EXAMPLES ON FALLACIES ! - Hasty generalization: Assuming that all politicians are corrupt because of bad behavior by one is @ hasty generalization. 'f, say, someone wanted to get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts, they might focus on Several controversial grants they've made over the past few years and use them as justification for Wiping out all NEA programs. If the administrator of the NEA were to go before Congress seeking more money and conveniently forgot about those controversial grants, he would be suppressing damaging but relevant evidence. “A survey of students in one inner-city school found that 20 percent carried weapons. Last month in ‘our own city, there were two incidents involving handguns. We need to install gun detection equipment in every school in the state.” “This hospital should be closed down because two people have successfully brought malpractice suits against it” False analogy: “Political leaders should make use of discoveries about human communi in social sciences.” jon derived from research “t's silly to talk about letting workers make decisions about their own jobs. You might just as well talk about giving horse racing back to the horses.” “We license drivers; why shouldn’t we license parents? You can’t take the road until you leam how to drive and pass a test. Aren’t children more important than cars?” ‘part of being an adult includes the right to make choices and accept the consequences of your actions. If t's legal to purchase tobacco, shouldn't it also be legal to buy marijuana?” “If you're old enough to vote and even go to war when you're 18, you're old enough to drink beer.” 3. Non Sequitur: “Clambake University has one of the best faculties in the United States because a Nobel Prize winner used to teach there.” “People who wear nose rings are disgusting. There ought to be a law against wearing nose rings in public.” “I should not receive a C in this course because I received Bs or As in all my other courses” “The best toothpaste is Crest because the company has a wonderful computer department”5. Ad hominem arguments (Appeal to the person): Data ne Be Star Wars debate when many important physicists around the world signed a statement in ich they declared their opposition to Star Wars research. Another group of physicists supportive of that research condemned them on th : ¢ grounds that none of them protesting physicists stood to get any Star Wars research funds anyway. — “OF course you oppose abortion; all of your friends are feminists.” “Of course you oppose abortion; you've been a Catholic all your life.” “Who are you to question the high cost of my plan—you can’t even balance your own checkbook.” “You can’t offer a fair analysis of ‘right to work’ questions because you area union member.” “The Kaiser medical plan is really communistic socialized medicine and thus un-American.” “The governor has a number of Interesting economic proposals, but let’s not forget that she comes from a very wealthy family.” 1 “There is no doubt that American businesses have been hurt by all the environmental regulations passed in recent years. Most of the regulations were dreamed up by ivory-tower intellectuals, nature freaks, and tin-headed government bureaucrats. We can’t afford those kinds of regulations.” Circular reasoning or begging the question: “Abortion is a murder because it involves the intentional killing of an unbom human being” is tantamount to saying “Abortion is murder because it's murder.” “That fellow is fat because he is considerably overweight.” “The best statement we can make about this television is that it's the best television we've ever mad “Marijuana smoking is immoral because it just isn’t right.” “Excess drinking is detrimental to health because it causes harm to the body. ” “Corporations, too, would benefit from the decrease in taxes because business needs the advantages a decrease would bring.” Either/or reasoning (False Dilemma): “Either drop the bomb on a major city or sustain unacceptable losses in a land invasion’” “My way or hit the highway” ‘Love it or leave it” “Bither you're for proposition 12 or you're against it” 7+ “Bither we build a new hi new “The government high school or children in this community will never get into college.” lust either raise taxes or reduce services for the poor.” Red herring: “How dare my op a Ponents accuse me of political i ang the quality of ie forall people inthe United Stats ne nen we are working IMPROV ‘hy should we wor 'y about the amount of violence on television when thousands of people are illed in automobile accidents each year?” , ierarente from secretary of state James Baker to a question about the appropriateness of using ferican soldiers to defend wealthy, insulated Kuwaiti royalty, Baker told an anecdote about an ‘solated encounter he had with four Kuwaitis who had suffered; he then made a length statement on America’s interests