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Listing 32 Common Fallacies of Argument
The following list is not exhaustive but contains the 32 most common fallacies in contemporary argument and debate.
The fallacies are arranged in alphabetical order; many of them have Latin names which are given in parentheses.
Note that for many of these fallacious arguments (or counter-arguments), there are circumstances under which the argument would not be fallacious; the difference is whether or not the “fallacy” is relevant or irrelevant to the argument.
– 32 Common Fallacies of Argument with explanations
1. Amphiboly
• An ambiguity which results from poor grammatical construction.
Examples (the following examples are taken from real newspaper headlines):
• Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
• Paramedics Help Dog Bite Victim
• Tiger Woods Plays with Own Balls
• Fire Chief Grilled over Three Alarm Blaze
• Compare Equivocation
2. Anecdotal Evidence
• Using personal experience or small samples to argue to a general conclusion.
• Commonly used as an attempt to sidestep statistics.
Example:
• Every Asian I’ve ever met was good at math, so all Asians must be good at math.
• Compare Hasty generalization and ad populum
3. Appeal to force (ad baculum)
• Can, but does not necessarily, involve the actual threat of force; usually the threat is more subtle.
• For example, warnings of the “dire consequences” that will result if the claim is not true (or not accepted as true).
Example:
• If you don’t vote for the Mayor, the factory will close and you will be out of a job.
• Compare Slippery slope
4. Appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam)
• A claim is true because we have failed to prove it false, or we do not know it to be false.
• Conversely, a claim is false because we cannot prove it true, or we do not know it to be true.
Example:
• There is no proof and no evidence for the existence of God; therefore, God does not exist.
5. Appeal to Nature (ad natura)
• Asserting that because something is ‘natural’ it is therefore justified, inevitable, good, or ideal.
• The negative version of the same fallacy (non ad natura) asserts that because something is artificial, synthetic, or unnatural it is therefore unjustified, avoidable, bad, or evil.
Example:
• Herbal remedies are better than pharmaceutical drugs, because herbs are natural.
6. Appeal to the people (ad populum)
• An appeal made to the people or the majority, as if the popularity or majority appeal of a statement could make it true.
• Bandwagon is a type of ad populum fallacy; this fallacy involves accepting a belief, idea, value, etc. because “everybody else” does.
Example:
• Everyone says that Professor Thompson is a bad teacher, so it must be true.
• Compare Hasty generalization and Anecdotal evidence
7. Appeal to pity (ad misericordiam)
• We should accept a claim out of sympathy or pity for the subject of the claim.
Example:
• My house burned down, my car blew up and my dog died, so you should give me an A for this class.
8. Appeal to unqualified authority (ad verecundiam)
• The attribution of authority to an unqualified source, such as a person not credentialed to speak on the topic, an authority that cannot be checked for accuracy, or a person or source obviously biased in the matter.
Example:
• A medical doctor is a qualified authority on matters of health, so a medical doctor should also be a qualified authority on political subjects.
• Compare ad populum.
9. Attacking the arguer (ad hominem)
• An attack upon the person making the claim rather than attacking the claim itself.
• Personal (attacks the arguer’s character)
• Circumstantial (attacks the arguer’s situation)
• Tu quoque (attacks the arguer as a hypocrite)
• Poisoning the well (an ad hominem in advance of the argument)
Examples:
• Personal: President Clinton cheated on his wife, so we should reject his tax proposal.
• Circumstantial: She works for the American Tobacco Company, so anything she says on the topic of smoking will be biased and probably false.
• Tu quoque: My father smokes and drinks, so he’s a hypocrite when he tells me I shouldn’t smoke or drink, and his warnings are therefore false.
• Poisoning the well: She’s a member of the Tea Party, so whatever she says is sure to be wrong.
A Micro-essay On Moral Motivation
10. Begging the question (petitio principi; also known as “arguing in a circle”)
• Assuming the conclusion in the premises of the argument.
Example:
• I believe in the existence of God because the Bible says I should, and the Bible itself was written or inspired by God.
11. Burden of Proof
• Demanding evidence or proof for a negative claim.
• How would anyone provide evidence or proof for the nonexistence of ghosts? What would you do? Look for ghosts and fail to find any? But this only shows that you didn’t find them; it does not establish that they do not exist.
Example:
• Unless you can prove that ghosts do not exist, it is perfectly reasonable for me to believe that they do.
12. Cherry Picking
• Taking small snippets or quotes from some recognized source or authority, but using only those points which support a particular claim while ignoring those that do not.
• Cherry picking is very common in Biblical and Qu’ranic interpretation, especially when either scripture is being used to promote some moral or political position.
Examples:
• “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 [often used to support the claim that abortion is murder].
• “When men strive together and harm a woman with child so that a miscarriage results, and no further harm follows to the woman, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him.” Exodus 21:22 [the punishment for inducing a miscarriage is a fine, not death; hence, God apparently does not regard induced miscarriages (or abortions) as murder; this point is generally ignored in arguments opposed to abortion].
13. Composition
• The whole must be like the parts
Example:
• The majority of U.S. citizens are Christian; therefore, the U.S. is a Christian nation.
• Compare Division
14. Division
• The parts must be like the whole
Example:
• The U.S. is a secular nation; therefore, the majority of U.S. citizens are secular.
• Compare Composition
15. Equivocation
• Important terms in the argument are used in different senses at different times.
Example:
• Physics studies mass. Mass is a part of Catholic liturgy. Therefore, physics studies Catholic liturgy.
• In the above example, “mass” is used in two senses; in the first sense it means “physical mass,” in the second sense it means “religious ritual.”
