Apr 23, 2012
11 ways you are thoroughly (but interestingly) wrong
The folks at Your Logical Fallacy Is have compiled a list of 24 common ways that you and I are often mistaken in the way we think. I have to say that looking through their site is perhaps the most fun I’ve ever had being told how wrong I am. And not just wrong in a certain instance, but consistently and fundamentally flawed in the very way I think.
Fun, right? I thought so.
Included at the site is a free, very high-res poster for those of you who may have a reason to hang these as a reminder on the wall. Here are 11 (out of 24) of the logical fallacies from the poster…
(via MetaFilter)
* * * * *
 wrong...){kind=link}
The personal incredulity and also the fallacy fallacy often apply to creationists as well. “Scientists” and those who follow then often find the concept if intelligent design hard to understand and so instead of doing any actual research into the matter dismiss it as false. Also many evolutionists are well prepared to present their aide of the argument because they want to sway people to their way of thinking, but many creationists are unprepared for such arguments because, lets face it, we have lives.
Congratulations. You used 5 of the 11 fallacies in a single post. Can anyone guess which ones they are?
I thought the same thing!
I’ll get the first! Ad Hominem – putting quote marks around “scientists” in an attempt to discredit the profession.
I could write much, much more… but I don’t wish to anger myself. Arguing on the internet leads no where :)
yep basically people on the internet just sit around pointing out each other’s fallacies until one person can’t think of the words to defend themselves anymore
yeah sure I could point out that every use of “is” or “to be” is a fallacy but I’m not going to go around demanding that everybody speaks in perfect e-prime
I really hate it when people know the reason/ answer behind somebody’s argument but argue them anyway so that they can get them to talk about their rationality on the matter
basically like that one guy that goes around correcting everybody’s grammar
implying that people on the internet only do one thing
implying that other things don’t happen in internet arguments
implying that you should be more like me
implying that I’m not wrong
implying that acknowledging these fallacies makes me right
implying that acknowledging this fallacy makes me right
“Also many evolutionists are well prepared to present their aide of the argument because they want to sway people to their way of thinking, but many creationists are unprepared for such arguments because, lets face it, we have lives.”
Wow. Just wow. Let’s see what you’ve used in this one sentence.
ad hominem — evolutionists waste their time gathering pointless “proof”
black-or-white — one is either on evolutionist side OR creationist side
burden of proof — creationism is correct because it doesn’t need proof
Honestly, it’s people like you that are proving that intelligent design can’t be taken seriously. I find it odd that people of supposed faith are incapable of believing that their God has the power to create a system that would allow even those without faith to come to understand it.
Tu quoque
Tu quoque
Intelligent design is not difficult to understand. There is no reason to believe it in the first place. Right now you’re using the “burden of proof” fallacy. Suggesting that the onus is on science to prove intelligent design wrong. The fact is, the evidence simply does not support intelligent design.
You’re also committing an ad hominem argument against all evolutionists by suggesting they have no lives.
Were you trying to see how many fallacious arguments you could fit into one paragraph? You’ve even committed a few that aren’t mentioned here.
This is in response to james janine and rational thinker so just pretend I started under james
Yeah I hate it when im trying to say an opinion and make my point but then someone comes along
and is all like well hey man that doesn’t make sense discredits a key point of my arguement
and im all like pfft grammer nazi – black and white straw man adhominem
while I agree its a pain in the ass when someone ignores your enitre arguement and distracts
and disrupts the procession of discorse because of simple grammer and spelling mistakes,
which can be pretty infuriating, it’s really hard to make the leap that trying to point out
why someone is wrong about something is as dickish of a move as being a grammer nazi.
There is nothing dickish about seeing someones arguement finding a flaw and pointing it out to
them then having them explain it then based on that answer try to further fix the problem
in there arguement or your own. Its sort of like looking at a math equation that someone
has just answered but you notice the answer is wrong so you go back and find out why and say
“hey you forgot to subtract X from the equation try solving the problem now” since conceptual
problems can be solved with reasoning calculation and therefore math is involved
sort of like linguistic calculation. There is totally nothing wrong with pointing something
out in someones arguement either.
BUT, there is a Massive difference between debating and arguing Janine what your actually doing
you and rational thinker is harassing and antagonizing creationist. By saying “Congradulations.
You used 5 out of the 11 fallacies in a single post. Can anyone guess what they are?” You are
sort of saying ” Congradulations your retarded can anyone tell me why?”
