Logical fallacies

1. Red herring: Is something that misleads or distracts from an important question

2. Bandwagon: ‘’jumping on the bandwagon’’ believing something is true or acceptable only
because it’s popular and the most people believe it.
3. Straw man: taking someone’s argument and distort and exaggerate what he/she said to
attack this exaggeration.
4. Middle ground: claiming that the middle ground of two extremes must be true because it is
‘’the middle ground’’.
5. Look who’s talking: an appeal to hypocrisy, argument is rejected when the arguer is guilty of
inconsistency.
6. Two wrongs make a right:if you try to justify an act or belief by stating that others made a
similar act or belief.
7. Personal attack/ ad hominem: ‘’against the man’’ when someone attacks the person instead
of attacking his/her argument.
8. Begging the question: you assume without proof the stand that is in the question.
9. Hasty or broad generalization: when someone generalizes an experience from examples, not
evidence, jumping to a conclusion.
10. Either-or/black or white: this is a false dilemma that presents only two options or sides when
there are many options or sides.
11. Non sequitur: a conclusion that isn’t in aligned with previous statements. You made a
statement that does not follow what was discussed.
12. Slippery slope: arguing that a certain course of action is undesirable. Thinking the worst will
happen.
13. Appeal to false authority: an argument that states we should listen to a false authority
14. Texas sharpshooter: looking for similarities and ignoring differences
15. Anecdotal fallacy: when someone argues on basis of anecdotal evidence
16. No true scotsman: an appeal to purity to dismiss relevant criticism or flaws of an argument
17. Burden of proof: placing the burden of finding proof for an argument on the person who
denies the argument.
18. Appeal to ignorance: the conclusion must be true because there is no evidence against it.
19. Moral equivalence: asserting that two or more things are equivalent simply because they
share some characteristics
20. Genetic fallacy: A fallacy of irrelevance that is based solely on someone’s or somethings
history, origin.
21. Argumentum ad populum: an argument that concludes a proposition must be true because
most people believe it. ‘’if many believe so , it is so’’
22. Argumentum ad nauseam: something becomes true if it is repeated often enough.
23. Equivocation: when a term in the argument is used in two ways, with one meaning in one
portion of the argument and then another in the other portion of the argument.
24. Appeal to force: when someone threatens the reader listeneras a justification for accepting
their conclusion.
Choose 10 fallacies:

1. Bandwagon; this one is important in our own discussions because you shouldn’t be lazy a
follow the whole group do your research and find why something should be true.
2. Straw man; this is another issue we come across in many of the discussions, they do this to
take away the argument that the other has.
3. Either-or; when we have an discussion this person says something like ‘’do you like this or
don’t like this’’ and it really doesn’t give any space to react differently on the subject of
matter.
4. Texas sharpshooter; you should not only look for similarities, when you have a discussion you
should find points you guys disagree on and then you should talk about hem.
5. Appeal to false authority; this one was one of the favorites because some people use
references that are not scholars in the subject.
6. Personal attack; some of us had experienced it before, when someone has nothing to say
about the discussion because they know that they where wrong, they try to attack you
personally to get that anger out of you. Because that is way easier than talking about stuff
7. Burden of proof; Never try and find the answers for the ‘opponent’ they came up with the
argument so they have to know what backs that up.
8. Appeal to force: is another one that we come across sometimes, using intimidation to force
something on someone happens a lot.
9. Circular argument; something is already perceived right when it still has to be proven. If a
then b, if b then a.
10. Argumentum at nauseam; the last one happens a lot of times too. When you read something
a lot of times you start to believe it yourself.

Choose top 3 of the class

‘’Texas sharpshooter: Only presenting the arguments that will help you doesn't make it a good argument. It will help
you but it isn't fully the right think for something like a research’’

‘’Tu Quoque - In discussions it will happen that someone distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in
the opponent.’’

‘’Straw Man: Oversimplyfing someones argument to make it easier to debunk the opponents argument’’