Logical Fallacies

Argumentum Ad Hominem• Attacking the person’s character or personal traits

rather than the argument at hand• Rejecting a claim based on the person defending it

Anecdotal• Using a personal example or

isolated experience instead of concrete evidence• May also occur when refuting

statistics with personal stories and isolated incidents

Appeal to Authority• Not meant to dismiss the

claims of experts• Stating claims as true

simply because an authority on the subject is in agreement

Appeal to Emotion• Manipulating emotion (fear, pity, pride, and more) to

win an argument• Argument lacks logic and factual evidence

Appeal to Nature• Argument based on the concept that something is good

because it is “natural” or bad because it is “unnatural”• Nature decides what is right/good

Bandwagon• Appealing to popularity of

belief/choice or the fact that many people agree with claim x• Also called “appeal to the

masses”• Offers the threat of

rejection (relies on peer pressure)

Begging the Question• Claim includes the assumption the conclusion is true• Also called “circular reasoning”

Black or White• Presenting only two alternatives where more exist• Also called “either-or fallacy” or “false dilemma”• Over-simplifies an argument and narrows options

Burden of Proof• Saying the burden of proof lies on someone else to

disprove the claim• Essentially “guilty until proven innocent”

The Fallacy Fallacy• Inferring that a conclusion cannot be true because the

argument constructed contains one or more fallacies• Also called argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic)

Invalid Conclusion• In a syllogism a fallacy whereby the major premise and

minor premise do not add up to the conclusion• Or where fallacies exist within the premise(s)

Personal Incredulity• The premise that because something is difficult to

understand, or you are unaware of how it works, it is not true

Slippery Slope• Presuming one event

will inevitably follow another without rational proof as to why• Post Hoc is a related

fallacy where it is assumed that A causes B, simply because A happens before B.

Strawman• Misrepresenting someone's argument to make it easier

to attack• Similar to the cliché metaphor of “putting words in

someone’s mouth”

The Texas Sharpshooter• Also called “clustering illusion”• Ignoring differences in data and focusing solely on

similarities• Inserts meaning into randomness

Tu Quoque• Also called the “appeal to hypocrisy”• Tries to discredit an opponents argument by stating

they have not consistently behaved in accordance with their conclusions