![]() Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence. It’s important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Trump used his daughter’s success as anecdotal evidence that he is pro-women, including his JTweet featuring a photo of Ivanka and the quote: “Watch out Hillary: my father empowers women…He’s given me the confidence to do anything I set my mind to do!” – IvankaĪPPEAL TO AUTHORITY argumentum ad verecundiam(Informal Fallacy > Red Herring > Genetic): You say that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true. Trump Example: After Trump feuded with FoxNews’ Megyn Kelly and was criticized for past sexist remarks about women, he used his daughter, Ivanka, as anecdotal evidence that he is pro-women empowerment, although helping your only daughter is a far cry from “empowering women.” Afterwards, Ivanka went on record saying that she wouldn’t be where she is today if her father didn’t “deeply believe in opportunities for women”. Quantitative scientific measures are almost always more accurate than personal perceptions and experiences, but our inclination is to believe that which is tangible to us, and/or the word of someone we trust over a more ‘abstract’ statistical reality.Įxample: Jason said that that was all cool and everything, but his grandfather smoked, like, 30 cigarettes a day and lived until 97 – so don’t believe everything you read about meta-analyses of methodologically sound studies showing proven causal relationships. It’s often much easier for people to believe someone’s testimony as opposed to understanding complex data and variation across a continuum. When a premise works with an interpretation that is true, but the conclusion uses the secondary “false” interpretation, we have the fallacy of amphiboly on our hands.Įxample: In the command, “Save soap and waste paper,” the amphibolous use of “waste” results in the problem of determining whether “waste” functions as a verb or as an adjective.ĪNECDOTAL (Informal Fallacy > Weak Analogy > Biased Sample): You use a personal experience or an isolated example instead of a sound argument or compelling evidence. A statement may be true according to one interpretation of how each word functions in a sentence and false according to another. Who better to mine for recent real-world examples?ĪMPHIBOLY (Greek for “indeterminate”) (Informal Fallacy > Ambiguity): Similar to equivocation but the ambiguity results from grammatical construction. As a class, politicians have historically been among the greatest sources of logical fallacies. ![]() Some readers may feel statements from current and controversial politicians inject bias. Some examples were supplied, perhaps unwittingly, by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. All of the entries below include examples. There are many lesser-known or recently discovered fallacies not listed here check the Internet Enclyclopedia of Philosophy list of 224 fallacies or the UTEP Master List of 143 Logical Fallacies list. ![]() Some fallacies go by several names, so if you don’t see what you are looking for, check the alternative names are supplied in brackets. The entries below are in alphabetical order. ![]() They are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used to dupe people by politicians, the media and others with an ax to grind. This document is available on the download page as a PDF file (8 pages).Ī logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. A list of logical fallacy websites is given at the end of this list. It presents information on 24 common logical fallacies in a user-friendly format. If logical fallacies are new to you, we recommend visiting Your Logical Fallacy Is. The following fallacies come from various sources. Learning and recognizing the following common logical fallacies will help develop your ability to think critically, and will aid you in your recognition of propaganda and defense against it. Some people are aware of them and commit them anyway, intentionally, in order to mislead, confuse, win arguments against the unwary, and persuade millions to a defective way of thinking. We are not taught to recognize logical fallacies as a result we accidentally commit them all the time.
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