Quick Reference Guide to Logical Fallacies

MacAllister

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http://www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/fallacies.html#ignorantianEDIT:

As the list above has disappeared, I thought I'd replace it with this:

Wikipedia: List of Fallacies

Wikipedia is not, of course, a primary source, but it does give you something to go on.

--Roger Carlson
 
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The author of the Geocities link is err ... relying rather too heavily on Chaim Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyca's The New Rhetoric: A Treatise On Argumentation.
 

Magdalen

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The Letterman Award!

Does this mean we can simply write the number as a response to identify one of those fallacies when it is posted? ;)


LOL! I really appreciate the site and info. Thanks Mac, et al thingybobbers and bobberettes.
 

dclary

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How come most of those links point to posts of mine?
 

Dikaiopolis

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S-o-o-o-o many "Guides to Fallacies" on the Net...


As a thumbnail guide, this is one of the better ones. I was a little surprised at how short a list it is.

But I really have to wonder what the author meant when he wrote:

"False Dichotomy or Excluded Middle is when the extreme ends of a continuum with intermediate possibilities."

As authors, we should recognize this as "not even a sentence" right away. The more clever among us will be able to figure out how to fix it by assuming three missing words.

But I would rather rewrite it completely, following the example of The Fallacy Files (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/) and say:

"False Dichotomy is the fallacious reasoning that there are only two possibilities, while in fact there are many other possibilities, all of which are ignored by the reasoning".

I also have to point out that not all authors on fallacies admit that there is a distinction between the "either/or" and the "false dichotomy" fallacies. Some (e.g. http://www.fallacyfiles.org/archive102006.html) really do use the terms as synonyms.
 

bluntforcetrauma

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My covers been blown. Does this mean from now on the monkey wrench I throw into the works must be a logical monkey wrench?
 

feeblepizza

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Thanks for sharing. Now I can simply point out that logic is fallible whenever someone brings up logic.
 
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I don't see one for reducing the argument.

Here's the kind of thing:

Hundreds of thousands of people are committing the crime of discrimination against certain minorities.

Then all of a sudden it becomes: nah it's just one person.

Or you use a person who is an authority in his field with very impressive credentials as an example to counteract a claim of "all scientists actually believe this" to show them they're wrong.

Then suddenly it becomes: "But that's only one person".

And here's a peculiar one I've come across that a friend of mine loves to use on me.

Friend: asks question on science.
Me: I don't know:
Friend: and neither can science.

Is that a logical fallacy? If it is, which one is it? At the very least I know these are bs tactics that is meant to turn the argument against one in order to "win" the argument.