76 Fallacies in Print
76 Fallacies is now available in print from Amazon and other fine sellers of books.
In addition to combining the content of my 42 Fallacies and 30 More Fallacies, this book features some revisions as well as a new section on common formal fallacies.
As the title indicates, this book presents seventy six fallacies. The focus is on providing the reader with definitions and examples of these common fallacies rather than being a handbook on winning arguments or general logic.
The book presents the following 73 informal fallacies:
Accent, Fallacy of
Accident, Fallacy of
Ad Hominem
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque
Amphiboly, Fallacy of
Anecdotal Evidence, Fallacy Of
Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief
Appeal to Authority, Fallacious
Appeal to Belief
Appeal to Common Practice
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Envy
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Flattery
Appeal to Group Identity
Appeal to Guilt
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Pity
Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to Ridicule
Appeal to Spite
Appeal to Tradition
Appeal to Silence
Appeal to Vanity
Argumentum ad Hitlerum
Begging the Question
Biased Generalization
Burden of Proof
Complex Question
Composit
ion, Fallacy of
Confusing Cause and Effect
Confusing Explanations and Excuses
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
Division, Fallacy of
Equivocation, Fallacy of
Fallacious Example
Fallacy Fallacy
False Dilemma
Gambler’s Fallacy
Genetic Fallacy
Guilt by Association
Hasty Generalization
Historian’s Fallacy
Il
licit Conversion
Ignoring a Common Cause
Incomplete Evidence
Middle Ground
Misleading Vividness
Moving the Goal Posts
Oversimplified Cause
Overconfident Inference from Unknown Statistics
Pathetic Fallacy
Peer Pressure
Personal Attack
Poisoning the Well
Positive Ad Hominem
Post Hoc
Proving X, Concluding Y
Psychologist’s fallacy
Questionable Cause
Rationalization
Red HerringReification, Fallacy of
Relativist Fallacy
Slippery Slope
Special Pleading
Spotlight
Straw Man
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
Two Wrongs Make a Right
Victim Fallacy
Weak Analogy
The book contains the following three formal (deductive) fallacies:
Affirming the Consequent
Denying the Antecedent
Undistributed Middl
e
30 More Fallacies in Print
Now available in print on Amazon and other book sellers.
30 Fallacies is a companion book for 42 Fallacies. 42 Fallacies is not, however, required to use this book. It provides concise descriptions and examples of thirty common informal fallacies.
Accent, Fallacy of
Accident, Fallacy of
Amphiboly, Fallacy of
Appeal to Envy
Appeal to Group Identity
Appeal to Guilt
Appeal to Silence
Appeal to Vanity/Elitism
Argumentum ad Hitlerum
Complex Question
Confusing Explanations and Excuses
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
Equivocation, Fallacy of
Fallacious Example
Fallacy Fallacy
Historian’s Fallacy
Illicit Conversion
Incomplete Evidence
Moving the Goal Posts
Oversimplified Cause
Overconfident Inference from Unknown Statistics
Pathetic Fallacy
Positive Ad Hominem
Proving X, Concluding Y
Psychologist’s fallacy
Rationalization
Reification, Fallacy of
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
Victim Fallacy
Weak Analogy
My 99 Books 99 Cents Kickstarter
Fallacy Interview
On Thursday I did an interview about fallacies. You can hear it here: http://twobeerswithsteve.libsyn.com/
Is/Ought
Image via Wikipedia
While on a run in Maine, I happened to be thinking about the Is/Ought problem as well as fallacies. I was also thinking about bears and how many might be about in the woods, but that is another matter.
This problem was most famously put forth by David Hume. Roughly put, the problem is how one might derive an “ought” from an “is.” Inspired by Hume, some folks even go so far as to claim that it is a fallacy to draw a moral ought” from a non-moral “is.” This is, unlike the more common fallacies, rather controversial. After all, it being a fallacy or not hinges on substantial matters in ethics rather than on something far less contentious, like a matter of simple relevance. While I will not address the core of the matter, I will present some thoughts on the periphery.
As I ran and thought about the problem, I noted that people are often inclined to make moral inferences based on what they think or what they do. To be a bit more specific, people are often inclined to reason in the following two ways. Naturally, this could be expanded but for the sake of brevity I will just consider thought and action.
