Fallacies

Fallacies
A fallacy is a kind of error in reasoning. The list of fallacies below contains 231 names of
the most common fallacies, and it provides brief explanations and examples of each of
them. Fallacious reasoning should not be persuasive, but it too often is.
The vast majority of the commonly identified fallacies involve arguments, although
some involve only explanations, or definitions, or questions, or other products of rea-
soning. Some researchers, although not most, use the term “fallacy” very broadly to indi-
cate any false belief or cause of a false belief. The long list below includes some fallacies
of these sorts if they have commonly-known names, but most are fallacies that involve
kinds of errors made while arguing informally in natural language, that is, in everyday
discourse.
A charge of fallacious reasoning always needs to be justified. The burden of proof is on

your shoulders when you claim that someone’s reasoning is fallacious. Even if you do
not explicitly give your reasons, it is your responsibility to be able to give them if chal-
lenged.
A piece of reasoning can have more than one fault and thereby commit more than one
fallacy. If it is fallacious, this can be because of its form or its content or both. The for-
mal fallacies are fallacious only because of their logical form, their structure. The Slip-
pery Slope Fallacy is an informal fallacy that has the following form: Step 1 often leads to
step 2. Step 2 often leads to step 3. Step 3 often leads to…until we reach an obviously
unacceptable step, so step 1 is not acceptable. That form occurs in both good arguments
and faulty arguments. The quality of an argument of this form depends crucially on the
strength of the probabilities in going from one step to the next. The probabilities involve
https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#RedHerring 3/3/24, 3:03 PM

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the argument’s content, not merely its logical form.
The discussion below that precedes the long alphabetical list of fallacies begins with an
account of the ways in which the term “fallacy” is imprecise. Attention then turns to
some of the competing and overlapping ways to classify fallacies of argumentation. Re-
searchers in the field of fallacies disagree about which name of a fallacy is more helpful
to use, whether some fallacies should be de-emphasized in favor of others, and which is
the best taxonomy of the fallacies. Researchers in the field are also deeply divided about
how to define the term “fallacy” itself and how to define certain fallacies. There is no
agreement on whether there are necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing
between fallacious and non-fallacious reasoning generally. Analogously, there is doubt
in the field of ethics regarding whether researchers should pursue the goal of providing
necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing moral actions from immoral ones.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Taxonomy of Fallacies
3. Pedagogy
4. What is a Fallacy?
5. Other Controversies
6. Partial List of Fallacies
7. References and Further Reading
1. Introduction
The first known systematic study of fallacies was due to Aristotle in his De Sophisticis
Elenchis (Sophistical Refutations), an appendix to his Topics, which is one of his six
works on logic. This six are collectively known as the Organon. He listed thirteen types
of fallacies. Very few advances were made for many centuries after this. After the Dark
Ages, fallacies again were studied systematically in Medieval Europe. This is why so
many fallacies have Latin names. The third major period of study of the fallacies began
in the later twentieth century due to renewed interest from the disciplines of philosophy,
logic, communication studies, rhetoric, psychology, and artificial intelligence.

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The more frequent the error within public discussion and debate the more likely it is to
have a name. Nevertheless, there is no specific name for the fallacy of subtracting five
from thirteen and concluding that the answer is seven, even though the error is com-
mon.
The term “fallacy” is not a precise term. One reason is that it is ambiguous. Depending
on the particular theory of fallacies, it might refer either to (a) a kind of error in an argu-
ment, (b) a kind of error in reasoning (including arguments, definitions, explanations,
questions, and so forth), (c) a false belief, or (d) the cause of any of the previous errors
including what are normally referred to as “rhetorical techniques.”
Regarding (d), being ill, being hungry, being stupid, being hypercritical, and being care-
less are all sources of potential error in reasoning, so they could qualify as fallacies of
kind (d), but they are not included in the list below, and most researchers on fallacies
normally do not call them fallacies. These sources of errors are more about why people
commit a fallacy than about what the fallacy is. On the other hand, wishful thinking,
stereotyping, being superstitious, rationalizing, and having a poor sense of proportion
also are sources of potential error and are included in the list below, though they would
not be included in the lists of some researchers. Thus there is a certain arbitrariness to
what appears in lists such as this. What have been left off the list below are the following
persuasive techniques commonly used to influence others and to cause errors in reason-
ing: apple polishing, ridiculing, applying financial pressure, being sarcastic, selecting
terms with strong negative or positive associations, using innuendo, weasling, and using
other propaganda techniques. Basing any reasoning primarily on the effectiveness of
one or more of these techniques is fallacious.
The fallacy literature has given some attention to the epistemic role of reasoning. Nor-
mally, the goal in reasoning is to take the audience from not knowing to knowing, or
from not being justified in believing something to being justified in believing it. If a falla-
cy is required to fail at achieving this epistemic goal, then begging the question, which is
a form of repeating the conclusion in the premises, does not achieve this goal even
though it is deductively valid—so, reasoning validly is not a guarantee of avoiding a falla-
cy.

