FALLACIES

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FALLACIES

• Something you should NOT commit!
• Its a crime!

2
Are these arguments?

• At a student council election, a candidate says
• I think you all know that this year only a real
  leader should be president of JJC. My experience
  proves that I am a real leader. Therefore, I feel
  that I am the best qualified candidate and I
  sincerely seek your support. Thank you very much.

3
Are these arguments ?

• Estee Lauder advertisement
• Everyday, younger looking skin

4
Are these arguments ?

• Your friend tells you
• You have just drunk three pints of beer. If you
  drive your car now, you will probably be caught
  by the police and lose your driving licence. So
  you ought not to drive your car.

5
Are these arguments ?

• The play was about the search for happiness. It
  was well received by the critics, but did not
  turn out to be popular with the public.

6
Are these arguments ?

• Advertisement for Neutrogena Shampoo
• Works like the first time. Every time.

7
Are these arguments ?

• Advertisement for Weight loss
• Hydroxycut has quickly become one of the most
  popular weight-loss products for men and women
  all across America. Its been featured on
  commercial networks nationwide, and used by TV
  actors, fashion models and thousands of people
  for one reason it works!

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What is a fallacy ?

• Arguments that can seem persuasive despite being
  unsound.
• Arguments with illogical/faulty reasoning
• Faulty errors dont account for a fallacy faulty
  arguments do
• Claim ? Evidence/SD ? Conclusion

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Types of fallacies

• Ad Hoc Rescue argument
• Irrelevant attack
• Appeal to consequence
• Anecdotal evidence
• Appeal to emotions
• Appeal to ignorance
• Appeal to money
• Begging the question
• Slippery Slope
• Appeal to authority

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Ad Hoc Rescue argument

• A If you take 4 of these vitamins every day, you
  will never get a cold.
• B I tried that last year for several months, and
  still got a cold.
• A Did you take the tablets every day?
• B Yes
• A Well, Ill bet you bought some bad tablets.

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Ad Hoc Rescue argument

• The burden of proof is definitely on As
  shoulders to prove that Bs vitamin C tablets
  were probably bad, not the vitamin C.
• If A cant do so, her attempt to rescue her
  hypothesis (that vitamin C prevents colds) is
  simply a dogmatic refusal to face up to the
  possibility of being wrong.

12
Ad Hoc Rescue argument

• Trying to rescue a cherished belief from trouble.
  When faced with conflicting data, you are likely
  to mention how the conflict will disappear if
  some new assumption is taken into account.
  However, if there is no good reason to accept
  this saving assumption other than that it works
  to save your cherished belief, your rescue is an
  ad hoc rescue.

13
Irrelevant Attack

• What she says about Johannes Keplers astronomy
  of the 1600s must be just so much garbage. So
  you realize that shes only fourteen?

14
Irrelevant Attack

• This attack undermines the arguers credibility
  as a scientific authority, but it does not
  undermine her reasoning.
• That reasoning should stand or fall on the
  scientific evidence, not on the arguers age or
  anything else about her personally, unless it is
  REALLY relevant!

15
Irrelevant Attack

• Suggest that this attack undermines the argument
  itself, by pointing out irrelevant circumstances
  that the attacked may be in, and therefore the
  attacked is wrong as well.

16
Appeal to consequence

• If shes Brazilian, then she speaks Portuguese.
• Hey! she does speak Portuguese, so she is
  Brazilian.

17
Appeal to consequence

• This is simply inductive (from general to
  specific)
• It is not necessary true that the reverse
  reasoning is true as well.

18
Anecdotal Evidence

• Yeah, Ive read the health warnings on those
  cigarette packs and I know about all that health
  research, but my brother smokes, and he says hes
  never been sick a day in his life, so I know
  smoking cant really hurt you.

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Anecdotal Evidence

• Using the fact that the writers brother is in
  good health (anecdotal evidence, not SCIENTIFIC
  proof) to show that he can still continue to
  smoke.

20
Anecdotal Evidence

• If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic
  search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand
  stories, you are committing the fallacy of
  overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.

