Logical Fallacies That Grind Your Gears

Phasmal

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Jun 10, 2011
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thaluikhain said:
The Just World Fallacy, the refusal to accept that Bad Things could happen to you or yours, so anyone who has Bad Things happen to them must be to blame somehow.
Yes. This.
I think people use it as a security blanket, they think if they act a certain way then they'll be `safe` from anything bad happening to them.
Those people are in for a nasty wake up call.
 

Scrustle

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Daymo said:
Ad hominem arguments aren't always fallacious, they can be justified in cases where a person's character is important, saying all ad hominems are fallacious is really my biggest phlosophical/logical pet peeve

For fallacies though it would be false dichotomy (with us or against us), screw you and your binary views, I'm going to chose my much more reasonable middle ground that you can't seem to comprhend. Also etymological fallacies annoy me in a more general useage.
If someone's character is relevant to a point then I don't think calling it in to question counts as an ad hominem. Like if you're trying to judge how well suited a person is to looking after children then you would obviously look at their character, but I wouldn't say it was an ad hominem to do so. I would say it's ad hominem when a person's character isn't relevant to the argument. Like if someone was saying that spending money on sending a probe to Mars is wrong because the leader of NASA is a smelly poo-poo head.

You could say the same about other fallacies. It depends on the context sometimes.

I also agree false dichotomy is a pretty bad one.
 

9thRequiem

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TopazFusion said:


Strawman.

It's when someone puts words in your mouth and makes it look like you're arguing something you're not (and they try to argue against that, instead of what you actually said)
The worst part is the strawman's spread has given rise to what I think of as the "Reverse Strawman" - essentially, you make an argument, and the moment it's exhaustedly defeated, claim that anyone arguing against you is using a strawman and hasn't actually countered any of your actual arguments. Repeat until everyone else gives up and claim victory.
 

Lightning Delight

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The Anecdotal Fallacy. I don't care what has happened in your personal experience, you still don't get to use that in place of an argument.

Also the Bandwagon Fallacy. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't make it automatically good.

Lastly, and I know this isn't really a fallacy, but the "You can't tell me my opinion is wrong" argument. While technically true, this is only used by people who have no way of defending their opinion. If your opinion is stupid or based off of ignorance then yes, it is wrong.
 

Eternal_Lament

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GeneralTwinkle said:
"Vegetarians who are advocates for abortion choice are hypocrites. How can you justify not eating animals when you let a baby die?"
True argument I heard someone say.

Well, fetus's are cells that don't think, at least early on. Getting an early abortion is completely different to killing a cow.
While I agree that normally this is a logical fallacy, I have known people who are both pro-abortion and vegetarian who wont eat eggs because they believe that counts as killing an animal, even though by the same standards those eggs were nothing more than cells that didn't think. Still, that's not a broad blanket that can cover all vegetarians, so it's still stupid for someone to say.

OT: I'm going to throw my hat into the straw-man fallacy as well. It is one of those things that sort of seems like a desperation move that only prolongs things. Even if you disagreed with the straw-man, anyone else who did agree will now be on your ass about you "you're not getting it".

My other hated logical fallacy is "When fire burns, is it being evil or just doing what it was meant to do?" Fire doesn't have free will or try to brainwash me.
 

Kilyle

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evenest said:
no true Scotsman would x
I'm with you on this one! Can't stand it.

I once heard a version that went like this: "No real atheist would ever change their mind and become a believer in Jesus Christ. Any person who claims to have been an atheist before becoming a Christian was never really an atheist in the first place. Obviously any famous atheists who later become Christians were never all that serious to begin with."

Excuse me?
 

Baron_Rouge

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Oct 30, 2009
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It's the old "Hitler Ate Sugar" one for me...you know, "you're right wing...just like Hitler!" "Unless you lean towards the left...just like Stalin"! Or "you're anti-smoking? Nazi Germany was the first country to bring in anti-smoking laws", or anything else which has been practised by someone morally reprehensible sometime in the past. It's ridiculous, really. People are not so one dimensional that you can define every opinion they have by one opinion they have.

Interestingly enough, I've heard Christians compare Atheists to Hitler because he was supposedly an Atheist, as well as Atheists compare Christians to Hitler because he was supposedly a Christian...
 

Skratt

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Dec 20, 2008
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Black or White, aka the False Dilemma

Where only two alternatives are presented when more exist.

