What is your favorite logical fallacy?

[GregR]

we all use them (even if we try not to) what is your favorite to either use, or point out that your opponent is using?

i think mine has to be the good ol' Ad Hominem. nothing reeks of desperation or a poor argument like attacking the character of the person presenting the argument.

I'm hoping this can stay light hearted and fun. but mods please, if it gets even slightly questionable, move it if you see necessary.

 

[SmugMug]

Ad populum by far.

It's pretty much the way our government runs. Example as given by the Nizkor Project:

"My fellow Americans...there has been some talk that the government is overstepping its bounds by allowing police to enter peoples' homes without the warrants traditionally required by the Constitution. However, these are dangerous times and dangerous times require appropriate actions. I have in my office thousands of letters from people who let me know, in no uncertain terms, that they heartily endorse the war against crime in these United States. Because of this overwhelming approval, it is evident that the police are doing the right thing."

# Most people approve of X (have favorable emotions towards X).
# Therefore X is true.

 

[EvilTOJ]

I'm a fan of the slippery slope fallacy. If you let the whites and the coloreds get married, pretty soon you'll have the gays and horses and pigs getting married too! Then the population will plummet in a barnyard discotheque-esque orgy of baaaing and oooing. Then the Russians will invade and we'll all be communist!

 

[dwarven_stout]

I'll see your ad hominem and raise you the entire class of Irrelevant Conclusions, otherwise know as "Modern American Politics". Overall, though, I think my favorite fallacies to encounter are proof by verbosity and straw man.

I also appreciated this recent gem of begging the question:
"Having a public plan out there that also shows that maybe if you take some of the profit motive out, maybe if you are reducing some of the administrative costs, that you can get an even better deal, that's going to incentivize the private sector to do even better."

 

[Steve-oh]

I've always chuckled at the idea of "correlation equals causation".

You see this false logic a lot when dealing with gun control, war on drugs, etc.

 

[html034]

Oooh, Oooh, I've got two; denying the antecedent and affirming the consequent. Let me explain what those are in case you don't know.

Example of denying the antecedent:
If you eat bacon, then you'll get cancer
I don't eat bacon
Therefore I won't get cancer

Example of affirming the consequent:
If you drink a gallon of apfelwein, then you'll end up on the floor
I ended up on the floor
Therefore, I must have drank a gallon of apfelwein

I love logic

 

[alcibiades]

its a bird, its a plane, its a red herring!

 

[SmugMug]

its a bird, its a plane, its a red herring!

Where?! Ooooh. You almost got me looking. Sly dog.

 

[bottleopener]

(x)[(Lx + Px) -> Obx]

where,
Lx- x is logic
Px- x is predicate based
Obx- b loves x
b- bottleopener


...


I need more excuses to use symbolic logic.

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

Straw man or false dichotomy are really the only choices here.

 

[bottleopener]

A cop pulls someone over and notices that he isn't wearing a seatbelt. The driver defends his action saying, "I'm only driving 3 minutes down the street to the grocery store." The cop lectures him,

"70% of all motor vehicle accidents happen within a 5 mile radius of the home. Driving short distances is the most dangerous form of driving"

and starts writing a ticket.

The driver, being clever, argues his case.

Sir,
Every second you drive presents an opportunity for an accident.
Every car ride necessarily starts or ends within 5 miles of one's home.
Every car ride therefore presents an opportunity for an accident within 5 miles of the home.
Your statistic has more to do with probability/law of averages than an increased danger level for driving within 5 miles of home.


The cop stops, thinks for a minute, and says.

...

"You also forgot to signal when you pulled over. That's another 50 bucks. Next time, don't be a smartass."

 

[brewthunda]

we all use them (even if we try not to) what is your favorite to either use, or point out that your opponent is using?

i think mine has to be the good ol' Ad Hominem. nothing reeks of desperation or a poor argument like attacking the character of the person presenting the argument.

I'm hoping this can stay light hearted and fun. but mods please, if it gets even slightly questionable, move it if you see necessary.

Ad Hominems are not always fallacious though.

Bill: The crime rate is going through the roof this year.
John: Bill, I swear to god every single thing that comes out of your mouth is a pile of horsecrap - you're a pathalogical liar and a moron.

See - that ad hominem directly applies to the veracity of Bill's statement.

I actually had to look up a list of logical fallacies . . and they had this one:

Misleading Vividness

"Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence) .
2. Therefore events of type X are likely to occur. "

e.g., "Did you see how that plane crashed yesterday - 300 people blew up in a giant ball of fire . . Air travel is scary . . I'm never flying again."

Ok, so that's not my favorite, my favorite would be something like the corollary to that, which wasn't even on the list of logical fallacies. I call it:

Misleading Comparable Insignificance

1. Event x occurs (with no popularly known statistical basis)
2. Event y (which is popularly perceived to have an occurrence rate far lower than shown by statistical evidence) is shown to occur more frequently than x.
3. Therefore events of type x are unlikely to occur.

Example: bees and lightning:

Bill:Man, I just read how people are getting kidnapped in Colombia right and left, we should avoid that area on our trip.
John: You're being silly - more people die from bee stings every year in Colombia than get kidnapped. (or more people get struck by lightning every year . . )


This only works, because bee sting deaths and lightning strikes are perceived as being incredibly, if not ridiculously, rare.

