After pointless hours of research, dozens of cups of coffee, millions of M&Ms, I present to you ... Logical Fallacies 101 https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/ A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning common enough to warrant a fancy name and trick you in unique ways into agreement. Knowing how to spot and identify fallacies is a priceless skill. It can save you time, money, and personal dignity. The following is a list of the 15 types of logical fallacies you are most likely to encounter in discussion and debate. Now we can raise the bar on NUF. Feel free to add. (1) Ad Hominem - where someone rejects or criticizes another person’s view on the basis of personal characteristics, background, physical appearance, or other features irrelevant to the argument at issue. e.g. "Crooked Hillary", "Short Fingered Vulgarian" (2) Strawman Argument - when someone attacks a position the opponent doesn’t really hold. Instead of contending with the actual argument, he or she attacks the equivalent of a lifeless bundle of straw, an easily defeated effigy, which the opponent never intended upon defending anyway. e.g. “The Senator thinks we can solve all our ecological problems by driving a Prius (the strawman). (3) Appeal to Ignorance - Any time ignorance is used as a major premise in support of an argument, it’s liable to be a fallacious appeal to ignorance. An appeal to ignorance isn’t proof of anything except that you don’t know something. An appeal to ignorance doesn’t prove any claim to knowledge. e.g. If no one has proven the non-existence of ghosts or flying saucers, that’s hardly proof that those things either exist or don’t exist. If we don’t know whether they exist, then we don’t know that they do exist or that they don’t exist. (4) False Dilemma - This line of reasoning fails by limiting the options to two when there are in fact more options to choose from. Sometimes the choices are between one thing, the other thing, or both things together (they don’t exclude each other). Sometimes there is a whole range of options, three, four, five, or a hundred and forty-five. However it may happen, the false dichotomy fallacy errs by oversimplifying the range of options. e.g. “Either you love me, or you hate me.” (5) Slippery Slope Fallacy - The slippery slope fallacy works by moving from a seemingly benign premise or starting point and working through a number of small steps to an improbable extreme. e.g. “But, you have to let me go to the party! If I don’t go to the party, I’ll be a loser with no friends. Next thing you know I’ll end up alone and jobless living in your basement when I’m 30!” (6) Circular Argument - When a person’s argument is just repeating what they already assumed beforehand, it’s not arriving at any new conclusion. e.g. “Smoking pot is against the law because it’s wrong; I know it’s wrong because it is against the law.” "Brawndo has what plants crave! It's got electrolytes! (7) Hasty Generalization - A general statement without sufficient evidence to support it. A hasty generalization is made out of a rush to have a conclusion, leading the arguer to commit some sort of illicit assumption, stereotyping, unwarranted conclusion, overstatement, or exaggeration. e.g. “People nowadays only vote with their emotions instead of their brains.” (8) Red Herring Fallacy - A distraction from the argument typically with some sentiment that seems to be relevant but isn’t really on-topic. This tactic is common when someone doesn’t like the current topic and wants to detour into something else instead, something easier or safer to address. A red herring fallacy is typically related to the issue in question but isn’t quite relevant enough to be helpful. Instead of clarifying and focusing, it confuses and distracts. e.g. “My wife wants to talk about cleaning out the garage, so I asked her what she wants to do with our patio furniture. Now she’s shopping for new patio furniture and not asking me about the garage.” (9) Tu Quoque / WhatAboutism - Latin for “you too,” is also called the “appeal to hypocrisy” because it distracts from the argument by pointing out hypocrisy in the opponent. This tactic doesn’t solve the problem, or prove one’s point, because even hypocrites can tell the truth. Focusing on the other person’s hypocrisy is a diversionary tactic. In this way, using the tu quoque typically deflects criticism away from yourself by accusing the other person of the same problem or something comparable. e.g. When asked about his Russian contacts, Trump tweeted about Democrats' contacts with Russia (10) Causal Fallacy - Any logical breakdown when identifying a cause. You can think of the causal fallacy as a parent category for several different fallacies about unproven causes. One causal fallacy is the false cause fallacy, which is when you conclude about a cause without enough evidence to do so. e.g. “Since your parents named you ‘Harvest,’ they must be farmers.” Another causal fallacy is the post hoc fallacy. This fallacy happens when you mistake something for the cause just because it came first. e.g. “Yesterday, I walked under a ladder with an open umbrella indoors while spilling salt in front of a black cat. And I forgot to knock on wood with my lucky dice. That must be why I’m having such a bad day today. It’s bad luck.” (11) Fallacy of Sunk Costs - When we invest ourselves so thoroughly in a project that we’re reluctant to ever abandon it, even when it turns out to be fruitless and futile. e.g. I know this relationship isn’t working anymore and that we’re both miserable. No marriage. No kids. No steady job. But I’ve been with him for seven years, so I’d better stay with him.” (12) Appeal to Authority - When we misuse an authority. This misuse of authority can occur in a number of ways. We can cite only authorities — steering conveniently away from other testable and concrete evidence as if expert opinion is always correct. Or we can cite irrelevant authorities, poor authorities, or false authorities. e.g. “Because Martin Sheen played the president on television, he’d probably make a great president in real life.” “One day robots will enslave us all. It’s true. My computer science teacher says so." (13) Equivocation - When a word, phrase, or sentence is used deliberately to confuse, deceive, or mislead by sounding like it’s saying one thing but actually saying something else. Equivocation comes from the roots “equal” and “voice” and refers to two-voices; a single word can “say” two different things. Another word for this is ambiguity. Often this deception shows up in the form of euphemisms, replacing unpleasant words with “nicer” terminology. e.g. “lying” = “ creative license”, “criminal background” = “youthful indiscretions", “fired from my job” = “taking early retirement” (14) Appeal to Pity - A fallacy of relevance. Personal attacks, and emotional appeals, aren’t strictly relevant to whether something is true or false. In this case, the fallacy appeals to the compassion and emotional sensitivity of others when these factors are not strictly relevant to the argument. Appeals to pity often appear as emotional manipulation. e.g. “Professor, you have to give me an A on this paper. I know I only turned in a sentence and some clip art, but my grandmother suddenly died while traveling in the Northern Yukon, and my parents got divorced in the middle of the funeral, and all the stress caused me to become catatonic for two weeks. Have some pity, my grandmother’s last wish was that I’d get an A in this class.” (15) Bandwagon Fallacy - A fallacy that assumes something is true (or right, or good) because other people agree with it. A couple different fallacies can be included under this label, since they are often indistinguishable in practice. e.g. “If you want to be like Mike (Jordan), you’d better eat your Wheaties.” You're welcome. @Wujigege @lychee @Loni4ever @Diametric @otaku31 @PedoBear Version 2.0 @Anra7777 @celleit
I will start! Thesis: Logic doesn’t exist on the Internet! The ancient Greeks divided rhetoric into ethos, pathos, and logos. Logos might be what is conventionally considered logic, but logic isn’t necessarily the only means that are used to sway people. Consequently, I think it’s important not to get too buried in what I’ll term the “logical high ground” — when in reality you might be losing the debate in the eyes of the audience. It is just a point! Many of these “fallacies” were initially identified as tools of rhetoric. They were considered to be less of a “fallacy” than a genuine strategy for orators yo employ. By many regards, you could say many politicians employ such strategies.
