (often distorted or exaggerated) of the opposing position in order to easily discredit it

Poisoning the Well

Adverse information about someone or something is preemptively presented to an audience with the intention of discrediting everything that person is about to say

Appeal to False Authority

Occurs when someone who has no expertise to speak on an issue is cited as an authority

Appeal to Fear

Creates fear rather than supplies evidence for claim; scare tactics

Appeal to Flattery

Flattering the audience is used to convince, rather than evidence

Bandwagon

Observation that people often do things because many others do the same; "peer pressure,"

Appeal to Pity

One feels sorry for a cause and that is the motivator, rather than evidence

Begging the Question or Circular Argument

Premises of the conclusion are presumed; circular argument

Burden of Proof

Burden of proof is placed on the wrong side; lack of evidence for side A fallaciously = evidence for side B

Slippery Slope

One action will lead to several other undesirable actions; not necessarily a link between events

Hasty Generalization

Conclusion drawn from a source that is too small; inadequate amount of evidence

post hoc ergo propter hoc

→ just because two events are linked does not mean that one is the cause or effect of the other, correlation does not = causation!

Red Herring

Distracter that draws attention away from the real issue

False Dilemma or Either/ Or

Two alternative points of view are presented as the only options; there really exists one or more than one additional possibilities

Faulty Analogy

Considered a vulnerable type of evidence as it is susceptible to the charge that two things are not comparable