The first is belief. Not surprisingly, people often “reason” as follows: I/most people/all people believe that X is right (or wrong). Therefore people ought to do X (or ought to not do X). For example, a person might assert that because (they think that) most people believe that same-sex marriage is wrong, it follows that it ought not be done. This is, obviously enough, the fallacy of appeal to belief.
The second is action. People are also inclined to infer that X is something that ought to be done (or at least allowed) on the basis that it is done by them or most/all people. For example, a person might assert that people ought to be able to steal office supplies because it is something everyone does. This is the classic fallacy of appeal to common practice.
While there are both established fallacies, it seems somewhat interesting to consider whether or not they are potentially Is/Ought fallacies when they involve deriving an “ought” from the “is” of belief or action.
On the one hand, it is rather tempting to hold that they are not also Is/Ought errors. After all, it could be argued that the error is exhausted in the context of the specific fallacies and there is no need to consider a supplemental error involving deriving an “ought” from an “is.”
On the other hand, these two fallacies seem to provide a solid foundation for the Is/Ought error that is reasonably well based on established logic. This suggests (but hardly proves) that there might be some merit in considering the Is/Ought fallacy in a slightly different light-that it can actually be regarded as a special “manifestation” of various other fallacies. Or perhaps not.
Fallacies
What people believe is X, so X is good: Appeal to belief.
What people do is X, so X is good: Appeal to common practice.
30 More Fallacies
Thanks to the budget cuts to education, I am not teaching this summer. While I did consider practicing “would you like fries with that?”, I decided to finish several book projects that have been languishing due to my teaching load. The most recent is 30 More Fallacies, which is a companion to 42 Fallacies.
The book, as the name states, presents thirty fallacies. It is available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It is priced at a bank breaking 99 cents (just over three cents a fallacy).
Here is a sample:
Accent, Fallacy of
Description:
This fallacy occurs when a conclusion is drawn from a premise or premises that are ambiguous due to a lack of clarity regarding the emphasis. Most commonly this fallacy involves an ambiguity arising from a shift in emphasis/accent in the course of the argument. This fallacy has the following form:
1) Premises are presented that are ambiguous due to a lack of clarity regarding emphasis.
2) Conclusion C is drawn from these premises.
Ambiguity by itself is not fallacious, but is a lack of clarity in language that occurs when a claim has two (or more) meanings and it is not clear which is intended. The Fallacy of Accent occurs when an inference is drawn from a premise or premises on the basis of a specific sort of ambiguity that arises in three main ways.
The first is that a claim is ambiguous because the intended tone is not clear. For example, the claim “you would be lucky to get this person to work for you” could be high praise or a sarcastic remark depending on the tone used. The second is that the ambiguity arises from a lack of clarity regarding the intended stress. For example, the meaning of the claim “Leslie thinks that Sally has been faithful to him” can shift based on the stress. Stressed one way, the claim can be taken as indicating that Leslie thinks this, but is wrong. A third possibility is that claim is taken out of context. As an example, suppose that the original text was “Among the radical left, Mr. Jones has considerable appeal as a congressional candidate. However, mainstream voters rightfully regard him as a questionable choice, at best.” If someone were to quote this as “Mr. Jones has considerable appeal as a congressional candidate”, then they would be taking the quote out of context.
Perhaps the most used example of this sort of fallacy involves a hard drinking first mate and his teetotaler captain. Displeased by the mate’s drinking habits, the captain always made a point of entering “the mate was drunk today” into the ship’s log whenever the mate was drunk. One day, when the captain was sick, the mate entered “the captain was sober today” into the log. Naturally, the mate intended that the reader would take this emphasis as an indication that the event was unusual enough to be noted in the log and thus infer that the captain was drunk on all the other days. Obviously, to believe that conclusion would be to fall victim to the fallacy of accent.
Example #1
Sally: “I made Jane watch Jennifer Aniston in Just Go With It last night.”
Ted: “What did she think?”
Sally: “She said that she never wants to see another Jennifer Aniston movie.”
Ted: “But you love Jennifer and have all her movies. What are you going to do?”
Sally: “I’ll do exactly what she said. I’ll make her watch Just Go With it repeatedly.”
Ted: “Cruel.”