21
Appeal to Emotions

• Speaker knows he is talking to an aggrieved
  person whose house is worth much more than
  100,000
• You had a great job and didnt deserve to lose
  it. I wish I could help somehow. I do have one
  idea. Now your family needs financial security
  even more. You need cash. I can help you. Here is
  a check for 100,000. Just sign this standard
  sales agreement, and we can skip the realtors and
  all the headaches they would create at this
  critical time in your life.

22
Appeal to Emotions

• Max I broke my wrist while playing in your
  colleges last basketball game.
• Teacher Ok, Ill probably just pass you for the
  history quiz that you missed last week, since you
  have a reason for missing it.

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Appeal to Emotions

• This is a use of emotions to downplay relevant
  information. It is proper to pity people who have
  had misfortunes, but you may not be responsible
  if you do not back it up with other strong
  reasoning.

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Appeal to Emotions

• You are appealing to emotions when your appeal to
  readers is simply an attempt to arouse their
  feelings of anger, fear, grief, love, outrage,
  pity, pride, sexuality, sympathy, relief, and so
  forth.

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Appeal to Consequences

• That cant be Mr Seetoh there in the videotape
  going into her apartment. If it were, hed be a
  liar about not knowing her. Hes not the kind of
  man who would lie. Hes a member of my
  congregation.

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Appeal to Consequences

• Mr Seetoh may not be the person in that
  videotape, but this kind of arguing will not
  convince others that it is someone else in the
  tape.

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Appeal to Consequences

• This is a belief that is false because it implies
  something youd rather not believe in.
• Hence, youre arguing that you dont believe in
  the consequence, hence you dont believe in the
  argument.

28
Appeal to consequence

• When one thinks that one have enough evidence to
  affirm the consequence and then suppose that as a
  result one have sufficient reason for affirming a
  cause.

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Appeal to Ignorance

• Nobody has proven to me that there is no miracle,
  so I know that there is one coming along for me.

30
Appeal to Ignorance

• You are telling the readers that it is good not
  to know too much, because, once you find out
  more, it would disprove your argument!
• This is therefore fallacious as the reasoning is
  not a discoverable attempt to prove what you are
  arguing for.

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Appeal to Ignorance

• Not knowing that a statement is false is taken to
  be a proof that it is true.
• Not knowing that a statement is true is taken to
  be a proof that it is false.
• ? Occurs when absence of evidence is not good
  enough evidence of absence.

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Appeal to Money

• Hes rich, so he should be the president of our
  Parents and Teachers Association.

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Appeal to Money

• It is a mistake to suppose that if someone is
  poor financially, then theyre poor at something
  unrelated to having money.

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Appeal to Money

• This is therefore an error of supposing that, if
  something costs a great deal of money, then it
  must be better.
• OR
• If someone has a great deal of money, then
  theyre a better person in some way unrelated to
  having a great deal of money.
• This is the same for something being cheap and of
  inferior quality.

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Begging the question

• Women have rights, but women shouldnt fight
  bulls because a bullfighter is and should be a
  man.

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Begging the question

• This is simply saying that women shouldnt fight
  bulls because women shouldnt fight bulls.
• There is no progress made at all in determining
  whether women should fight bulls.

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Begging the question

• This is what we call, a circular reasoning in
  which a conclusion is derived from premises that
  presuppose the conclusion.
• Your argument should start at one point and end
  up somewhere new (goal of increasing the case for
  believing in your argument)

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Slippery Slope

• A Those looks like bags under your eyes. Are you
  getting enough sleep?
• B I had a test and stayed up late studying.
• A You didnt take any drugs, did you?
• B Just caffeine in my coffee, like I always do.
• A Jeff! You know what happens when people take
  drugs! Pretty soon the caffeine wont be strong
  enough. Then you will take something stronger,
  maybe even diet pills. Then eventually youll be
  taking cocaine! Then youll become a drug addict!
• B

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Slippery Slope

• A ? B
• B ? C
• C ? D
• Hence if you dont want to become a drug addict,
  dont take coffee!