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In describing the fallacies below, the custom is followed of not distinguishing between a
reasoner using a fallacy and the reasoning itself containing the fallacy.
Real arguments are often embedded within a very long discussion. Richard Whately, one
of the greatest of the 19th century researchers into informal logic, wisely said “A very
long discussion is one of the most effective veils of Fallacy; …a Fallacy, which when stat-
ed barely…would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto
volume.”
2. Taxonomy of Fallacies
The importance of understanding the common fallacy labels is that they provide an effi-
cient way to communicate criticisms of someone’s reasoning. However, there are a num-
ber of competing and overlapping ways to classify the labels. The taxonomy of the fallac-
ies is in dispute.
Multiple names of fallacies are often grouped together under a common name intended
to bring out how the specific fallacies are similar. Here are three examples. (1) Fallacies
of relevance include fallacies that occur due to reliance on an irrelevant reason. There
are different kinds of these fallacies. Ad Hominem, Appeal to Pity, and Affirming the
Consequent are all fallacies of relevance. (2) Accent, Amphiboly and Equivocation are
examples of fallacies of ambiguity. (3) The fallacies of illegitimate presumption include
Begging the Question, False Dilemma, No True Scotsman, Complex Question and Sup-
pressed Evidence.
The fallacies of argumentation can be classified as either formal or informal. A formal

fallacy can be detected by examining the logical form of the reasoning, whereas an infor-
mal fallacy usually cannot be detected this way because it depends upon the content of
the reasoning and possibly the purpose of the reasoning. So, informal fallacies are errors
of reasoning that cannot easily be expressed in our standard system of formal logic, the
first-order predicate logic. The long list below contains very few formal fallacies. Falla-
cious arguments (as well as perfectly correct arguments) can be classified as deductive
or inductive, depending upon whether the fallacious argument is most properly assessed
by deductive standards or instead by inductive standards. Deductive standards demand

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deductive validity, but inductive standards require inductive strength such as making
the conclusion more likely.
Fallacies of argumentation can be divided into other categories. Some classifications de-
pend upon the psychological factors that lead people to use them. Those fallacies also
can be divided into categories according to the epistemological factors that cause the er-
ror. For example, arguments depend upon their premises, even if a person has ignored
or suppressed one or more of them, and a premise can be justified at one time, given all
the available evidence at that time, even if we later learn that the premise was false. Also,
even though appealing to a false premise is often fallacious, it is not if we are reasoning
about what would have happened even if it did not happen.
3. Pedagogy
It is commonly claimed that giving a fallacy a name and studying it will help the student
identify the fallacy in the future and will steer them away from using the fallacy in their
own reasoning. As Steven Pinker says in The Stuff of Thought (p. 129),
If a language provides a label for a complex concept, that could make it easier to
think about the concept, because the mind can handle it as a single package when
juggling a set of ideas, rather than having to keep each of its components in the air
separately. It can also give a concept an additional label in long-term memory, mak-
ing it more easily retrievable than ineffable concepts or those with more roundabout
verbal descriptions.
For pedagogical purposes, researchers in the field of fallacies disagree about the follow-
ing topics: which name of a fallacy is more helpful to students’ understanding; whether
some fallacies should be de-emphasized in favor of others; and which is the best taxono-
my of the fallacies.
It has been suggested that, from a pedagogical perspective, having a representative set of
fallacies pointed out to you in others’ reasoning is much more effective than your taking
the trouble to learn the rules of avoiding all fallacies in the first place. But fallacy theory
is criticized by some teachers of informal reasoning for its over-emphasis on poor rea-
soning rather than good reasoning. Do colleges teach Calculus by emphasizing all the

