Fallacy Worksheet #3

If the statement isn't a fallacy write “no fallacy”. Otherwise if the statement is a fallacy, write which one(s). Some statements may contain more than one fallacy.

The list of fallacies I'm drawing from are:

Wishful thinking
Appeal to ignorance
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to the masses
Appeal to tradition
Appeal to force
Appeal to authority
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization
False Dichotomy
Ad Hominem
Straw Man
Slippery Slope


I have serious concerns about the ethics of face transplants. If we let the badly disfigured have face transplants then what is next? Will rich older women hire hit men to find and capture attractive young women in order to steal their faces? We have to nip this in the bud and make face transplants illegal or we will have an epidemic of this entirely new sort of crime.



We don't know what dangers lie in wait. We don't know who is around the next corner. It could be a rapist or a serial killer. We should always be on our guard, ever vigilant, paying 100% attention to every possible danger.



Everyone knows that atheists all have one thing in common: they hate God. How could anyone ever trust someone that hated God? We must not let our compassion get the best of us but instead recognize this evil for what it is.



I knew a couple of guys that were both left handed and drunks. I think left handers must just be basically defective.



Senator Kerry said it's important that the troops not terrorize Iraqi families with nighttime raids. How can he say that our troops are terrorists? He is entirely unAmerican.



If we allow Federal regulations on communications equipment for our first responders, then where will Federal regulations stop? Before we know it we will be living with Big Brother.



If you don't leave the premises immediately, you will be handcuffed and processed.



Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, so he must surely have a finely tuned, scientific mind. So if he says that little girls met faeries in the forest and that the photographs are genuine, I believe him.



I met a red-headed girl who had a crazy temper. Man, those redheads.



It's common knowledge that on the night of the full moon, far more babies are born than on a typical night. We should not, then, underestimate the positive influence of the moon on a woman's health.



You are either a child or an adult. Make a choice.



Women are the inferior and imperfect sex and must be protected from others and from their own foolishness. This immutable truth was known since time immemorial and should be not be challenged.



“We have people in this country from the left who probably jump up and down every time an American loses his life.”



You will believe as our tribe believes or face banishment.



Grown-ups are boring. All they talk about is insurance and mortgages.



“If there is one indisputable fact about the human condition it is that no community can survive if it is persuaded -or even suspects- that its members are leading meaningless lives in a meaningless universe.”



Everyone knows that Christians are just interested in one thing in politics, being the morality police. All they want is for the U.S. government to become an intrusive Christian theocracy.



The behavior of our children must be changeable and cannot be due to genetics. Otherwise, what is the point of being good parents?



The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge or criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democracy nor what this country has stood for, for over 200 years.



"The CIA director has misled the nation using false intelligence; he must either be incompetent or lying."



Only an idiot wouldn't realize what everyone knows, which is legalizing marijuana would lead to an epidemic of addiction, a nation of potheads with only their next fix on their drug addled brains.



A person is either alive or they are dead. Saying that someone is brain dead has no meaning whatsoever.



What's your problem with me drinking the spiked orange punch? Orange juice is good for you.



You have an opinion? Okay then, tell me what your dumb opinion is.



"No threat, no threat will prevent freedom-loving people from defending freedom. And make no mistake about it: This is good versus evil. These are evildoers. They have no justification for their actions. There's no religious justification, there's no political justification. The only motivation is evil."



Those evolutionist think we came from dogs. What sort of an dummy thinks we came from dogs.



“Homeopathy is a system of healing which has attracted many avowed followers in its 200+ year history. Because homeopathic remedies are safe and believed by many to be effective, we will continue to carry them in our stores.”



In a democracy, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and so we should respect everyone's opinion. There is some disagreement over whether the Holocaust took place, so we should have a vote to decide whether it belongs in the high school history curriculum or not.



If you don't get behind the battle plan and believe in the competence and leadership of this President, you only hurt the troops.

Fallacy Worksheet #2

If the statement isn't a fallacy write “no fallacy”. Otherwise if the statement is a fallacy, write which one(s). Some statements may contain more than one fallacy.

The list of fallacies I'm drawing from are:

Wishful thinking
Appeal to consequences
Appeal to the masses
Appeal to tradition
Appeal to force
Appeal to authority
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization
False Dichotomy
Ad Hominem
Straw Man
Slippery Slope



Everyone knows there are no aliens.


