Show Notes The Historical Fallacy is committed when someone assumes the current situation was always inevitable and ignores or denies the context of what led up to it.. Trump We started out with this clip of Tucker Carlson lying about why the curve was flattened: Mark's British Politics Corner Mark stepped right outside his remit...
Show Notes The No True Scotsman Fallacy is committed when your existing definition of a particular group is challenged by a member who doesn't fit the criteria. Rather than adjust the definition, the offending group member is redefined as a non-member of the group. The name comes from an example given in...
Show Notes The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy describes a situation where someone collects or examines a large amount of data without deciding in advance exactly what they're testing, then chooses a sample which provides evidence for their existing opinion. It's based on a story where an inexperienced gunman fires indiscriminately at the...
Show Notes Invincible Ignorance describes a situation where, no matter how much evidence is presented or how clearly they are wrong, a fallacious arguer simply refuses to waver from their original position. We started out with this clip of Trump talking to Hugh Hewitt in 2015: And we followed that up with this...
Show Notes The Counterfactual fallacy is often committed when someone speculates on the specifics of how things would be different in different circumstances, or in the future if a particular thing happens. Where the arguer purports to have more certainty of the hypothetical situation, or their speculation goes against evidence, they...
Show Notes Begging the Question is one of those phrases that has come to mean something different over time. Colloquially, it is used to mean ‘raising the question’, but the original meaning is the one invoked by this fallacy, and it’s fun to point out that people are using the phrase...
Show Notes People often make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, so appealing to that emotion can be a very useful technique when you're trying to persuade someone. However, to be part of an effective logical argument emotion has to be used to back up the argument, rather than form...
Show Notes A Red Herring is a distraction, anything that sends a conversation off on a tangent and away from the original point. When someone completely avoids a question by bringing up another issue entirely, they are committing a Red Herring fallacy. We started out with this excerpt from the the 2nd...
Show Notes The Traitorous Critic Fallacy, or Ergo Decedo, is a fallacy where someone dismisses a person with genuine complaints by telling them if they don't like it, they can leave. It's a way of avoiding dealing with the complaint itself and branding the complainer as unworthy of being part of...
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...