Specifically the "If you aren't with us, you are against us" or "If you aren't part of the solution, you are a part of the problem". Both of those statements are some of the largest **** statements ever made and depend so much upon context as to be laughable and yet it is often used to drum up support for one cause or another by presenting the speaker's cause in a good light while making the alternative seem bad or shameful.

This particular fallacy flies in the face of any reasoned discussion and often is the catalyst for a degenerate conversation. Almost every topic is nuanced to a certain degree and there are almost always 3 options to everything. In fact, I can't even think of a single topic that doesn't in fact have a 3rd option.

For the record, I do not support the Middle Ground fallacy. I support logical and reasoned choices. The issue is never black and white, but sometimes one of the two options presented is the correct option, but presenting it as the only two options actually hurts the case of the correct option, especially if you can clearly see options 3 and beyond.
 

Desworks

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Daymo said:
For fallacies though it would be false dichotomy (with us or against us), screw you and your binary views, I'm going to chose my much more reasonable middle ground that you can't seem to comprhend. Also etymological fallacies annoy me in a more general useage.
And this leads into my personal pet peeve on the fallacy scale, the Grey Fallacy (also known as Argument to moderation). The idea that, when two sides are arguing opposing viewpoints, that the truth must lie in-between, when instead one side could just be wrong. It's especially annoying, as it can be used by the side that knows it's wrong to draw observers to an incorrect conclusion about the subject.
 
Feb 22, 2009
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manic_depressive13 said:
The slippery slope argument for me too. Arguments you might recognise:

-If you afford animal's rights, you would have to give rights to plants!
-Accepting homosexuality will lead to accepting paedophilia and bestiality!
-Any and all socialist reforms will inevitably lead to Stalin's Russia.
This. Very much this.

Also, any argument that centres on something being 'natural'. There are two problems with this:
1. I don't see how anything that exists within nature (basically that exists at all) can be considered unnatural, surely that's a contradiction in itself,
2. Even if you do make the distinction somehow, there is absolutely no reason to assume being natural is a GOOD THING. Many, many terrible things happen in nature, all of the time. The man-made bad things are no better or worse.

People who act like history is somehow on their side, or feel that if their particular political path is followed we will reach the 'end of history' and create a perfect society. Sorry, history doesn't work like that, Rome went from republic to empire to ruin, not the other way round, doesn't sound like the inevitable positive progress of history to me.
 

Pink Gregory

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MasochisticAvenger said:
I don't know if this counts, or if it has a name, but I really hate when someone acts like you're stating an opinion as fact, simply because you didn't add "in my opinion" and a billion other qualifiers after every sentence.

Also, when you don't agree to someone's bashing, and they turn around and accuse you of being a fanboy.
This is the disadvantage of discussion on the internet, or in print for that matter, anyone can go back and pick apart everything that you may have said, irrelevant of context.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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May 19, 2008
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Kilyle said:
evenest said:
no true Scotsman would x
I'm with you on this one! Can't stand it.

I once heard a version that went like this: "No real atheist would ever change their mind and become a believer in Jesus Christ. Any person who claims to have been an atheist before becoming a Christian was never really an atheist in the first place. Obviously any famous atheists who later become Christians were never all that serious to begin with."

Excuse me?
Im funny about this one because occassionally it can be properly evidenced to be true but its mostly abused.

For example i know of a christian who used to be an atheist who used to do exactly as Dawkins/Hitchins said and left atheist because he began to disagree with these two thinkers. I explained that the underpinning of atheism is you dont need to follow anyone or anything and that what he defined as "atheism" (IE the following of prominent atheists) wasn't a part of atheism at all. Sure he was a real atheist, but by his own flawed definition as well as the regular one. Thats when a "no true X" might be applicable.

Id say strawman. Being told what i think or what i said is irksome.
 

Loonyyy

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MasochisticAvenger said:
Also, when you don't agree to someone's bashing, and they turn around and accuse you of being a fanboy.
Well, the second one's Ad Hominem- Argument to the person. It's when someone uses an unrelated fact, often insulting, embarrassing or derogatory in nature, to attempt to dismiss an argument based on the person who's giving it.

For example: Loonyyy's wrong because he's fat. Or, MasochisticAvenger is a fanboy, we can't take him seriously!

Even fanboys are right. Occassionally.
Res Plus said:
Surely if you are talking about a subject where the person's character, or an aspect therefore, is relevant then any criticisim of their character would form part of the main argument and thus not be ad hominem. Ad hominem is criticism of a person's character in a way unrelated to the content of the arguement isn't it? I could be wrong.
Unfortunately, you're mistaken. While the criticism of a person's character may indeed inform WHY they came to a conclusion, and is very useful, or their motives, it doesn't say anything about the logical validity of premises or conclusions of their argument.