Einstein believed in God, so we should too.


The founding fathers believed we should have a theocracy, so that's what we should do.


She must love me, otherwise my life would be over.


I know my comatose son can hear me when I speak to him.


I don't believe in premarital sex. That's why whenever I see an unwed mother I know a miracle has happened.


“[O]nce you cross that Rubicon, then there's no place to stop. Because if a judge can say two men and two women can marry, there is no reason on Earth why some judge some place is not going to say, this is not fair. Three women or three men, or five and two or five and five... So you could have polygamy. You could have incest. You could have marriage between a father and a daughter. You could have two widows, or two sisters or two brothers. Once you start that and put it in terms of rights, where somebody says, why should I not have benefits if they get them? Then it's gone. You've undermined the entire legal foundation for the family.”



We should just have a vote over whether people are truly abducted by aliens or not, and the result should be what is taught in science class.


Every time I hear someone promote Social Security I get sick. Only a communist would support such a program.


No sudden moves or I will shoot you.


The President says that there is no global warming, so the warnings about global warming must be fake.


Religious people think that God lives in the clouds and throws lightning bolts. How could anyone be so stupid?


I swear that guy is probably the biggest knucklehead I've seen in a while.


People have believed that the Earth was flat, for hundreds and thousands of years. Why should we fly in the face of so many smart people in the history of the world?


I have high hopes that we can succeed in our challenges. The question we must ask ourselves is this: Are we part of the solution or part of the problem?


Did you hear about the ACLU's latest case? They are all a bunch of Godless atheists that will stop at nothing in their goal of removing God from every aspect of society.


If you don't believe, if you have any doubt in your heart, then you will be to blame if I cannot heal this boy.


What does it matter if I try to do well? I tried once and I got an F. If I try again, I'll just fail again.


The witness committed perjury on critical issues in this case, and so all his testimony should be held in doubt.


You either have enough money to buy the tickets or you don't. Which is it?


Only a crazy person would believe that idea.


Every time we leave the dog in the house when we go out, he tears up the living room. The next time we go out, we really should leave him out in the back yard.


The last blackout saw a fire leading to the failure of one power line which then lead to a small blackout which in turn lead to a massive blackout across the Eastern seaboard.

Fallacy Worksheet #1

Some of the following statements contain one or more fallacies. Some have none. If there are no fallacies write “no fallacies”. Otherwise identify the fallacy or fallacies.

The following is the list of fallacies this sheet draws from:

Appeal to ignorance
Appeal to the masses
Appeal to tradition
Appeal to force
Appeal to authority
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization
False Dichotomy
Ad Hominem
Straw Man
Slippery Slope

People in China have believed in acupuncture for hundreds of years. There must be something to it.

My best friend is really smart and he told me a simple truth which has served me well: that boys are basically intellectual and girls are basically emotional.

There are only two kinds of girls, nice girls that stay at home and party girls that go crazy. If you let your daughter go out on dates, everyone knows that the next thing you know she'll be making out with guys left and right and before you know it you'll have a pregnant teen-ager and then her baby to take care of.

Some people want women to be able to join whatever part of the military they want. What good are a bunch of little girls going to do, talk to the enemy about their feelings?

Scientists say that the Universe started with a big bang, with a huge explosion. Anyone with any sense knows that to have an explosion you need something to explode. How dumb are those fancy-pants eggheads.

I knew a guy from Canada. He was the singularly most clueless person I every met. Man, those Canadians.

This breakthrough medical procedure has been used in Europe for years. Now it's available here in the United States. Millions of Europeans can't be wrong.


How many times has he lied to you? Taking anything he says without careful examination is foolhardy.

All they want us to do in college level English classes is to write in 5 paragraph essay format. Can you imagine a bigger waste of time.


Why listen to conservatives. Every single one of them is interested in just one thing: letting big corporations do whatever it takes to make a profit.


If an addict that's been clean goes on to take one hit, then his compulsion will make him take another and then another. Before long his life will most likely be a mess.


Nobody lives in Wyoming. Have you ever met anyone from Wyoming? I didn't think so.

Christians want to change the U.S. government into a Christian theocracy.

Fallacy Definitions

Fallacies are statements that really don't make any sense, but are sometimes convincing because of emotional appeal or because the conclusion is one that a person might agree with and so that person is uncritical of how they got there.