in the Gulf. Although no one would argue that America is unaffected by events in the Middle East, the question of why others with even greater interests at stake had not contributed more troops and resources went unanswered, A speaker arguing in favor of prayer in the public schools might assert, “The real issue here is whether ‘we are going to allow atheists to determine what happens in our schools.” When asked about rumors of excessive drinking, a legislator declares, “Madam, my father was a Methodist minister. That should answer you question.” A student responds to a charge of plagiarism with the statement, “I was a Boy Scout throughout high school.” Post hoc, ergo propter hoc reasoning: If your best friend does not study for an exam but still makes an A, you cannot assume that he made the high grade because he did not study for the exam. Other factors may be more direct causes: he may have mastered the subject matter through reading the assignments and paying attention in class, for instance, so he did not need to study for the exam. _ Cramming for a test really helps. Last week I crammed for a psychology test and I got an A on it. 1 am allergie to the sound of a lawn mower because every time I mow the lawn I start to sneeze.” “{ should have known it would rain; I just washed my car” “After the football season begins, the temperature drops; therefore football causes cold temperatures.” 9. Argument to the people: “Everyone knows that the world is fl “Everyone knows that blacks are inferior to whites.”“How i Could this idea be possibly wrong when public opinion says it's right?™ + “You've asked wheth er . best and most loyal dogs niece shepherds are vicious, but everyone knows that they are the When a « indicate ey fe My fellow Americans, I stand here, draped in this flag from head to foot, to ental dedication to the values and principles of these sovereign United States,” he's redirecting to his oon Perea thi pri rial er Su Pei om alice by mali alc by Baking himself with the “The president must be correct i percent of the people support him.” his approach to foreign policy; after all, the polls show that 60 10. Appeal to ignorance: “Because something has not been disproved, it has been proved.” If a critic were to praise the novel Clarissa for its dullness on the grounds that this dullness was the international effect of the author, we would be unable to respond because we have no idea what was in the author's mind when he created the work ¥ © “You can’t prove that UFOs don’t exist, can you? Of course not. No one has ever been able to disprove the existence of UFOs. It’s obvious that they do exist.” © “We can't write laws about euthanasia because we know so little about death.” 11. Appeal to irrational premises: “Of course I borrowed money from the company slush fun. Every one on the floor has done the same in the last eighteen months” 2 “We've got to require everyone to read Hamlet because we've always required everyone to read it” “You should buy a Ford Escort because it's the best-selling car in the world.” 12. Strawperson: 2 - « “You may think that levying confiscatory taxes on homeless people’s cardboard dwellings the surest way out of recession, but I don’t.” © “While my opponent would like to empty our prisons of serial killers and coddle kidnappers, I hold to sacred principles of compensatory justice.” 13. Slippery Slope: © “Listening to rock music will lead to drug use among teenagers.” © “We don't dare send weapons to Eastern Europe. If we do so, we will next send military advisers, then a Special Forces battalion, and then large numbers of troops. Finally, we will be in all-out wat.”“No one feels worse ab this paper in late. Iflwere your need for open-heart Surgery than I do. But I still can’t let you turn © to let you do it, then I'd have to let everyone turn in papers late.” * “Sorry, Mr. J i MY: jones, if we rush your order, then we will have to rush everyone else’s order also.” “If. _ Bill of Right oe Constitution to prohibit flag burning, you open the door to other amendments to our S- Ultimately, you destroy the freedoms upon which our nation is based.” © “If we be; Will shot Constitu Bin to control the sale of guns by restricting the purchase of handguns, where will it end? Buns be next? And then hunting rifles? Soon the right to bear arms will disappear from the ition, and sportsmen and women will be denied one of their basic freedoms.” 14. Irrelevant Authority: “Tim Allen on Home improvement urges you to buy 2 260-horsepower sedan with an all-aluminum, high output, 3.5 liter, 24-valve, V6 engine” “The celebrity on a commercial urges to use Pert Plus.” © “Running is not good. Einstein didn’t use to run much.” Behrens, L. & Rosen, LJ. (2008). Writing and reading across the curriculum (10* ed.). New York: Pearson, Lucas, S. (2007). The Art of public speaking (9% ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill