Loophole: Classic Flaw Example Answer Choices

Bad conditional reasoning

"Mistakes something that is necessary to bring about a situation for something that in itself is enough to bring about that situation"

Bad causal reasoning

"Mistakes the cause of a particular phenomenon for the effect of that phenomenon"

Whole-to-part / Part-to-whole

"Assuming that because something is true of each of the parts of a whole it is true of the whole itself"

Overgeneralization

"Makes a sweeping generalization...based on evidence drawn from a limited number of atypical cases"

Survey problems

"Uses evidence drawn from a small sample that may well be unrepresentative"

Possibility =/= certainty

"Confuses an absence of evidence for a hypothesis with the existence of evidence against the hypothesis"

False dichotomy/Only two options

"Assumes without warrant that a situation allows only two possibilities"

Straw man/dump guy

"Misdescribing the...position, thereby making it easier to challenge"

Ad hominem/making things personal

"Rejects a claim by attacking the proponents of the claim rather than addressing the claim itself"

Circular reasoning

"Presupposes what it sets out to prove"

Equivocation

"Relies on two different uses of the term"

Appeal fallacies/opinion=/=facts

"Cites the evidence...in direct support of a claim that lies outside their area of expertise"

Irrelevant!

"Uses irrelevant facts to justify a claim"

Percentages =/= numbers

"Takes no account of the relative frequency of ...in the population as a whole"

Circular reasoning

appeals to a premise one would accept only if one already accepted the truth of the conclusion