Skeptics should avoid using fallacies in their own reasoning and speech for a number of reasons:

Fallacies are almost always dishonest.

Fallacies might appeal to the already convinced, but typically won't convince anyone else.

Almost anyone that realizes that you've used a fallacy will take the use of a fallacy as a sign of sloppy thinking or attempted trickery and you will then lose credibility in their eyes.

Appeal to consequences
Appeal to consequences asserts that something must be true, because otherwise the consequences are horrible. Unfortunately, sometimes life is horrible, so this reasoning is incorrect.
Examples:

“People in the human statue condition can't be conscious. The alternative is simply unthinkable”.

“Doing all the intricate parenting things I've done must make a difference, otherwise I've wasted my time.”

“Boys and girls must be equally smart as one another, otherwise gender discrimination is defendable.”

Things like “stop smoking or you may get lung cancer” or “living a life filled with chaos will probably lead to a bad end” are not appeal to consequences fallacies.

Showing that the idea leads to a contradiction is also not a fallacy.“All generalizations are false.” is self contradicting and it is valid to then take the consequence of that contradiction to be that there must be some true generalizations.

Appeal to the masses
Appeal to the masses justifies something on the basis that it is widely thought to be true. It was once widely thought that the world was flat, this didn't make it so.

Example: “We should have a vote on whether the was a holocaust or not. The result of that vote will tell us the real deal and should be what put in text books.”

Appeal to tradition
Appeal to tradition is very similar to appeal to the masses. It proposes that something that was always done a certain way was done that way it was for a good reason, even if the good reason is no longer apparent. Sometimes things are widely done for terrible reasons. Sometimes things are widely done for a good reason but that good reason no longer persists.

Example:
For thousands of years people thought that the Earth was flat. Why should we fly in the face of all that combined wisdom?

Appeal to force
Appeal to force insists that someone believe something not because the facts back it up but because there is an “or else” involved. Living in the Soviet Union at one time could involve be required to believe that communism worked, because believing something else and saying so could have dire consequences.

Example:
“If you don't believe in Santa Claus, you won't get a present on Christmas Eve.”

A command is not the fallacy of an appeal to force. Saying “Stop or I'll shoot” isn't a fallacy at all and so is not the fallacy of an appeal to force.

Appeal to authority
Appeal to authority attempts to substitute the authority of a person for the final test of idea, which are the facts. Expert authority is fine, as long as there is process of verifying the integrity of what he says.

Example: “I believe the Bermuda triangle is an interdimensional vortex, because I read a book all about the Bermuda triangle and that book said it was.”

Equivocation
Equivocation is one of the rarer fallacies. It uses a word that has multiple means to sneak a conclusion that is unjustified.

Example: Redheads are not normal, and so should be institutionalised.

Hasty Generalization
Ordinary generalization is key to science. A hasty generalization is where someone jumps to a conclusion based on too small of set of cases.

Examples:

We found an educational toy that was able to allow a particular girl to gain three grades of reading level withing a couple of months. We should buy hundreds of these, so that every student can benefit like that.

I dated a blonde and she was a terrible girlfriend. Blondes just aren't worth it.

False Dichotomy
Also called a false choice or a false dilemma. A dichotomy is something split into two categories. A false dichotomy is where that division is not justified because of other cases or because of “shades of gray” between the extremes.

Example:
“You are either having a good time or you're not. Which is it?”

“Girls are either girlie girls or tomboys. One or the other.”


Ad Hominem
An ad hominem attack avoids the issue at hand and attempts to discredit the person, usually with some kind of smear to their character.

Example:
“Your brother said that you got a speeding ticket.”
“He would say that, he's always been jealous of me.”

"You claim that this man is innocent, but you cannot be trusted since you are a criminal as well."
(from Wikipedia: Ad Hominem)

If someone is a notorious liar, then that is a basis for discounting what they say, if there is no other way to verify it.

Straw Man
A straw man argument uses a lame version of the opponents argument, shows that that argument is in fact lame and then claims victory over what is claimed to be the opponents argument, but really isn't.

The name comes from the idea of dressing a straw man (a scarecrow) in one's opponent's clothes, knocking it down and then celebrating the false victory.
It's very typical to take an extreme view that fringe elements might have and pretend like that is the majority view.