According to this: Animal-Related Fatalities in the United States—An Update 27% of all animal-caused deaths in the US (533 out of 1943 in a 10 year period) were caused by bees, wasps and hornets. That's 2.7 times more people than who died from dog attacks. But if John had said "You're being silly - more people die from dog attacks every year than get kidnapped.", it would not have been a persuasive argument.

 

[Gremlyn]

Straw man and red herring are my two favourites, weak analogy comes in close just because it is SO over used.

BUT be careful of the fallacist's fallacy...

 

[bernerbrau]

Straw man or false dichotomy are really the only choices here.

Don't you know Hitler used to say that?

 

[dwarven_stout]

Don't you know Hitler used to say that?

I see what you did there.

 

[bottleopener]

Don't you know Hitler used to say that?

Don't you know that Hitler used to say "Don't you know Hitler used to say that?" ?


!!!

OH MY GOD... META-FALLACIES

 

[bernerbrau]

OH MY GOD... META-FALLACIES

Speaking of which, my favorite is the fallacy fallacy. "Your argument is fallacious; therefore, your conclusion is false."

 

[Evan!]

Yeah, straw man by a mile. Dude, if I had a nickel for every straw man argument bandied about in the HBT debate forums, I'd be rockin' a Brutus 10 right about now.

 

[GregR]

Don't you know Hitler used to say that?

that made me laugh.

 

[Gremlyn]

Speaking of which, my favorite is the fallacy fallacy. "Your argument is fallacious; therefore, your conclusion is false."

That's the fallacist's fallacy (at least as I learned it).

I saw a wholegrain Cheerios commercial the other day that was a blatant cum hoc fallacy.... It said something like "studies show that people who eat whole grain cereal have lower body weight." Clearly, we are to believe that eating whole grain Cheerios will make us skinny. Sign me up, I'll eat 20 boxes a day!

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

I am most often accosted by the Fellatio Fallacy. Not my favorite per se but, the one I am most often presented with.

This of course, is the argument my wife makes that by her performance of fellatio on me that we have had sex.

 

[Mutilated1]

Straw man or false dichotomy are really the only choices here.

lol - i see what you did there

 

[bernerbrau]

I am most often accosted by the Fellatio Fallacy. Not my favorite per se but, the one I am most often presented with.

Now there's a cum hoc fallacy if ever I saw one!!

 

[Gremlyn]

lol - i see what you did there

Oh clever, I missed that one...

 

[dwarven_stout]

I am most often accosted by the Fellatio Fallacy. Not my favorite per se but, the one I am most often presented with.

This of course, is the argument my wife makes that by her performance of fellatio on me that we have had sex.

When I was a kid, I lived in a town full of Mormons. I got by on a version of fallacy of definition:

"What exactly did you promise to save until marriage, again? What about things that are kinda like that, but not exactly that?"

 

[dwarven_stout]

Oh clever, I missed that one...

I bet you miss all sorts of them. It's probably because you're a drunk, just like Hitler.

 

[bottleopener]

My favorite deductive tool is either Modus Ponens, or Disjunctive Syllogism.
It isn't Modus Ponens.
Therefore, it is Disjunctive Syllogism.

 

[Gremlyn]

I bet you miss all sorts of them. It's probably because you're a drunk, just like Hitler.

Man, that wasn't even a fallacy, it was just mean

 

[FireBrewer]

I bet you miss all sorts of them. It's probably because you're a drunk, just like Hitler.

You win Godwin points! 10chars

 

[bernerbrau]

In a thread about logical fallacies, I'm not sure if Godwin's Law applies.

 

[FireBrewer]

In a thread about logical fallacies, I'm not sure if Godwin's Law applies.

True. But he gets points anyway.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Godwin's law ALWAYS applies. That's why it's called a law. Oh yea, I forgot I like personal attacks too, you *******. It may not be a logical fallacy, but it happens a lot with internet tough guys

 

[bernerbrau]

Godwin's law ALWAYS applies.

Nazi.




67890

 

[ChshreCat]

This thread has more hyperbole than I have ever seen or will ever see again for as long as I live.

 

[Ragutis]

God is love
Love is blind
Ray Charles is blind
Therefore
Ray Charles is God

 

[bernerbrau]

[youtube]yp_l5ntikaU[/youtube]

 

[david_42]

petitio principii

The world was created.
Anything that can create the world is all-powerful.
Anything all-powerful must be god.
Therefor god exists.

And this all-powerful creator listens to a bunch of whiny hypocrites.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Man, that wasn't even a fallacy, it was just mean

Wikipedia disagrees with you. ;-) Reductio ad Hitlerum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Come to think of it, there needs to be a name for the fallacy that since wikipedia says it, therefore it is true. "Appeal to questionable authority" just isn't strong enough.

In a thread about logical fallacies, I'm not sure if Godwin's Law applies.

 

[bottleopener]

I'll see your witches and raise you an argument clinic!

 

[jpc]

My favorite deductive tool is either Modus Ponens, or Disjunctive Syllogism.
It isn't Modus Ponens.
Therefore, it is Disjunctive Syllogism.

Clever.

I like modus ponens because it sounds like some "naughty" part of a woman.