Instead of pointing out what was wrong with his statement in a way that didnt use adhominem
yourself you persecute him for being an idiot so what he is right?
This is what I HATE about Athiests and Agnostics on the internet (being agnostic myself) you
proffess that life is better without relgion, you proffess that its wasting minds and corrupting society
you proffess that its evil and how do you go about talking people down from relgion?
YOU ANTAGONIZE THEM you ridule them every chance you get you make them look foolish ignorant
paint them as fool, for what? To prove your superior? that your’s is the better way of life?
How is someone supposed to free themselfs of the shackles of organized religions if the oppisition
just insults them whenever they try to speak instead of actively and non aggressively trying to
change their point of view? We look like a bunch of fucking assholes on the internet and you know what
SO DO THEY
Thats the fucking problem WE SHOULD KNOW BETTER, just calmy debate with them if they get mad so be it
they attack you personally so what, if you show more compassion and acceptance and tolerance then
they do, provide more logical ways of dealing with lifes problems tragedies and hardships that
work and feel so much better than guilt and vanity, if you provide the substance and a welcoming atmosphere
that says “If you shun your religion you will be treated as we are treating you now”
then people just might start dropping religions.
Thousands of priest molest little children, massive money laundering banking schemes rampant
corruption and most christians are still Catholic.
Can anyone tell me why?
It is because they provide a sense of community a sense of belonging something that says, as long
as you think exactly what we think we accept you.
What your message is … As long as you think exactly what we think we accept you
No there is no middle ground here organized religion is wrong but we aren’t NAZIS you need to
persuade people to your side of the argument not insult and ridicule people because of what they
believe.
Way to to be a rational thinker… Rational thinker
I quit reading that post because of the bad spelling. Can you spell “grammar”? No. Can you spell “irony”?
Wow! In some people, stupidity is a virtue.
Yeap, Ad Hominem.
lives spent listening to an imaginary person telling you how to live your life. not much of a life, i’d say
Only an eternal one. pshaw
you’re willing to accept an ETERNAL life of knowing that because someone who is inherently good, doesn’t get into your “Heaven” because they didn’t know about or believe in your God? wow, you are a shallow and willing to happily look down on people who treat others better than you, not just for 100 years, not just a thousand, but FOR EVER, with no chance of a redemption!
just think of it, a 10 year old child doesn’t believe in your God, and so gets damned to ETERNITY in Hell, just because they didn’t bow down and worship your omnipotent God – what a great person you are, and what a benevolent being it is!!!
sorry, but I’d rather live a good life now, knowing that I’m helping others, rather than looking down on others and believing that you can live an eternity bowing down to a being that is willing to put someone through eternal torment just for not being open minded, or born in the wrong part of the world – according to your “rules”, the American Indians, Aboriginals, Eskimos, Orientals, etc, all were damned to Hell because they weren’t born near the middle east 2,000 years ago – yup, sounds like a benevolent being to me – NOT!
You sir have just committed many of the fallacies of the original post. I really do think you should get more information for your argument. It is severely lacking from this side. There is much more to God than you know and you have misrepresented Him significantly. I’d encourage you to look more into it and see where you have been off the mark. You might find that God isn’t bad at all like you seem to be pre-disposed to. Although, anyone who doesn’t love the Lord is pre-disposed to denying Him and loving themselves (no offense intended sir!).
That would depend on which system of religion you adhered to.
You should check out the others before you condemn all those who believe in a Supreme Being to be in a position of disallowing all those who never had the opportunity to hear the word as being damned.
For instance: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes that all those who have died without the opportunity to hear and accept the gospel will be taught in the spirit world, and baptisms for the dead will give them the opportunity to accept and move forward.
This applies to those who did have the opportunity but were dissuaded in their belief by the fear, cunning, and guile of those around them who chose not to believe that way.
A truly loving God makes a way for all His children to return to his presence, if they will.
I especially like the “Middle Ground” one and “the fallacy fallacy.”
As a “creationist” myself, the above statement by “creationist” completely irks me. We are not more or less human than anyone else, therefore, we all have “lives”. Also, if you want anyone to have an ounce of respect for your views, you’d do best not to belittle others. Whether your other comments are right or wrong, facts or assumptions, please leave off the jab at the end.
I can’t believe I just commented on a comment…
I think people need to take an acceptance course from Valerie. Belittling someone’s beliefs is only going to make matters worse. Respect is the key word here.