There is often an ad hominem attack implied since usually only a dumb person or a crazy person would actually take the position that the opponent says they take. Sometimes this actually becomes something that is convincing to people, based on their need for the opposition to be deliberately marginalized.

(From Wikipedia, Straw Man:)
One can set up a straw man in the following ways:
1. Present the opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.

2. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.

3. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.

4. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.

An example of the Straw Man technique would be:
Debater A: "I don't think that children should play out in the busy streets."
Debater B: "I think it's very cruel to deny children their freedom to play out of doors, or to go wherever they please. Children should not be kept locked-up in their own homes as my opponent suggests."


Slippery Slope
A slippery slope argument (also called a “parade of horrors”) usually has the form that if something is allowed then something slightly bad will happen, which will lead to something worse and finally to disaster. The inevitability of the chain of events isn't established, it's merely the emotional resonance of the final threat of the slippery slope that is used to attempt to convince people.

Example: “If you let your teenage daughter go out on dates the next thing you know she'll be drinking and then making out with guys left and right and before you know it you'll have a pregnant teen-ager and then her baby to take care of.”

The name comes from the idea that one step down a slippery slope will inevitably lead you down to the bottom.

Fallacy supplement

Wishful Thinking
Wishful thinking has the form:
I need it to be true, therefore it's true.
I want it to be true, therefore it's true.

This is distinct from certain self-fulling prophesies. For example, if you start by assuming that someone you've just met is nice (benefit of the doubt) and treat them accordingly, you may find that they are in fact nice (partly because you've treated them well).

Example:
I have to believe that anyone from my hometown must be innocent of murder.

Example: (from Fallacy Files)

"I was attending a spiritualist message reading service. The guest speaker had each of us write our name and a question on a piece of paper and then fold the paper. An usher collected the folded messages in a basket which she then placed beside the speaker's lectern. The speaker, who had been blindfolded, would reach into the basket, pull out a folded message, and hold it to his forehead. After a dramatic pause he would call out someone's name. The named person would then stand and the speaker would provide an answer to the question. Presumably this answer was supplied by the spirits. …
"… On this occasion, however, the speaker was having obvious difficulties. He was getting along in years and his eyesight was not very good. … So he pulled his blindfold away from his eyes with one hand while he blatantly opened the message with the other. After he read its contents, he refolded it, pulled his blindfold back in place, and continued with his routine.
"I looked at the members of the audience to see how they would react to this obvious display of cheating. … To my surprise, not one of them was looking at the speaker. Some were gazing at the ceiling, some were staring into their laps, and others had their eyes closed. The woman sitting next to me was one of those looking at the ceiling. I nudged her and pointed to the speaker at the moment he was opening a message. She looked at me instead. I whispered for her to look at the speaker. She turned and looked at the back of the room and then turned back to me. I kept urging her to look at the speaker. She leaned back and resumed staring at the ceiling.
"This bizarre behavior by the audience both puzzled and amazed me. … These people did not want to see the speaker cheating! They wanted to believe that he was providing them communications from their departed loved ones. … They dealt with this conspicuous example of cheating by simply not looking. …"
Source: Ray Hyman, "Foreword" to The Psychic Mafia, by M. Lamar Keene, Prometheus, 1997, pp. xiii-xv.


Appeal to Ignorance
Appeal to ignorance has the form:
There is no evidence against A, therefore A must be true.

We don't know A, therefore B is possible.
Where B is a claim that is unsupported by factual evidence.

Example:
Science doesn't know everything, so it could be that we are descended from space aliens.

In terms of the 10/10 scale, one type of appeal to ignorance equates unequal values by slippery language; you aren't definitely certain that it's false (-10) therefore it is probably true (+5), or you aren't completely certain it's true (+10) so therefore it probably isn't true (-5).

Example:
You aren't 100% sure? You don't have any doubts? Well, if you aren't 100% sure then it's possible you don't know anything, so exactly why are you waisting out time with these flights of fancy?

Example: (from Fallacy Files)
"[Joe McCarthy] announced that he had penetrated 'Truman's iron curtain of secrecy' and that he proposed forthwith to present 81 cases… Cases of exactly what? 'I am only giving the Senate,' he said, 'cases in which it is clear there is a definite Communist connection…persons whom I consider to be Communists in the State Department.' … Of Case 40, he said, 'I do not have much information on this except the general statement of the agency…that there is nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connections.'"