September Blog Post- Logical Fallacies

It is hard to make it a full day without running into logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are situations where you have come to a conclusion about a situation but that conclusion is not factually based. There are four main fallacies. The first is the slippery slope fallacy where a topic can be blown way out of proportion. As soon as someone presents an idea you may not agree with everything else will fall apart because of that idea. This is common in hot topic social issues such as gun control. In conversations about on control if one side suggests that there should be stricter laws the other side takes that and thinks that all guns will be taken away of stricter laws are passed when in reality, it will just be different laws. The next one is ad hominem. This one has two sides. The fallacy side is trying to justify something because of a person’s state and the attacking side is attacking that person instead of the idea. For example, if I tell my roommate that pizza is gross this would be an idea he would disagree with. Using ad hominem fallacy, he would respond by saying “You’re wrong because you are fat” and using an attack would be “You’re wrong and your fat”. The third fallacy is the straw person argument. This occurs when you are arguing with someone and you come up with a different argument. Once you defeat that other argument you then claim victory over the first argument. This is common with kids trying to get out of chores. Mom asks why you didn’t do the laundry and you mention that you have been having a tough day and did other chores so you have done your chores for that day. The last fallacy is the red herring. This one is just changing the subject when you are asked a direct question to distract from possible shortcomings in that area. This is a common one in politics. A politician will be asked about a specific policy or incident where they may have done something wrong and instead of answering the question they will tell you all about how much they have done for the community surrounding issues like this and how important that work means to them. This will leave you sitting there thinking that that’s all great and dandy but what about what I asked you?

Slippery slope- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtckZ7CLBFI

ad hominem- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ0AebfcQd4

straw man- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0FBfebi3rE

red herring- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ttbfTGs48