“A fallacious argument may be deceptive by appearing to be better than it really is. Some fallacies are committed intentionally to manipulate or persuade by deception, while others are committed unintentionally due to carelessness or ignorance.” (Source)
- Debates (e.g., Punditry, Social Media)
- Strawman – “You misrepresented someone's argument to make it easier to attack.”
- Loaded Question - “You asked a question that had a presumption built into it so that it couldn't be answered without appearing guilty.”
- Bandwagon - “You appealed to popularity or the fact that many people do something as an attempted form of validation.”
- No True Scotsman – “You made what could be called an appeal to purity as a way to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of your argument.”
- Appeal to Nature - “You argued that because something is 'natural' it is therefore valid, justified, inevitable, good or ideal.”
- Middle Ground - “You claimed that a compromise, or middle point, between two extremes must be the truth.”
- Appeal to Emotion - “You attempted to manipulate an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument.”
- Ad Hominem - “You attacked your opponent's character or personal traits in an attempt to undermine their argument.”
- Special Pleading - “You moved the goalposts or made up an exception when your claim was shown to be false.”
- Ambiguity - “You used a double meaning or ambiguity of language to mislead or misrepresent the truth.”
- Appeal to Authority - “You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.”
- Black-or-White - “You presented two alternative states as the only possibilities, when in fact more possibilities exist.”
- Rathering (False Dichotomies) - Creating false ‘black or white’ dichotomies, omitting all of the ‘gray’ options in between.
- Anecdotal - “You used a personal experience or an isolated example instead of a sound argument or compelling evidence.”
- Slippery Slope - “You said that if we allow A to happen, then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen.”
- Personal Incredulity - “Because you found something difficult to understand, or are unaware of how it works, you made out like it's probably not true.”
- The Gambler's Fallacy - “You said that 'runs' occur to statistically independent phenomena such as roulette wheel spins.”
- Genetic - “You judged something as either good or bad on the basis of where it comes from, or from whom it came.”
- False Cause - “You presumed that a real or perceived relationship between things means that one is the cause of the other.”
- Composition/Division - “You assumed that one part of something has to be applied to all, or other, parts of it; or that the whole must apply to its parts.”
- Begging the Question - “You presented a circular argument in which the conclusion was included in the premise.”
- The Fallacy Fallacy - “Presuming that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that the claim itself must be wrong.”
- Tu Quoque - “Avoiding having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser - answering criticism with criticism.”
- Burden of Proof - “Saying that the burden of proof lies not with the person making the claim, but with someone else to disprove.”
- The Texas Sharpshooter - “Cherry-picking data clusters to suit an argument, or finding a pattern to fit a presumption.”
- Nirvana Fallacy - “When people reject a thing because it compares unfavorably to an ideal that in reality is unattainable.”
- Correlation Does Not Imply Causation - “The inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them.”
- Thought Experiment - Investigate a theory, scenario, principle, idea, etc. by thinking through the various consequences.
- Scientific Method - A scientist uses systematic observation, measurement, and experimentation to gather empirical evidence, and subsequently applies reasoning and logic to update their hypotheses.
- Blindspot Analysis - “A method aimed at uncovering obsolete, incomplete, or incorrect assumptions in a decision maker’s mental scheme of the environment.”
- The Feynman Technique - “There are four steps to the Feynman Learning Technique: 1) Choose a concept you want to learn about. 2) Pretend you are teaching it to a student in grade 6. 3) Identify gaps in your explanation;? Go back to the source material, to better understand it. 4) Review and simplify (optional).”
- Occam’s Broom - Intentional omission of inconvenient facts by intellectually dishonest proponents.
- The Map is Not the Territory - A representation of something is not the thing itself.
- Framing - “With the same information being used as a base, the ‘frame’ surrounding the issue can change the reader’s perception without having to alter the actual facts.”
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