This girl on my friend’s facebook status pretty much went down this entire list. I’m laughing right now. xD
I would argue that the slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy. It is a look at the philosophical underpinnings of a position and the logical consequences of an idea. And it often holds up when you look back at history.
I’m no expert, but I think that while slippery slope might be interesting and true, it doesn’t have any bearing on the validity of the primary argument.
I do wonder how a slippery slope fallacy is related to reductio ad absurdum argument. Anyone know?
I also wonder how ad hominem fallacies differ from considering the source. For example, giving more or less weight to Sally’s argument depending on whether or not she has been convicted of tax fraud. I guess technically she might still be right, but her record helps to help narrow down how many voices I have to listen to. I know that if Joe Schmo has been wrong the last nine times I’ve given him an ear, I probably don’t need to waste my time on the tenth listen. Too bad for me if that’s the one time he has something worth considering.
Fair enough. It is not an argument against, but a tool for evaluating an argument.
The slippery slope and the strawman (reductio ad absurdum) can be used in conjunction, but don’t have to be. The example given uses both. I thought that a lot of the examples employed other fallacies themselves.
Ad hominem is the opposite of appeal to authority. One says “You are stupid, therefore your position is wrong” while the other says “This person is smart, they agree with me, therefore, I am correct.” Just because Joe Schmo is wrong a lot and Dr. Poindexter is smart has no bearing on the validity of his position. It is right or wrong on its own merits.
“Reductio ad absurdem” is not the same as a strawman. Instead, it takes the presented argument, accurately summarises it, and presents the results of taking said argument as truth.
“Strawman” means arguing against something the speaker didn’t say. “Reductio ad absurdem” is about taking the speaker as if he was honest, and truly believed that his position was the best position.
You’re right. Thanks for the correction.
It is not an argument against, but it is a good tool to analyze an argument.
It is a fallacy to say that one incident will only cause one other specific incident to happen.
Yes, if you can prove that, say, gay marriage will lead to bestiality (it won’t but this is an example), then slippery slope is not a fallacy whatsoever.
Here’s my anti-slippery slope story.
http://jamsco.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/metaphor-theatre/
The Gambler’s Fallacy – “Suffering a kind of economic form of natural selection” – made me laugh :)
“We must use reason to arrive at the truth. I know this because…”
Reason proving reason.
Begging the question, at its finest.
Now THAT’s interesting.
So… what do YOU use to arrive at truth? The only reliable method we have is reason. The proof is in the pudding, and nothing other than reason has even made any pudding.
It is possible that reason might be broken in some way, but since it’s the only game in town, whenever we need to figure out if something is true or not reason is the only tool we have.
I find this one interesting. I’d like to know what others think.
Because in my mind: stating that something is the ultimate authority (be it reason, a holy book, science etc) is ultimately a circular argument. If in theory something is of the highest authority on a matter, only itself would be able to back itself up, as it were. Otherwise, whatever else is used would be a higher authority.
I know I worded that badly.
You’re equating science and religion. Don’t do that. Here’s why:
Science is testable and reproducible. Religion is neither of these things. For instance, I can prove to you that gravity exists – we can do an experiment. You can also do the same experiment, and get the same results. If you get different results, I may be wrong, and the theory gets changed. There is no way to prove that, for instance, that miracles exist – no one has ever performed one, much less duplicated that performance.
Science never claims to be an ultimate authority. It is a method by which we discover and test things. Religion is belief, without proof, of something supernatural.
Two very different things.
The straw man argument seems particularly evident in debates I have seen lately. For example, representing those who hold to the truthfulness of Scripture assumes that we base those assumptions upon…how does it go…”the Great and Infallible Book of Most Infallible Sayings” or something to that effect rather than examining other converging lines of evidence. Theists and a-theists both seem prone to mischaracterizing the viewpoints of others.
Interesting to see the use of fallacies in these comments . . . to correct the fallacies of others. Obviously both are wrong.
Oh wait. Was that the fallacy fallacy?
Ha.
I’m not really surprised how many of these are used in the comments in this thread by theists and atheists alike.