Sally: “Not at all. She did say that she never wants to see another Jennifer Aniston movie and I’ll see to that by making sure that she watches that movie rather than another.”
Example #2
Dr. Jane Gupta (on TV): “Though Prescott Pharmaceuticals claims that their VacsaDiet 3000 is ‘guaranteed to help you shed those unsightly pounds’, this claim has not been verified and many of the ingredients in the product present potential health risks.”
Stephen: “Hey, Bob! Dr. Jane Gupta just said that ‘Prescott Pharmaceuticals VacsaDiet 3000 is guaranteed to help you shed those unsightly pounds.’”
Bob: “In that case, I’m going to buy it. After all, Dr. Jane knows her stuff.”
Stephen: “Yes she does. You just missed her-she was on TV talking all about diets and stuff.”
Bob: “I’m sorry I missed that. By the way, do these new pants make me look fat?”
Stephen: “No, your fat makes you look fat.”
Bob: “You wound me, sir.”
Example #3
Employer: “I wasn’t sure about hiring you. After all, you were at your last job just a month. But your former employer’s letter said that anyone would be lucky to get you to work for them.”
Keith: “I will do my best to live up to that, ma’am.”
Employer: “I’m sure you will. Welcome to the company.”
The Fallacies in 30 More Fallacies
Accent, Fallacy of
Accident, Fallacy of
Amphiboly, Fallacy of
Appeal to Envy
Appeal to Group Identity
Appeal to Guilt
Appeal to Silence
Appeal to Vanity/Elitism
Argumentum ad Hitlerum
Complex Question
Confusing Explanations and Excuses
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
Equivocation, Fallacy of
Fallacious Example
Fallacy Fallacy
Historian’s Fallacy
Illicit Conversion
Incomplete Evidence
Moving the Goal Posts
Oversimplified Cause
Overconfident Inference from Unknown Statistics
Pathetic Fallacy
Positive Ad Hominem
Proving X, Concluding Y
Psychologist’s fallacy
Rationalization
Reification, Fallacy of
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
Victim Fallacy
Weak Analogy
Proving X, Concluding Y
Description:
This fallacy occurs when a conclusion is drawn from evidence that does not support that conclusion but another claim. The form of this reasoning is as follows:
- Evidence for claim X is presented.
- Conclusion: Y
While all fallacies are such that the alleged evidence provided in the premise(s) fails to adequately support the conclusion, what distinguishes this fallacy is that the evidence presented actually does provide support for a claim. However, it does not support the conclusion that is actually presented.
This fallacy typically occurs when the evidence for X seems connected or relevant to Y in a logical way, but actually is not. It is this seeming relevance or connection that lures the victim into accepting the conclusion. As such, this differs from fallacies in which the victim is lured to the conclusion by an emotional appeal.
Obviously, this fallacy (like all fallacies) is a case of non-sequiter (“does not follow”) in which the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. However, this specific sort of mistake is common and interesting enough to justify giving it its own name and entry.
Example #1
“I am troubled by the reports of binge drinking by college students. According to the statistics I have seen, about 19% of college students are binge drinkers and this leads to problems ranging from poor academic performance to unplanned pregnancies. Since people often drink in response to pressure, this shows that professors are putting their students under too much pressure and hence need to make their classes easier.”
Example #2
“Our product testing revealed that 60% of the people on Acme Diet Master reported that they felt less hungry when using the product. This shows that 60% ate less when using our product. I think we have our next big product!”
Illicit Inductive Conversion
Description:
This fallacy occurs when someone makes illicit use of the conversion rule from categorical logic in the context of inductive reasoning. This fallacy has the following form:
- Premise 1: P% (or “some”, “few”, “most”, “many”, etc.) of Xs are Ys.
- Conclusion: Therefore P% (or “some”, etc.) of Ys are Xs.
In deductive logic, conversion is a rule that allows the subject and predicate claims of a categorical claim to be exchanged. In categorical logic there are four sentence types (All S areP , No S are P, Some S are P, and Some S are not P) and this rule applies correctly to two of them: No S are P and Some S are P. A conversion is legitimate when the converted claim logically follows from the original (and vice versa). Put another way, the rule is applied correctly when its application does not change the truth value of the claim.
