logical fallacies

Ad hominem: a speaker attacks an opponents personal character or professionalism rather than addressing the merits of the opponents question or claim

Ad hominem attack response to a claim regarding less homework on weekends: “you only say that because you are lazy and hate studying”

False equivalence: two completely opposing arguments appear to be logically equivalent when they are in fact not

False equivalence response to a claim regarding public use of weapons being banned because they kill: “you can kill with a pencil too”

Bandwagon fallacy: assuming something is right cause everyone does it

Appeal to False authority: an argument relies on a celebrity, unqualified person, or expert in an unrelated field to validate a claim

Hasty generalization: they apply a situation to a universal one and believe everyone does it

Slippery slope: one claims that an action will culminate into a very bad result

Straw man: exaggerating and misinterpreting the claim to make it easier to refute

Straw man response to a claim regarding lower sentences for drug use: “so you think our children should be running around doing drugs”

Red herring: used to draw attention away from the question or main subject

False dilemma/False dichotomy: presenting two extreme alternatives when more options exist

Guilt by association: someone is blamed just because they know another person in the wrong

Faulty appeal to emotion: someone attempts to emotionally manipulate to gain evidence or support for an argument

Correlation proves causation: makes people assume that just because two things happen at the same time one causes the other

No true scotsman: avoiding valid criticisms of an argument by changing the definition of a group in the middle of a debate

Spotlight fallacy: when media coverage of a specific person causes people to incorrectly assume that the subject represents the norm

Two wrongs make a right: an individual attempts to justify their wrong action by pointing to another person's similar wrong actions

Appeal to tradition: claiming a belief is right because that’s how it always was

Loaded question: a question worded to have a faulty assumption about the person answering it

Cherry picking: relying on data over conflicting evidence to support a claim

Circular reasoning: the evidence offered to support a claim is just a repetition of the claim