Not sure why I was summoned. I find it odd that the “slippery slope” argument is considered a fallacy since it’s frequently used by judges, including the Supreme Court, when interpreting law.
I do not have words to add since I only have limited knowledge of everything hence I am speaking nonsense so no argument here neither debate I can offer.
The best logical fallacy i ever encountered was in oregairu : "If to be truthful is to be cruel, then lying must surely be an act of kindness. And so, kindness is a lie." - HH I wonder which category it falls into.
Of course not! Truth is contained in the Internet! Just like Truth is contained in pie! All of Shakespeare exists inside in the magical value of pie! Such is the fate of things that are of infinitely (or extremely) large size!
Not much you can do with this. If you ever try to point it out the person using them will devolve further to only use Ad Hominem as their only "argument", so whenever I run across someone who is only using these as their "argument" I immediately label them a troll and block them if I can. That's the circular argument fallacy with some equivocation added. Most fallacious arguments are a combination of multiple fallacies.
Lolol I actually own a book called "The art of always being right" by Nicolas Tenaillon (literal translation here, unfortunately it doesn't seem to exist in English) and its contents are exactly what you said. To make most people think you're right, it's not necessary for you to act or speak logically. In fact, oftentimes it's easier if you just throw logic out the window and "play dirty". I haven't really read it but I probably will... at least so I can point it out when someone is using it against me lolol. This is definitely another case of "it's pretty shitty but it is what it is". Although I personally don't like "playing dirty", it doesn't hurt to be aware and prepared in case someone tries to do that in a discussion with you. Speech 100
I wonder, does anyone of you know what "logic" means? since i'm baffled how people are assuming "everything that follow logic is correct" according the list above....it's can be a "false dilemma" since you are limiting the choice beetwen "truth" and "lie" or "cruelty" and "kindness". it's can also be a "hasty generalizzation" since assuming "lie = kindness" based on the fact "Truth= cruelty".
Amen! Fleeing from the terror of irrationality is a solid strategy to preserve your own sanity, but does not mean that you may have won the debate in the eyes of the audience!
WOW. So an idiot like you1 is trying to claim that I'm the worst debator on NUF, since you think I need these tips?2 There are plenty of other people on NUF that you haven't met who could be worse debators than me9. You don't know!3 Clearly, I'm not the worst debator here- you can't really think that I'm not good at debating, right4? You think I might be overreacting here but first come tips like these and next comes discreditting my opinion. How long till you petition for me to be banned from NUF5? You're even worse at debating than I am. I can how bad you are since even I could beat you6. People are always so passive aggressive like this these days7,8, it must be because of all these SJWs going around10. I'd leave NUF if I hadn't already spent so much time here11. I can't believe that you are doing this to me, I have an exam tomorrow an now isn't the time to do this14. Even the president of the US said that slandering people online is harmful12,,13 and look at all the people who voted for him15. Spoiler If you couldn't tell, that was a bad joke. I would've stopped halfway through but #11 kicked in.
The 0 and 1 that make up the internet have never lied to me. However my misinterpretations and the input of select operators of said internet, have blurred or distorted the results where it should have been noticed easily that the result given by the internet is not the result required for the query being brought forth, resulting in a unsatisfactory course being taken by the query giver, which in my case would be myself.
@kkgoh For real I think you give me too much credit. It's kind of old, but I recommend Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. It's a useful read and I've actually found it handy for dealing with difficult people through my work.
Btw @kkgoh I'll give you 1000 nuffies if you list out all the fallacies including quotes in this thread https://forum.novelupdates.com/threads/im-getting-scared-of-the-future.98429/ XD Let us learn by example
Oof do they have all day though? I'm watching that thread with interest but feel like I'll just step on someone's toes if I continue there and I've already had to deal with one wet cat in the past.
like a literal wet cat? I'm kinda amused cause I don't think I've seen this expression in this context before xD
Basically me opening my mouth was like dumping water on a cat. They were not amused. Since then I largely keep to the fluff threads
Another most common fallacy you'd often meet, special pleading: moving the goalpost or making an exception to a claim when it is shown to be false. Especially popular to some higher-up's trying to save face, or especially annoying when listening to one. No subtext here. None whatsoever.