Unrelated is witness testimony: Witnesses aren't making a logical argument based on evidence, they're recounting personal events. If they're not reliable, their account isn't reliable. But it's not to do with dismissing their argument based on reliability, it's to do with dismissing the premise of their testimony, because it's not certain, and arguments are only true when the premises are.

I can say "You hate Gay Marriage because you're a fundamentalist Christian, and not worth listening to" till I'm blue in the face, but that doesn't address their argument or their position, it just attempts to discredit them by insinuating that they're narrow-minded bigots enforcing their views on others. They may be. That's not why they're wrong.

Anything you use to draw a conclusion about their argument unrelated to their argument tends to be either a non-sequitur (Does Not Follow) or ad hom.

I think I'm going to throw in with Misplaced Burden of Proof. Most simply put: "Prove me wrong". I've seen it time and time again, especially when talking about things which have a long history and appealing to their antiquity, if we decide it may be problematic and should be considered (Guns), or is unfair (Gay Rights or Women's Rights), or that a something exists (God), then suddenly it becomes "Prove that we shouldn't have guns (When an equal case can be made for asking why we should have guns-especially when people start saying that we can't compare things, therefore there can be no case [This goes both ways-Australians can't go-"you can't prove guns are good", and Americans can't go-"you can't prove guns are bad"])" or, "Prove that Gays deserve the same rights that we already have (Here's where the misplaced burden is: There never was any proof given to justify the rights enjoyed by the others, they're arguing against everyone's rights without that condition)", or "You can't prove that God doesn't exist, ergo you have as much faith as I do in an unproven statement." (Which is just stupid on the face of it).

It's a tricky one, but it almost always obviously obtuse arguing, and it gets to me. People would rather tell me to justify the negative of their extraodinary claims, than prove them.
 

Captain_Pancreas

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Sep 27, 2010
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Argumentum ad populem:
The idea that because lots of people believe it then it must be true. Usually heard in the form of something such as "Are you telling me that several billion Christians around the world are ALL wrong?". No, I'm not saying definitely, but your appeal to numbers doesn't add to your argument. Lots of people believe that vaccinations actually HARM children, but it doesn't mean they aren't wrong, and dangerous.
They sort of covered this in Marvel Civil War in what is one of my all time favourite quotes from anything, from the mouth of Cap himself:

If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have your duty by yourself and by your country. Hold up your head. You have nothing to be ashamed of'.
Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.
This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree besides the river of truth, and tell the whole world--
--No you move.
 

M-E-D The Poet

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Sep 12, 2011
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Vegetarians who refuse to take supplements and start looking very pale and sickly (and get sick)
But still try to pass off that it's not necessary to eat meat .

Cole : Strawman and slippery slope arguments Whooooooooooooooo!.
 

Loonyyy

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M-E-D The Poet said:
Vegetarians who refuse to take supplements and start looking very pale and sickly (and get sick)
But still try to pass off that it's not necessary to eat meat .
Not a logical fallacy. And it's a slipery slope you've applied, since said supplements would remove the need for meat. The fact that most vegetarian diets require supplementation does not imply that eating meat is necessary, it implies that most vegetarian diets require supplementation.

And it isn't necessary to eat meat. You've presented a False Dichotomy: The vegetarian who doesn't take supplements as opposed to people who eat meat.

You can take supplements and be a vegetarian and not get sick, and hence, it is not necessary to eat meat (Which is obvious to everyone. Whether it's right or not I'll leave to you, I don't like that subject).
 

Andy of Comix Inc

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Apr 2, 2010
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"x was in in y and z, and y is bad, so therefore z is also bad"

a.k.a. the "Hitler was a vegetarian".

I have a favourite logical fallacy though! If Chewbacca lives on Endor with Eworks, you must acquit! I rest my case. Case closed.
 

Loonyyy

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In Search of Username said:
People who act like history is somehow on their side, or feel that if their particular political path is followed we will reach the 'end of history' and create a perfect society. Sorry, history doesn't work like that, Rome went from republic to empire to ruin, not the other way round, doesn't sound like the inevitable positive progress of history to me.
This reminds me of one I keep hearing. I'm all for gay equality, but I keep seeing them comparing themselves to the civil rights movement (A fair comparison I guess), and then saying that those who oppose them will end up on the wrong side of history. Since when did an appeal to future authority make sense to anyone? You could say anything about the future and you don't have to worry about accuracy to make your case.