Fallacies

  1. Appeal to popularity: legitimizes your choice by claiming that others have chosen it

Ex. “I should be able to go to my friend’s house because all of my other friends are going.”

  1. Faulty appeal to authority: using alleged authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument; as the audience, allowing an irrelevant authority to add credibility to the claim being made

Ex. “My friend Eric says Mr. LaBomba is a mean teacher.”

  1. False choice/dilemma/dichotomy: when only two choices or sides, possibly extreme, are presented when more exist

Ex. “America: Love It or Leave It!”

  1. Hasty generalization: making a claim/argument based on insufficient evidence 

  2. Post hoc/Chanticleer fallacy: mistaking sequence for cause 

Ex. “I ate a scallop and I got a rash so I’m allergic to scallops”

  1. Begging the question (tautology): when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it; assuming without proof the stand/position, or a significant part of the stand, that is in question

Ex. 

  1. Unit fallacy: mistaking one kind of unit for another; fallacy that a larger unit has lesser unit price

Ex. Buying a smaller product based on the assumption that it will be cheaper when in reality you are spending more price per ounce. 

  1. Fallacy of antecedent: assuming that something is true just because it happened once or assuming that something isn’t true because it hasn’t happened

Ex. “ “It never happened before, so it never will. Or it happened once, so it will happen again”

  1. Faulty analogy: logical fallacy that uses analogies to argue for a conclusion instead of providing reasons or evidence; when two things are portrayed as alike when actually they are not.

Ex.

  1. Slippery slope: someone claims that a small action or event will lead to a chain of events that result in a negative outcome

Ex.

  1. Appeal to ignorance: if we can’t prove it, it doesn’t exist

Ex. No one has ever proven UFOs have not visited the planet, which means they have

  1. Straw man: purposely misinterpreting/disorting opponent’s argument to make it seem easy

Ex. Like in debate when you restate the argument but make it seem stupider. 

  1. Red herring: introducing irrelevant information to distract 

  2. Appeal to tradition: assuming something is advantageous because its tradition 

  3. All natural fallacy: the assumption that something is good or superior simply because it is natural, ignoring other relevant factors

  4. Ad hominem: attacking the person making an argument instead of the argument itself