LSAT Ellen Cassidy Classic Flaws

Bad Conditional Reasoning

Conclusion is made from conditional premises by reading the premises backwards without negating, OR by negating the conditional premises and reading them forwards

Bad Causal Reasoning

Conclusion is made by assuming that two correlated things are causated, without considering no relationship, new factor, or backwards causation

Whole-to-Part & Part-to-Whole

Conclusion is made by assuming that because one thing in a category has a property, the category itself has that property, OR that because a category has a property, then a part of the category will have that property

Overgeneralization

Conclusion is made by assuming that because one thing has a property, many other things have that property as well

Survey Problems

Conclusion is made based off of a dubious survey, which may be false because of:

Biased sample

Survey liars

Biased questions

Small sample size

Other contradictory surveys

False Starts

When a conclusion is made based on a study where a researcher assumes that two groups are the same in all aspects except one, and that this difference accounts for the results of the study

Possibility ≠ Certainty

When a conclusion is made that something must be/cannot be true or false because there is some evidence that its true/false or because you cant prove that its true/false

Implication

When a conclusion is made that someone who has a belief also believes an implication about that belief, when that person may not know the implication

False Dichotomy

When a conclusion is made based on a spectrum or two options that because one of the options is eliminated, the other must be the case OR because something on a spectrum doesn't go one way, it must go the other

Straw Man

When a conclusion is made based on a misrepresentation on someone's argument

Ad Hominem

When a conclusion is made based off of the proponent of an argument rather than the argument itself

Circular Reasoning

When a conclusion is made based off of premises that already assume the conclusion is true

Equivocation

When a conclusion is made based off of a different definition of a word

Appeal fallacy

When a conclusion is made based off of the opinion of an invalid authority (non-expert) or the public

Irrelevant!

When a conclusion is made based off of premises unrelated to the argument

Percentages ≠ Numbers

When a conclusion is made that a percentage or real number has gone up because the real number or percentage has gone up