For example, “No cats are hamsters” converts legitimately to “no hamsters are cats.” Interestingly, “some dogs are huskies” converts correctly to “some huskies are dogs”, at least in categorical logic. In categorical logic, “some” means “at least one.” Hence, “at least one dog is a husky” is converted to “at least one husky is a dog.” In this case, the inference from one to the other is legitimate because it is made in the context of categorical logic.
The illicit use of conversion is, not surprisingly, an error. This error occurs in two ways. The first is when the rule is applied incorrectly in the context of categorical logic: if conversion is applied to an All S are P or a Some S are not P claim, then the rule has been applied improperly. This can be easily shown by the following examples. While it is true that all dogs are mammals, the conversion of this claim (that all mammals are dogs) is not true. As another example, the claim that some dogs are not huskies is true while its conversion (that some huskies are not dogs) is false.
The second occurs when the conversion rule is applied outside of the context of categorical logic. To be specific, it occurs in contexts in which “some” and comparable terms such as “few”, “most”, “many” and so on are not taken to mean “at least one.” This is the sort of error that defines this specific fallacy. For example, to infer that most people who speak English are from Maine because most people from Maine speak English would be an obvious error. This is because “most” in this context is not taken to mean “at least one.”
Not surprisingly, people generally do not make such obvious errors in regards to conversion. However, people do fall victim to conversions that seem plausible. For example, when people hear that a medical test for a heart condition is 80% accurate they might be tempted to infer that 80% of those who test positive have the condition. However, to convert “80% of those who have the condition will test positive” (that is what it means for a test to be 80% accurate) to “80% of those who test positive have the condition” is an illicit use of conversion.
Example #1
“Very few white men have been President of the United States. Therefore very few Presidents have been white men.”
Example #2
“A fairly small percentage of automobile accidents involve drivers over 70. Therefore a fairly small percentage of drivers over 70 are involved in automobile accidents.”
Example#3
“Most conservatives are not media personalities on Fox News. Therefore, most of the media personalities on Fox News are not conservative.”
Example #4
“Most wealthy people are men so most men are wealthy.”
Example #5
“Most modern terrorists are Muslims, therefore most Muslims are terrorists.”
Example #6
“Most modern terrorists are religious people, therefore most religious people are terrorists.”
Victim Fallacy
- Image via Wikipedia
I’m working on the next volume in my fallacy book series, so I’ll post the entries as I write them. Any useful criticism would be appreciated.
Victim Fallacy
Description:
This fallacy occurs when a person uncritically assumes that the cause of a perceived mistreatment (such as not being hired or receiving a poor grade) is due to prejudice (such as sexism or racism) on the part of the person or persons involved in the perceived mistreatment. The form of “reasoning” is as follows:
1. Person P believes s/he is being mistreated by person or persons M.
2. Person P regards himself or herself as a member of group G and believes this group has been subject to prejudice. Or P believes that M regards him/her as a member of G.
3. P uncritically concludes that his/her perceived mistreatment is the result of prejudice against G on the part of M.
This is a fallacy because the mere that that a person perceives himself or herself as being mistreated does not provide sufficient justification for the claim that the alleged mistreatment is the result of prejudice. After all, even if the situation does involve mistreatment, it might be the result of factors that have nothing to do with prejudice of the sort being considered. For example, imagine the following situation: Jane is taking a chemistry class and always comes to class late, disrupting the lecture when she strolls in. She also blatantly checks her text messages on her mobile phone during class. She earns a B in the class, but is assigned a C instead because the professor is angry about her behavior. Jane would be correct to conclude she has been mistreated given the disparity between what she earned and what she received, but she would not be justified in assuming that it was “just because she was a woman” without adequate evidence for the professor being a sexist.
This mistake is reasoning is similar to the various causal fallacies. In these fallacies an uncritical leap is made from insufficient evidence to conclude that one thing caused another. In this case, a leap is being made without sufficient evidence to conclude that the alleged mistreatment was caused by prejudice.
Reasonably concluding that an alleged mistreatment is the result of prejudice involves establishing that the mistreatment is, in fact, a mistreatment and the most plausible explanation for the mistreatment is prejudice. Without taking these steps, the person is engaging in poor reasoning and is not justified in his/her conclusion-even if the conclusion is, in fact, true. This is because good reasoning is not just about getting a correct conclusion (this could be done accidentally by guessing) but by getting it in the right way.
