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...
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 The Gish Gallop is a method of debating that focuses on quantity of arguments over quality, overwhelming your opponent with multiple arguments, each of which is often poorly argued or evidentially lacking. The sheer number of arguments makes a detailed, effective refutation impossible due to the research and time...
Show Notes The Single Cause Fallacy is committed when the speaker assumes a complex outcome to have one cause, thereby making it easier to blame on somebody or propose a solution. The reality is that many real-world issues are caused by a combination of factors, some of which may even be...
Show Notes Kettle Logic is when multiple arguments are presented at once, often overlapping or contradicting each other, without acknowledging the contradictions. We started out with the Donald tweeting this excuse for committing tax fraud or possibly losing a billion dollars: ...
Show Notes Special Pleading describes a situation where you have a rule that you apply to everyone else, but make up an excuse to explain why the rule doesn’t apply to you. When you are inconsistent in applying the rules in this way without a valid logical reason, you are using fallacious reasoning. We...
Show Notes This fallacy, sometimes called ‘Missing the Point’, is committed when someone provides evidence refuting or proving a point which is irrelevant to the issue at hand. This can often be a quite effective distraction, but as it does not address the real question, it remains fallacious. We started out with...
Show Notes Poisoning the Well is a kind of Ad Hominem fallacy where the attack on the person making a claim happens in advance. By attributing negative traits to someone before they even have the chance to make their argument, the well poisoner primes the listener not to believe what they are...