Show Notes The Argument from Antiquity is a fallacy where the arguer claims that something is right or good because it's traditional. If a person claims that we should do something a certain way because "that's the way it's always been done" or that a particular herb must have great healing...
Show Notes The Argument from Personal Incredulity describes a situation where someone dismisses a claim for no other reason than they find it difficult to believe. In fact, the person may be having trouble believing something simply because it doesn’t conform to how they currently think, or even that they simply...
Show Notes Kettle Logic is when multiple arguments are presented at once, often overlapping or contradicting each other, without acknowledging the contradictions. Trump We started out with the Donald tweeting this excuse for committing tax fraud or possibly losing a billion dollars: ...
Show Notes When someone supports their argument by making a statement that is significantly more emphatic than can possibly be supported by evidence, they may be committing the Hyperbolic Fallacy. As a rule a hyperbole is not meant to be taken literally. When someone says they had the worst morning ever, you know they...
Show Notes The Argument from Ignorance fallacy describes a situation where someone claims a proposition to be true simply because it has not yet been proven to be false. Obviously if an outlandish claim is made and it cannot immediately be proven to be false that does not mean it should...
Show Notes This is more accurately called the Argument from Improper or False Authority. After all, it’s entirely valid to support your argument by invoking a relevant authority like, say, climate scientists' opinions on climate change. However, when the authority you invoke is not an authority on the subject at hand, or...
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 Conspiracy theorists often create unfalsifiable arguments, using a combination of goalpost moving, arguments from ignorance and circular logic. Trump We started out with Trump talking about the rigged election: We followed that with this Trump tweet: How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash...
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 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...