Miscellaneous Fallacies 1 Begging the Question Loading the conclusion in the claim; assuming that something is true before it’s proven ⦁ “The antiwar demonstrators of the 1970s should be remembered as the cowards that they were.” ⦁ “Your arguments against Freud are due to your unresolved unconscious conflicts.” 2 Ad Hominem –Personal Attack An attack on the character of the individual rather than his/her actual arguments or qualifications ⦁ “Rudy Giuliani divorced his loving wife of many years. How could he possibly be qualified to be mayor?” ⦁ “How can you trust Freud—he himself was bipolar!” 3 Ad Populum –Bandwagon Appealing to prejudices or inclinations. If a majority of people believe or do something, everyone else should, too. “Over 70 percent of Americans favor the adoption of a national sky marshal program; what’s your problem?”
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Miscellaneous Fallacies 1 Begging the Question Loading the conclusion in the claim;
assuming that something is true before it’s proven
⦁ “The antiwar demonstrators of the 1970s should be remembered as the cowards that they were.” ⦁ “Your arguments against Freud are due to your unresolved unconscious conflicts.”
2 Ad Hominem –Personal Attack
An attack on the character of the individual rather than his/her actual arguments or qualifications
⦁ “Rudy Giuliani divorced his loving wife of many years. How could he possibly be qualified to be mayor?” ⦁ “How can you trust Freud—he himself was bipolar!”
3 Ad Populum
–Bandwagon Appealing to prejudices or inclinations. If a majority of people believe or do something, everyone else should, too.
“Over 70 percent of Americans favor the adoption of a national sky marshal program; what’s your problem?”
4 Red Herring Avoiding countering an opposing
argument directly by introducing a new or non-‐issue to the argument
“Equal pay for women is an important issue, but I wonder whether women really want to take the responsibility that comes with higher-‐paying jobs.”
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/michele-‐bachmann-‐announces-‐her-‐presidentia 5 Complex Question
–Loaded Question An unanswerable, biased question —sometimes allowing only two possible answers: yes or no.
“Hey, Frank, have you quit hanging around crack addicts yet?”
6 Appeal to False Auth.
–Association Fallacy Ideas or actions are (un)acceptable because of people associated with them
⦁ “The hijackers were Egyptian; obviously Egyptians support terrorism.” ⦁ “All those who can afford it prefer Freudian therapy.”
7 Non Sequitur Any illogical conclusion (usually reached
from faulty premises or poor evidence) “Japanese children spend 40% more time in the classroom than U.S. children. American parents should take more interest in the kids’ education.”
8 Shifting Burden of Proof
–Appeal to Ignorance Whatever has not been proven false must necessarily be true; whatever has not been proven true must necessarily be false. Absence of evidence is evidence.
⦁ “There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist.” ⦁ “In its 30+ years, SETI hasn’t ever detected signals from an ET, so neither aliens nor their UFOs exist.”
9 Contradiction Simultaneous acceptance and denial of a
proposition or statement; two contradictory inferences can be drawn from the premise
⦁ “Intelligent people have open minds. Politicians are supposed to be intelligent. But anyone who says that recreational drugs shouldn’t be legalized has a closed mind. Therefore, politicians
are not intelligent people.”
10 Fallacy of Composition A property shared by a number of individual items, is also shared by a collection of those items; a property of the parts of an object, must also be a property of the whole
⦁ “Every course I took in college was well-‐organized; therefore, my college education was well-‐organized.” ⦁ “This new truck is made entirely of lightweight aluminum components, and is therefore very lightweight.”
11 Fallacy of Division Assuming that a property of some object
must apply to its parts; a property of a collection of items is shared by each item.
⦁ “Ocelots are now dying out. Sparky is an ocelot. Therefore, Sparky is now dying out.” ⦁ “Humans are conscious and are made of cells; therefore, each cell has consciousness.”
12 Circular Argument A sentence or argument that restates rather than proves
⦁ “President Reagan was a great communicator because he had that knack of talking effectively to the people.” ⦁ “Plagiarism is dishonest because it is deceitful.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-‐QNAwUdHUQ
13 Genetic Fallacy Arguing that the origins of a person, object, or institution determine its worth
⦁ “He speaks with a German accent. He must be a Nazi.” ⦁ “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).
14 Oversimplification Ignores an issue’s complexities, variations,
or exceptions “The influx of foreign cars almost destroyed the American auto industry.”
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