If a person has good reason to believe that the alleged mistreatment is a mistreatment and that it is a result of prejudice, then the reasoning would obviously not be fallacious. For example, if Jane was aware that she earned a B and was intentionally assigned a C, she would be justified in believing she was mistreated. If the professor made sexist remarks and Jane knew he downgraded all the other women in the class and none of the men, then Jane would be justified in concluding that the mistreatment stemmed from prejudice.
Not surprisingly, the main factor that leads people to commit this fallacy “honestly” is because the group in question has been subject to prejudice. From a psychological standpoint, it is natural for a person who is aware of prejudice against the group in question to perceive mistreatment as coming from that prejudice. And, as a matter of fact, when considering a perceived mistreatment it would be quite reasonable to consider the possibility of prejudice. However, until there is adequate evidence it remains just that-a mere possibility.
In addition to cases in which the fallacy is committed as an honest mistake, there are cases in which this type of “reasoning” is cynically exploited as an excuse or even as a means of revenge (charges of prejudice, even if completely unfounded, can do a lot of damage to a person’s career in many professions). As an example of an excuse, a person who has done poorly in a class because of a lack of effort might tell his parents that “the professor has this thing against men.”
In addition to the fact that this is a mistake in reasoning, there are other reasons to avoid this fallacy. First, uncritically assuming that other people are prejudiced is itself a sign of prejudice. For example, to uncritically assume that all whites are racists is just as racist as assuming that all Jewish people are covetous or all blacks are criminals. Second, use of this fallacy, especially as the “reasoning” behind an excuse can have serious consequences. For example, if a student who did poorly in a class because of a lack of effort concludes that his grade was the result of racism and tells his parents, they might consider a law suit against the professor. As another example, if a person becomes accustomed to being able to fall back on this line of “reasoning” they might be less motivated in their efforts since they can “explain” their failures through prejudice.
It must be emphasized that it is not being claimed that prejudice does not really exist or that people are not victims of prejudice. It is being claimed that people need to be very carefully in their reasoning when it comes to prejudice and accusations of prejudice.
Examples
Example #1
Sam: “Can you believe this-I got a C in that class.”
Jane: “Well, your work was pretty average and you didn’t put much effort into the class. How often did you show up, anyway?”
Sam: “That has nothing to do with it. I deserve at least a B. That chick teaching the class just hates men. That’s why I did badly.”
Bill: “Hey, I earned an ‘A’, man.”
Sam: “She just likes you because you’re not a real man like me.”
Example #2
Ricardo: “I applied for six jobs and got turned down six times!”
Ann: “Where did you apply?”
Ricardo: “Six different software companies.”
Ann: “So, why didn’t you get a job? Was it because you don’t actually have any experience in software?”
Ricardo: “All the people interviewing me were white. A person like me just can’t get a job in this white world.”
Example #3
Dave: “Can you believe that-those people laughed at me when I gave my speech.”
Will: “Well, that was cruel. But you really should make sure that you have your facts right before giving a speech. As two examples, Plato was not an Italian and Descartes did not actually say ‘I drink, therefore I iz.’”
Dave: “They wouldn’t have laughed if a straight guy had said those things!”
Will: “Really?”
Dave: “Yeah! They laughed just because I’m gay!”
Will: “Well, they didn’t laugh at me, but I actually did my research.”
Defending 42 Fallacies
One thing I have found interesting about making my popular (in both senses) work on fallacies readily available is that it generates some rather hostile criticisms. In fact, one such criticism, posted as a comment by argumentics, was removed from this blog site.
When I found that the comment had been deleted, I was somewhat split in my view. On the one hand, allowing comments that go beyond criticism into hostility can be damaging to a blog by allowing the conversation to spiral down rapidly. On the other hand, criticisms should be taken seriously and addressed.
Of course, if someone wants his or her criticism to be taken seriously and considered an addition to the conversation, that person should present his/her comments in a suitable way. That is, in a civil manner.
While I will not reproduce the entirety of the deleted comments, I will present the criticisms made by this person (without the condescending remarks and personal attacks) and reply to them. This is mainly because I do not like to walk away from an attack.
Also, the criticisms raised by argumentics are not new-over the years the same sort of comments have arrived in my email. By addressing what I take to be misinterpretations of my work I hope to lower the chance of other people making the same mistakes.
