Common Logical Fallacies: Understanding and Identifying Them

Understanding logical fallacies is crucial for meaningful discussions and avoiding flawed reasoning in debates and everyday conversations.

### Identifying and Understanding Logical Fallacies
* 🌾 "Strawman" involves **willfully misrepresenting an argument**, often in a **massively hyperbolic fashion**.
* 🎭 "Ad Hominem" attacks the person rather than the argument, while "Genetic Fallacy" assumes an argument is **automatically wrong because of its source**.
* 🐟 "Red Herring" is a fallacy of distraction, introducing **irrelevant points to divert attention**.
* 👥 "**Appeal to Emotion**" tries to distract by evoking feelings rather than presenting valid arguments.
* 🗣 "**Appeal to Authority**" brings in unrelated experts, expecting their **authority to be valid in a different field**.
* 🚫 "False Dichotomy" presents only **two extreme options**, ignoring the **middle ground**.
* 🎢 "**Slippery Slope**" asserts that **one step will inevitably lead to another, ultimately to **doom**.
* 🔍 "Hasty Generalization" draws general conclusions from **small or biased samples**.

if you find yourself talking to someone who straw 
mans so hard that they're going to be picking chaff out of their hair for a week, it would be 
good to be able to point at what exactly it is that's making meaningful discussion impossible. 
I will also put a link to your website, which has pages entitled your logical fallacy is, which also 
has more detailed explanations. Let's go fallacy of composition: if it's true of the parts, then it's 
true of the whole. If there are three great players on my hockey team, then my hockey team must also be 
great, right? And the opposite fallacy of division: if it's true of the whole, then it must be true 
of the parts. If my flat is about half the size of your flat, then it follows logically that my 
doors must be half the size of your doors. The gambler's fallacy is the idea that streaks of good 
luck or bad luck exist and are not just random.

noise it's been read six times in a row. It's on a 
streak too quickly. Or who are you to talk if your sister who does no exercise says you should 
do 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week to be healthy. It is the 
two quickly fallacy to say, I'll do it when you do. Who are you to lecture me about what exercise 
I should be doing? Her not doing exercise says nothing about whether or not you should do it. 
Strawman, willfully misrepresenting an argument, often in a massively hyperbolic fashion. We 
should cut down on our use of fossil fuels. Oh, so you want to ban all cars and make 80-year-olds with suitcases run around on bicycles, do you? 
No ad hominem. You're evil, an evil witch. Burn the witch and don't listen to the witch's opinions; 
they're the devil's words. Sometimes people are obviously biased or subjective, and so you should

treat their arguments with care, but it's generally better form to attack the argument rather than the person. Somewhat related to this is the genetic fallacy, which is assuming that an argument is automatically wrong because of its source. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Fallacious appeal to authority, sometimes it's appropriate to look at what experts think on a topic, but fallacious appeals to authority bring in someone who's an expert in an entirely unrelated field and expect you to treat them as an expert in this field. Being an expert in particle physics doesn't mean you'll automatically have sensible opinions on, say, pig husbandry or vice versa. Red herring, a fallacy of distraction. Well, they might have stolen the puppy, Your Honor, but look how sad they are to be in court. Red herrings may seem plausible but are ultimately irrelevant. In our example, a person being sad because they have been made to come to court is not relevant to whether or not they

actually stole a puppy. That particular red herring is also an example of appeal to emotion. Appeals to emotion attempt to distract you by making you feel bad for the other person. So why should we hire you for this job? Because if you don't hire me, then I'll be out on the street, and I'll have to live in a cardboard box. You don't want to make me live in a cardboard box, do you? Appeal to popularity or bandwagon: Five million people can't be wrong. Appeal to tradition: People have been doing this for thousands of years, so it must be right. Appeal to nature: Oh, don't trust medicine or science, it's full of chemicals which are bad for you. Here, take this belladonna, it's very natural. Appeal to ignorance: If you can't prove it false, it must be true. Or vice versa: You can't prove that ghosts don't exist, therefore they must exist. Well, you can't prove that ghosts do exist, so therefore

they clearly don't. Both of these are appeals to ignorance, begging the question, assuming to be true a premise that you are trying to prove. Zog the great is infallible because in the big book of Zog the great, it says that he's infallible, and we know that the text is infallible because it was written by Zog, who is infallible because it says so in the book, which was written by someone who says equivocation is using one word to mean multiple things and thus drawing incorrect conclusions, often on purpose. Any law can be repealed by the proper authority. The law of gravity is a law, therefore the law of gravity can be repealed, which conflates law in the legal sense and law in the scientific sense and makes you look like a bit of an egypt. False dichotomy or black or white, either you agree with everything I say or you're an evil baby eater, there is no middle ground.

sort of opposite to the black and white fallacy, is the middle ground fallacy, which says if some people think two plus two is four and some people think two plus two is five, then clearly the answer lies somewhere in the middle. No decision point fallacy or the sorites paradox. The decision point fallacy says because there is a continuum, it means we can't distinguish between things. But just because the boundaries between things are a bit blurry doesn't mean we can't tell one thing from another. I know that a horse is a mammal and a frog is an amphibian, even though frogs lay eggs and so do some mammals. Duck-billed classify what you gonna do. The slippery slope fallacy is the assertion that one step will inevitably lead to another, which will inevitably lead to another, which will inevitably lead to doom. If you get a credit card, then you will overspend, and you will not be able to make your payments, and then you will definitely end up living on the street.

