Show Notes Latin for ‘after this, therefore because of this’, this fallacy is committed when people confuse correlation for causation and assume that because one event followed another, the former was caused by the latter. Of course, while this may be the case, it is by no means certain. The two...
Show Notes Tu Quoque is another Latin one - it literally means “You too.” It’s a particular type of Red Herring fallacy where the speaker avoids responding to a criticism by distracting the listener with claims that other people (ideally the one doing the criticizing) have also done similar bad things. It...
Show Notes Conspiracy theorists often create unfalsifiable arguments, using a combination of goalpost moving, arguments from ignorance and circular logic. The examples used in this episode will be coming soon. Here are the links to the stories we talked about DNA is not a logical fallacy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/18/just-about-everything-youve-read-warren-dna-test-is-wrong/?utm_term=.381dfa57a77b And finally, some things we really didn’t have time...
Show Notes The Slippery Slope fallacy is committed when a person assumes if one bad thing happens, then more, and often worse, bad things will inevitably follow. It is often applied to changes in the law that some groups are campaigning for, and others find distasteful. It is fallacious because to accept...
Show Notes When someone claims that the fact that everyone is called them crazy means they must be right, because 'they called Galileo crazy' (or some other person who was historically dismissed then turned out to be right), they are committing a fallacy. They are forgetting that the vast majority of...
Show Notes Moving the Goalposts is such a common tactic that I’m sure everyone has come across it at some point. When someone makes an argument; you refute that argument with valid logic; and then they move on to a different argument without acknowledging that their first one failed, they’ve just moved...
Show Notes Trump likes to talk about ‘many people’ doing, thinking or saying something, to give the impression that whatever they are doing, thinking or saying is correct. In doing so, he is arguing from the popularity of an idea, rather than using evidence to show the idea is true. This...
Show Notes When supporting your claims by comparing two things, it's important to be consistent in terms of what you're actually comparing. By doing so you can ensure it is a fair comparison and your point can be supported. If you are not fair when setting up the parameters, and you...
Show Notes Non Sequitur is Latin for ‘does not follow’. Colloquially, non-sequitur tends to be used to mean a sentence which has no relation to the previous one, but in logical fallacy terms, that would more likely be a Red Herring fallacy. For our purposes, Non-Sequitur describes a situation where the conclusion...
Show Notes The False Dilemma fallacy is depressingly common, and quite easy to spot. It occurs when someone suggests or implies there are only two possible choices or outcomes, and if you don’t choose one then the other is inevitable. This is not a fallacy if there are in fact only two...