• Compare Amphiboly
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Principles of Validity: What Logic Is and Isn’t
16. The ‘Fallacy’ Fallacy
• The assumption that, because an argument contains a (formal or informal) fallacy, the conclusion of that argument is therefore false.
• In fact, the conclusion of an argument might be true whether or not the argument is fallacious.
• A fallacious argument is unconvincing or non-persuasive; it is a weak argument because it does not support its conclusion, but the conclusion may nevertheless be true despite the argument’s poor showing.
Example:
• Either we enforce the death penalty or murder rates will rise. We are not enforcing the death penalty; therefore, murder rates will rise. [False dilemma.]
• Although the argument is not persuasive, its conclusion has not been demonstrated to be false.
17. False analogy
• Arguments from analogy are based on the similarity between one situation and another. That is to say, given a situation where A resembles B in certain ways, and the outcome of A is known but the outcome of B is unknown, one could argue as follows: “A is like B, so B will have the same outcome as A.”
• False analogies occur when the resemblance between A and B is too weak or remote to warrant the conclusion.
Example:
• Capital punishment is legalized murder.
• The analogy fails because capital punishment is unlike murder since, in one case, the victim is guilty, but in the other case the victim is innocent.
18. False cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc)
• Because one thing follows another, the first caused the second
• Confusion of correlation with cause
• Oversimplification of complex causal factors
Examples:
• Order in time: I am older than you are; therefore I am the cause of you.
• Confusing cause with correlation: Marijuana causes people to use harder drugs.
• Oversimplification: The cause of inflation is unnecessary consumption.
19. False dilemma (either/or fallacy)
• Arguing that there are only two possible (usually both undesirable) alternatives between which to choose – and one of them must indeed be chosen – when in fact there are more than two possible alternatives.
Example:
• I know those shoes are expensive, but all the girls are wearing them; you must either buy them for me or I’ll become an outcast with no friends.
• Compare Middle Ground.
20. Gambler’s Fallacy
• The belief that repetition can alter odds in situations with the same initial conditions.
Example:
This batter hasn’t had a hit in a while, so he’s about due.
• If the odds against winning the lottery are 100,000,000 to 1, then the fact that an individual purchases 100 tickets in no way alters, reduces, or improves the odds, because the odds against each, individual ticket are still 100,000,000 to 1.
21. Genetic Fallacy
• Evaluating something (good/bad, true/false) on the basis of its source or origin.
Example:
• It was the Nazis who first discovered the connection between smoking and lung cancer, but the Nazis were liars; therefore, there is no connection between smoking and lung cancer.
22. Hasty generalization
• Any argument that generalizes from a small sample to a large group. (Non-fallacious generalization requires scientific observation and careful statistical analysis. That’s what you learn when you take a class in statistics.)
Example:
• Every Jamaican I know smokes marijuana; therefore, all Jamaicans smoke marijuana.
• Compare Ad populum and Anecdotal evidence
23. Inconsistency
• Reasoning from premises that cannot be simultaneously true.
Example:
• If elected I will reduce taxes and government borrowing, but with no reduction in government payments or services.
24. Loaded Question
• A complex question which cannot be answered (or answered directly) without a negative result for the person answering.
Example:
• “Are you still beating your wife?”
• Especially effective in courts of law when “hostile witnesses” are restricted to yes or no answers.
• Compare Middle ground
25. Middle Ground
• Treating all dilemmas as false dilemmas. Some dilemmas are the real thing.
Example:
• Once you have graduated from high school you have 4 alternatives: You can go to work, you can join the military, you can go to college, or you can go to jail. [Is this dilemma false?]
• Compare False dilemma
26. No True Scotsman
• Dismissing some claim [X] because, in this particular case, the instance of [X] in question was not a real, true, genuine, pure, authentic example of [X]
Example:
• Nicotine is not truly a drug because it has no medical applications.
27. Personal Incredulity
• Finding that because something is difficult to comprehend, or perhaps even mind-boggling, it must therefore be false.
• Sometimes known as “the argument from improbability.”
Example:
• The spontaneous evolution of intelligent life is statistically so improbable that it must be false that intelligent life evolved spontaneously.
28. Red herring
• Changing the subject; misdirecting attention away from the actual point of the argument.
Example:
• I told you this car was a lemon, and by the way, did you get the oil changed?
29. Ridicule (ad risus)
• Attacking through ridicule.
• Making fun of a claim, which, of course, says nothing about whether the claim is true or false.
• Sarcasm
• Irony
• Exaggeration
Example:
• Biologists try to convince us that we are descended from apes. Well, biologists may be descended from apes, but they should speak for themselves.
30. Slippery slope
• The claim that a certain act will necessarily lead to a disastrous chain of results without providing any evidence for this alleged chain of events.
Example:
• If we allow homosexuals to marry, then the next thing you know family members will be marrying each other, and then people will start marrying animals! Why, people could end up marrying anything! You could marry ice cream if you wanted.
• Compare to ad baculum
31. Special pleading (ad hoc)
• Moving the goalposts or making up exceptions when a claim is shown to be false.
• Changing the rules in mid-game.
• Tacitly defining terminology in a self-serving way. All term definitions should be made explicit prior to or during the argument.
Example:
• It’s true that I said the government should cut spending “across the board,” but I didn’t mean to include veteran’s benefits in that.
32. Straw man
• The oversimplification, distortion, or misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument in order to make it more easily defeated.
Example:
• Environmentalists argue that everything should have rights, even rats and mosquitoes.
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