Argumentics begins by claiming that there is “no single difference between your example of “Inductive Argument” and that of “Inductive Fallacy”. What resembles (and makes them both “inductive”) is that they are deductively invalid: their form is not that of a valid syllogism.”
Argumentics is in error here. What makes an argument inductive is not being deductively invalid. After all, affirming the consequent is an invalid argument but is not classified as an inductive argument.
While inductive arguments are all technically invalid (since an inductive argument can have all true premises and a false conclusion at the same time), they are not intended to be valid and are assessed by different standards.
Turning back to the examples themselves, they are different.
Example of an Inductive Argument
Premise 1: Most American cats are domestic house cats.
Premise 2: Bill is an American cat.
Conclusion: Bill is domestic house cat.
Example of an Inductive Fallacy
Premise 1: Having just arrived in Ohio, I saw a white squirrel.
Conclusion: All Ohio squirrels are white.
(While there are many, many squirrels in Ohio, the white ones are very rare).
The non-fallacious inductive argument is an inductive syllogism and the specific example is a strong argument. After all, if it is true (which it is) that most American cats are domestic house cats and Bill is an American cat, it is very likely that Bill is a domestic house cat. In short, the truth of the premises makes the conclusion likely to be true and this makes the argument strong.
In the example of the fallacy, the inference is from one example (the white squirrel) to all Ohio squirrels. The truth of the first premise does not make the conclusion likely to be true, hence the reasoning is poor. It is, in fact, a classic example of a hasty generalization.
Argumentics also brings up a not uncommon comment, namely that my examples are not really arguments. For example, s/he asserts that the following is not an argument: “Equal rights for women? Yeah, I’ll support that when they start paying for dinner and taking out the trash! Hah hah! Fetch me another brewski, Mildred.”
Argumentics does raise a reasonable concern here. After all, the imaginary person does not clearly identify his premises or conclusion and could be taken as merely saying stuff rather than as committing an error in reasoning. As such, it would seem to be something of a leap to take this as a fallacy and also it could be contended that I should have provided an example with a clear conclusion and clear premises. For example, a “complete” example would look something like this:
Premise 1: I have mocked the idea of equal rights.
Conclusion: Therefore, women should not have equal rights.
However, the reason why I used the original example is that when people engage in fallacious reasoning in “real life”, they typically do so in a very rough and informal manner. In fact, sometimes it is so rough and informal that it might be a matter of reasonable dispute as to whether or not the person is actually even arguing. However, in the example I gave, the person seems to intend to reject the notion of equal rights for women on the basis of his making fun of the idea, which seems to be an appeal to ridicule.
I am willing to admit that this is a reasonable point of concern and is, in fact, one my students raise: how do we distinguish between a fallacy and someone merely saying things that sort of look like a fallacy (the same applies to non-fallacious arguments)? In some cases, we can clearly tell. In other cases, it can be a matter of judgment. What, I think, is important is being able to tell when good reasoning is absent-either because a fallacy is being committed or because reasoning turns out to be absent altogether. At a later date, I should write more about this.
42 Fallacies for Free
- Image via Wikipedia
If you Google “fallacy” you will find a link to my work on the first page. I used to be the top link, but Wikipedia beat me. Because of this, I receive a fair amount of email from people asking about fallacies and about getting a copy of the material. I finally got around to updating the material and assembling it into a fairly nice PDF file, complete with a color cover. You can view/download it here: 42 Fallacies.
The book contains the following fallacies:
Ad Hominem
Ad Hominem Tu Quoque
Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Belief
Appeal to Common Practice
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Flattery
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Pity
Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to Ridicule
Appeal to Spite
Appeal to Tradition
Begging the Question
Biased Generalization
Burden of Proof
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
Fallacy of Composition
Confusing Cause and Effect
Fallacy of Division
False Dilemma
Gambler’s Fallacy
Genetic Fallacy
Guilt by Association
Hasty Generalization
Ignoring a Common Cause
Middle Ground
Misleading Vividness
Peer Pressure
Personal Attack
Poisoning the Well
Post Hoc
Questionable Cause
Red Herring
Relativist Fallacy
Slippery Slope
Special Pleading
Spotlight
Straw Man
Two Wrongs Make a Right
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