FallaciesLearning Targets: • I can identify logical fallacies when they are

committed. • I can recognize why reasoning is fallacious.• I can avoid logical fallacies in my own writing and

debating.

Scare Tactics

•Arguments that use legitimate fears to incite panic or prejudice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5zWB4dLYChM

Either-Or Choices/False Dilemma/Bifurcation

• Arguments that reduce the options for action to only two choices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7gw8WuATIRY

Slippery Slope

• Arguments that exaggerate the likely consequences of an action, usually to frighten readers/listeners.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5v-JuG6YMqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=74eDQ1a5G8k

Sentimental Appeals

• Arguments that use tender emotions excessively to distract readers from facts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AMpZ0TGjbWE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xwndLOKQTDs

Bandwagon Appeal

• Arguments that urge people to follow the same path everyone else is taking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MEGUDMgaVfM

Appeals to False Authority

• Arguments that draw on the authority of widely respected people, institutions, and texts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9_YneSM0ItA

Dogmatism

• Implies that there is only one side to an argument.• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI

WETHeK46M

Ad Hominem

• Arguments attack the character of a person rather than the claim made.

Hasty Generalization

• An argument that draws inference from insufficient evidence. Stereotypes often arise from this fallacy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pem_FwggPsM

Faulty Causality/Post Hoc

• An argument that assumes that because one event or action follows another, the first necessarily causes the second.

http://youtu.be/eVgT-vZLK6Q

Red Herring

• An argument in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6VmYOFGpbM

Begging the Question

• A form of circular reasoning, divorced from reality. An assumption that the conclusion is true, even if the premises do not offer evidence of that conclusion.

Example: Santa Claushttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CVbku6nxhU&feature=em-share_video_user

Non Sequitur

• An argument in which claims, reasons, or warrants fail to connect logically; one point does not follow from another.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t68MYEXwsk0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jBjBFSBLdp0

Faulty/False Analogy

• An inaccurate or inconsequential comparison between objects or concepts; elaborate comparison of two things which are two dissimilar.

Example: Making people register their own guns is like the Nazis making the Jews register with their government. This policy is crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Oh-xZskRM

*Swiss Army knife of cameras

Equivocation

• An argument that gives a lie an honest appearance; a half-truth.

The Straw Man

• Chooses to refute arguments that go beyond the opposition’s claims; when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of that position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrN5AHUKx-w&feature=em-share_video_user

Stacking the Deck

• Promoting arguments that favor only one side while rejecting or avoiding arguments for another point of view, especially arguments we don’t want to deal with.

Example: 4 out of 5 dentists…