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Slippery Slope

• There is a downward spiral of events that may
  have possibility of not happening.
• Suppose if a person takes the first step (in a
  chain of causes and effects), it will lead to a
  second step that will in turn lead to another
  step, till what happens at the end of the chain.
• Likelihood of occurrence is exaggerated, and no
  other alternatives are considered.

41
Appeal to Authority

• You can believe the moon is covered with dust
  because the president of our neighbourhood
  association said so, and he should know.
• Of course shes guilty of the crime. The police
  arrested her, didnt they? And theyre experts
  when it comes to crime.

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Appeal to Authority

• Although the president is an authority on many
  neighbourhood matters, he is no authority on the
  composition of the moon. It would be better to
  appeal to some astronomer or geologist. If you
  place too much trust in expert opinion and
  overlook any possibility that experts talking in
  their own field of expertise make mistakes, too,
  then you will commit this fallacy.

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Appeal to Authority

• Backing up your reasoning by saying that it is
  supported by what some authority says on the
  subject. It is not fallacious to use authority,
  but if you use one who is not an authority IN
  THIS SUBJECT, then this person cannot be trusted
  to tell the truth.

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Overcome fallacies !

• Supporting arguments evidence, data, SOUND
  reasoning
• Do not be hasty when coming to a conclusion.
  Always ask yourself Is this sufficient to show
  my point?
• Use qualifiers
• ? necessarily, certainly, presumably, so far as
  evidence goes, very likely, maybe, apparently, or
  so it seems

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Sample 1

• QN Why is racial harmony so difficult to
  maintain in a multi-racial context?
• ANS It has been shown that racial harmony is
  difficult, as in Korea. If any Japanese is to
  stay in Korea for long, he would be despised,
  scolded, or even beaten up by local Koreans.

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Sample 1

• Type Slippery Slope
• Living in Korea does not necessitate being beaten
  up!
• ? Over-exaggeration of consequences

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Sample 2

• QN Are criminals born or made?
• ANS Imagine someone whose family is made up of a
  father who steals, a mother who is a prostitute,
  a brother who extorts, and so on. That somebody
  will surely learned some of these acts that would
  make him become a criminal when he grew up.
• Consider another extreme where someone has a
  father who occupation is a policeman, and the
  whole family upholds law and justice. If none of
  his friends steals or commits any unlawful acts,
  he will surely develop to have a good character.

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Sample 2

• Type Appeal to Consequences
• Having good parent models do not necessitate a
  good end
• Having bad parent models do not necessitate a bad
  end.
• ? Supposes that one has enough evidence to assume
  a result or affirm a cause when it is not
  sufficient at all!

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Sample 3

• QN The freedom of the press should not include
  the invasion of peoples private lives. Do you
  agree?
• ANS The press tries, however, to keep the
  incidents as truthful as possible, mostly backed
  by photographs. Therefore, the press should be
  given as much freedom as possible since what they
  report is the truth.

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Sample 3

• Type Anecdotal evidence
• Overemphasize on anecdotal evidence (photographs)
  to come to a conclusion (the truth) without any
  concrete backing or evidence.

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Sample 4

• QN What other value do you see in toys besides
  fun and amusement?
• ANS If the child does not have a good childhood
  memory, they will be under a lot of stress when
  they grow up. They will tend to be heartless and
  full of hatred.

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Sample 4

• Type Slippery Slope
• No childhood ? Stressful
• Stressful ? Heartless
• Heartless ? Full of hatred
• ? Consequence is over-exaggerated that having
  bad childhood will necessarily lead to ONLY ONE
  CONCLUSION!

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Sample 5

• QN Childhood is the happiest time of ones life.
  Is this statement true?
• ANS As a child, they are innocent, they have a
  heart made of gold. To them, everything is
  beautiful, there is no difference in whatever
  they see. A child never bear any grudge against
  anybody in such a circumstances, there is not
  chance for them to create any hatred for anybody.

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Sample 5

• Type Appeal to consequence
• That childhood must be happy, therefore the
  affirmation of the causes (that they never have
  hatred etc)