in a cardboard box. If you can stop at any of the 
steps, then it's a fallacy, hasty generalizations, or   anecdotes. This is where you draw a general 
conclusion from a small or biased sample. Obvious examples include things like well, my aunt 
smoked 10 cigarettes a day and she lived to 109, so   cigarettes mustn't be bad for you, but it's also 
one of the reasons that self-selective surveys   aren't particularly good for drawing general 
conclusions about a population. Faulty analogy: comparing things which aren't actually similar 
in the way that would be relevant. Government is   like business since businesses strive to make 
a profit, so should government. Burden of proof: when you insist that it's incumbent upon the 
person who disbelieves your claims to provide   proof against them, rather than providing proof 
for them yourself. I am a ghost. No, you're not. Why   are you saying that? Prove it. Then prove me wrong. 
Prove I'm not a ghost, since you're the one saying  

you're a ghost. Surely, it's incumbent upon you to back up this rather extraordinary claim. Which you can't because you can't walk through walls and you're not transparent nor remotely scary. I'm a ghost. You're really not affirming the consequent is when you say something like my dog barks when there's an intruder. My dog is not barking, therefore there's no intruder. Which if your premises are in fact correct and there is no way that your dog would not bark when there's an intruder is fine. However, my dog barks when there's an intruder. My dog is barking, therefore there must be an intruder is not valid. I mean dogs bark for all sorts of reasons, so unless your premise is my dog only barks when they're intruders this is not right. The opposite of this is denying the antecedent if it barks, then it's a dog. It's barking, therefore it's a dog. Great.

but if it's not barking, then it's not a dog is not valid because maybe it's just a dog that's, you know, tired. Moving the goal posts. You make a claim like, I can read minds, when someone tests this and you fail the test. You then say, Well, I can only read minds which are on the right wavelength. Didn't mention that before. Moving the goal posts. False cause correlation is not causation. So even if global temperatures increase while pirate numbers decrease, that doesn't mean that pirates prevent global warming. See also the Texas sharpshooter where you shoot the side of a barn and then draw your targets afterwards. First you figure out what your conclusion is, then you go looking for data to support it. Loaded question asking something with an assumption built in that means the answerer sounds bad no matter what they say. When did you stop beating your wife? No true Scotsman. No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. If you're a Scottish man and you put sugar on

your porridge. You are not a true Scotsman. Personal incredulity. Well, it's hard for me to believe that we're all made of billions of atoms, and so I'm just not going to. And last, but by no means least, the fallacy fallacy. Just because something contains one or more fallacies doesn't mean that they have reached the wrong conclusion. Your yoga teacher says I should eat vegetables because vegetables are healthy, but that is a fallacious appeal to authority because yoga teachers are not dietitians. Therefore, I should eat cake. Thanks for watching, and I hope this was educational. Leave a comment if you have a favorite or least favorite fallacy, and if you want to give us a truly ludicrous example thereof. I mean, I guess you could give us a normal example too, but and if you like videos about critical thinking, let me know in the comments, and I might make another one. All that remains then is to say thank you to my patrons and tell you to look right if you would like to see

the subscribe link, the patreon link, or more videos 
that you might like. Take care, see you next time.

31 logical fallacies in 8 minutes

Jill Bearup

Identifying Logical Fallacies in Arguments

Pointing out specific fallacies can help address a strawman argument and improve meaningful discussion.

The fallacy of composition assumes that what's true for the parts is true for the whole, while the fallacy of division assumes the opposite.

The gambler's fallacy mistakenly believes that streaks of luck are not random, and addressing these fallacies can help strengthen arguments and reasoning.

Logical fallacies are common in reasoning and argumentation, such as the appeal to emotion, popularity, tradition, and nature.

These fallacies often aim to distract or manipulate by relying on ignorance or false logic.

Equivocation and false dichotomy are also frequently used to draw incorrect conclusions or force a binary choice.

The middle ground fallacy suggests that the truth is always found in a compromise between two opposing views.

The slippery slope fallacy claims that one action will lead to a chain of inevitable events.

Hasty generalizations occur when a broad conclusion is drawn from a small or biased sample, while the faulty analogy fallacy involves comparing irrelevantly different things.

The burden of proof fallacy occurs when someone insists that the burden of proof lies with the other party.

The examples provided illustrate common logical fallacies, such as affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent, and moving the goal posts.

These fallacies can lead to flawed arguments and invalid conclusions.

It's important to recognize these errors in reasoning to form strong and valid arguments.

The video discusses three common logical fallacies: the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, personal incredulity, and the fallacy fallacy.

These fallacies involve dismissing arguments based on arbitrary criteria, personal disbelief, or the presence of fallacies without addressing the actual points being made.

The video encourages viewers to recognize these fallacies in arguments and to improve their critical thinking skills.