I just find it interesting how many if the examples had an obvious slant to them. That in itself seems like it should be classified as a logic fallacy: the fallacy of rather than argue your opinions you’ll just assume them to be true and accepted by all except for the few idiots running around. I’ll gladly engage in a reasonable discussion, but one that has been so obviously set up in favor of one side is definitely a loaded question fallacy: anyone here arguing for Intelligent Design, against same sex marriage, against vaccines, or for the Bible (oh, I’m sorry, I mean the book of Zorbo) is already labeled as a foolish person without any sort of debate, proof, or reasoning to back that label up. The logic fallacies themselves are obviously correct and are present often in arguments today–I was just hoping that these posters wouldn’t have to personally use one or two of these logic flaws in order to show us how widely they are used.
I didn’t see it that way at all. I saw it as them picking hot button issues that people could understand or relate to. Just because the side the decided to argue for is against some peoples opinions doesn’t make it slanted. No matter which side of an issue is presented, SOMEBODY is going to feel attacked.
If they were really ONLY trying to pick issues we could relate to, it seems as though they would have alternated between liberal/conservative, religious/non-religious, evolution/intelligent design etc. at least a few times.
However, if they chose their opinions in order to show the logic behind and spread their belief system (which I have no problem with), they failed in doing it according to the rules of logic. On multiple posters (if you go to the full website) people who believe in intelligent design are set up as illogical and even idiotic people, but there is no evidence or reasoning to support that claim. That is definitely not a fair fight.
If during a debate either side has the advantage of proclaiming that their opponent is dumb as a rock before that opponent opens their mouth, the rules have been broken and the quest for truth is disbanded.
I agree, Victoria. The author could have chosen much less loaded issues as examples.
fully agree with you Victoria – thanks for posting
Very interesting bits for looking into what a good debate is. Although, the examples were definitely written by someone coming from a post-modern, athiest slant haha. Nonetheless interesting though. That book of zorbo sounds pretty intense but I’ll stick with my Bible.
Also interesting to look at these in light of political parties and how they try to shut down the other parties running against them. I’m so sick of political parties putting horrible slants on others to make them look bad. Instead, tell me why I should vote for you. You just told me that the other guy isn’t trustworthy, so how do I know you are. Are you trustworthy simply by the fact that the other guy isn’t? No, let me find out who you are. In other words stop the mud-slinging…
I am Jewish therefore I burn in hell. amirite?
Furnace
Doesn’t the article’s title fall into the fallacy fallacy category?
I don’t disagree with any of the implied points here. That said, a lot of these examples are taking very thinly-veiled shots at topics like theism. Your points can be made without being unnecessarily inflammatory and alienating half of your audience. Just food for thought.
Schopenhauer did it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Being_Right
I have to say that the offence taken from this article is quite revealing. Straw Man is being used by some misrepresenting this article as if it has some how tried to make those of religious beliefs seem stupid or irrational. Therefor they try to disprove the entire basis of this article by expressing the offence they took from the examples. They are simply examples to further explain the fallacies. Not saying that the argument is wrong but simply the way they try to prove it is indeed wrong. I don’t believe any disrespect was intended by this article, rather a way of showing how to have more respect while arguing is how I myself took it.
+100 for being one of the only people I have ever seen use “begging the question” correctly. It does NOT mean “inspire” or “raise” a question. Another one, more a rhetorical than logical fallacy, is to say “I find that argument offensive.” Well, so what? Take it to your shrink. Being offended very likely means there’s something wrong with you, not the argument.
You missed: “The consensus is…” and “Current scientific evidence says…”
In case it hasn’t already been mentioned, the title of this article is an example of the fallacy fallacy.
Y’all getting very subtly trolled, probably by both sides now.
To say there is no God is to know all; then you would be God therefore proving yourself wrong. But you can’t be wrong if you are God because God knows all and can’t be wrong.
OK smarties, kill me… :)
They forgot the most common logical fallacy; “Ad Verecundiam” Or appeal to authority. EXAMPLE: The Department of Counter Defense Security claim that there is a rise in dangerous threat alert level from yellow to orange that can only be remedied with more tax money funding to get it to a more manageable green level.
They didn’t forget them. Abraham just chose a selection to demonstrate. He states that there are 24 fallacies on the website but only shows 11 here. Don’t worry! Your fallacy is out there!
This article and commentator are trying to drive their points of belief by this “11 ways you are thoroughly (but interestingly) wrong”. This is one of those attempts, since I am scientific, then you are stupid for believing x, x, and z. Scientist are some the most disillusioned people I know and I consider myself one of them.
Zorbo the Great and his Infallible Book of Blahblahblah, huh? You know, sometimes it’s not worth the effort to be half-assedly subtle and definitely not the least bit clever when it’s clear exactly to who or what you are referring.