Ingormal Fallacies

Informal Fallacies

Ad hoiminen

Attacking the person instead of their argument.

• means “against the man”. 

• Example: How can you accept Dr. Smith’s points about global warming? She is a Leafs fan

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

This fallacy assumes that just because one event happened before another, the first event caused the second, even when there is no clear connection.

• Example : "I wore my lucky socks and then I aced the test. The socks must be lucky!"

🔎 Just because the socks were worn before the test doesn’t mean they caused the good grade.

Circular argument / begging the question

Repeats the same idea as proof, without offering real evidence.

• A circular argument is when someone uses the conclusion as proof—they just repeat the same idea instead of actually proving it.

• "I’m right because I said I’m right."

• That doesn’t explain why you’re right. It just goes in a circle.

Straw Man

Definition: Misrepresenting another person’s argument to make it sound weaker.

Example: Buddy wants to ban seat belts because he thinks they kill people

Appeal to ignorance

Says something must be true (or false) because there’s no proof against it.

• I blamed Zeina for eating  my  food, i have no proof of that i still blamed her tho 

• ⚠ It uses lack of evidence as if it were proof.

slippery slope

A slippery slope fallacy happens when someone says one small step will lead to a chain of bad events, even without real proof that all those things will happen.

“If we allow A, then B, C, D, and disaster will happen!”

• It jumps to extreme conclusions without enough evidence.

Appeal to emotion

• fallacy happens when someone tries to win an argument by making you feel something (like fear, pity, or anger), instead of giving real evidence or logic.

• “Feel bad = agree with me.”

• But feelings aren’t proof that something is right or wrong.

• For  example i start crying to make u feel bad and u start agreeing with my argument

Hasty generalization

A fallacy in which a claim is made on the basis of insufficient evidence. Instead of looking into examples and evidence that are much more in line with the typical or average situation, you draw a conclusion about a larger population using a small, unrepresentative sample.

Example: In the seat belt example, the arguer suggests that because seat belts can endanger lives (like the specific incident), seat belts do endanger lives in general

False dilemma / either or:

(Its in the name, dilemma  two options of what's right or wrong but that's not the case.)

A false dilemma happens when someone presents only two options as if they are the only possibilities, ignoring other alternatives.

🧠 Simple Way to Say It:

“It’s either this or that, no in-between.”

But usually, there are more than just two choices.

Red herring

A red herring is when someone introduces a distracting topic to shift attention away from the original issue.

“Let’s change the subject so we don’t have to deal with this problem.” It avoids answering the real question or argument.