In the America of Barack Obama and his lapdogs in the media, we are bombarded constantly with logical fallacies. Rather than being desensitized to them turn the target-rich environment into a competitive pastime. It’s the next “logical” step to buzzword bingo: Logical Fallacy Bingo! Enjoy.
- Ad hominem – Arguing “against the man,” attacking an opponent personally rather than refuting their claims with logic and reason
- Ad nauseam – Literally “to the point of nausea.” Repeating the same flawed argument to a sickening extent as if repetition makes it more valid.
- Anecdotal fallacy – Citing anecdotes in which an assertion appears to be true as proof that the assertion is universally true
- Appeal to authority – Asserting that an assertion is true only because some presumed authority says so
- Appeal to the gallery – The “everyone knows that X is true” fallacy
- Appeal to intellectual capability – Asserting that an opponent’s argument is wrong by denigrating his intelligence, knowledge, or capabilities of understanding
- Appeal to motive – Ascribing ulterior motives to an opponent rather than addressing the substance of his argument.
- Begging the question – Circular reasoning, arguing for a conclusion using statements which presume that the conclusion is true
- Biased sample – Arguing that a claim is true based on prejudicial evidence
- Chronological snobbery – Presuming that ideas and arguments from earlier times are inherently inferior to present day arguments
- Circumstantial ad hominem -Attempting to refute a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is only making it for personal gain
- Etymological fallacy – Falsely assuming that the present day usage and meaning of a word is the original or historical usage and meaning
- Guilt by association – Someone you don’t like makes a claim, therefore the claim is false
- Hasty generalization – Drawing a conclusion about a population based on too small a sample of that population
- Ipse disxit – Literally “he himself said it,” using a dogmatic assertion without supporting it logically
- Loaded question – Asking a question which presupposes some unproven assertion
- Poisoning the well – Condemning a person in order to subsequently argue that whatever he asserts is false
- Post hoc ergo propter hoc – Literally “after this therefore because of this,” arguing that A occurred before B therefore A is the cause of B
- Red herring – Introducing an irrelevant topic in order to divert attention from the actual subject of an argument
- Reductio ad absurdum – Taking an opponent’s argument and reducing it to an absurd extreme
- Straw man – Ignoring an opponent’s actual position and substituting a distortion which is then refuted
- Tu quoque – Arguing that an assertion is false because the person making it does not live as if his assertion is true.