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ways one can make mathematical mistakes? Besides, studying fallacies will make stu-
dents be overly critical. These critics want more emphasis on the forms of good argu-
ments and on the implicit rules that govern proper discussion designed to resolve a dif-
ference of opinion.
4. What is a Fallacy?
Researchers disagree about how to define the very term “fallacy.” For example, most re-
searchers say fallacies may be created unintentionally or intentionally, but some re-
searchers say that a supposed fallacy created unintentionally should be called a blunder
and not a fallacy.
Could there be a computer program, for instance, that could always successfully distin-
guish a fallacy from a non-fallacy? A fallacy is a mistake, but not every mistake is a falla-
cy.
Focusing just on fallacies of argumentation, some researchers define such a fallacy as an

argument that is deductively invalid or that has very little inductive strength. Because
examples of false dilemma, inconsistent premises, and begging the question are valid
arguments in this sense, this definition misses some standard fallacies. Other re-
searchers say a fallacy is a mistake in an argument that arises from something other
than merely false premises. But the false dilemma fallacy is due to false premises. Still
other researchers define a fallacy as an argument that is not good. Good arguments are
then defined as those that are deductively valid or inductively strong, and that contain
only true, well-established premises, but are not question-begging. A complaint with this
definition is that its requirement of truth would improperly lead to calling too much sci-
entific reasoning fallacious; every time a new scientific discovery caused scientists to la-
bel a previously well-established claim as false, all the scientists who used that claim as a
premise would become fallacious reasoners. This consequence of the definition is ac-
ceptable to some researchers but not to others. Because informal reasoning regularly
deals with hypothetical reasoning and with premises for which there is great disagree-
ment about whether they are true or false, many researchers would relax the require-
ment that every premise must be true or at least known to be true. One widely accepted
definition defines a fallacious argument as one that either is deductively invalid or is in-

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ductively very weak or contains an unjustified premise or that ignores relevant evidence
that is available and that should be known by the arguer. Finally, yet another theory of
fallacy says a fallacy is a failure to provide adequate proof for a belief, the failure being
disguised to make the proof look adequate.
Other researchers recommend characterizing a fallacy as a violation of the norms of

good reasoning, the rules of critical discussion, dispute resolution, and adequate com-
munication. The difficulty with this approach is that there is so much disagreement
about how to characterize these norms.
In addition, all the above definitions are often augmented with some remark to the effect
that the fallacies need to be convincing or persuasive to too many people. It is notorious-
ly difficult to be very precise about these notions. Some researchers in fallacy theory
have therefore recommended dropping the notions altogether; other researchers suggest
replacing them in favor of the phrase “can be used to persuade.”
Some researchers complain that all the above definitions of fallacy are too broad and do
not distinguish between mere blunders and actual fallacies, the more serious errors.
Researchers in the field are deeply divided, not only about how to define the term “falla-
cy” and how to define some of the individual fallacies, but also about whether there are
necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing between fallacious and non-falla-
cious reasoning generally. Analogously, there is doubt in the field of ethics whether re-
searchers should pursue the goal of providing necessary and sufficient conditions for
distinguishing moral actions from immoral ones.
5. Other Controversies
How do we defend the claim that an item of reasoning should be labeled as a particular
fallacy? A major goal in the field of informal logic is provide some criteria for each falla-
cy. Schwartz presents the challenge this way:
Fallacy labels have their use. But fallacy-label texts tend not to provide useful crite-
ria for applying the labels. Take the so-called ad verecundiam fallacy, the fallacious

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appeal to authority. Just when is it committed? Some appeals to authority are falla-
cious; most are not. A fallacious one meets the following condition: The expertise of
the putative authority, or the relevance of that expertise to the point at issue, are in
question. But the hard work comes in judging and showing that this condition
holds, and that is where the fallacy-label-texts leave off. Or rather, when a text goes
further, stating clear, precise, broadly applicable criteria for applying fallacy labels,
it provides a critical instrument [that is] more fundamental than a taxonomy of fal-
lacies and hence to that extent goes beyond the fallacy-label approach. The further it
goes in this direction, the less it need to emphasize or even to use fallacy labels
(Schwartz, 232).
The controversy here is the extent to which it is better to teach students what Schwartz
calls “the critical instrument” than to teach the fallacy-label approach. Is the fallacy-la-
bel approach better for some kinds of fallacies than others? If so, which others?
One controversy involves the relationship between the fields of logic and rhetoric. In the
field of rhetoric, the primary goal is to persuade the audience, such as getting them to
believe what you want them to believe. But using fallacies can be a successful rhetorical
technique. Philosophers tend to de-emphasize this difference between rhetoric and in-
formal logic, and they concentrate on arguments that should fail to convince the ideally
rational reasoner.
Advertising in magazines and on television is designed to achieve visual persuasion. And

a hug or the fanning of fumes from freshly baked donuts out onto the sidewalk are occa-
sionally used for visceral persuasion. There is some controversy among researchers in
informal logic as to whether the reasoning involved in this nonverbal persuasion can al-
ways be assessed properly by the same standards that are used for verbal reasoning.
6. Partial List of Fallacies

Consulting the list below will give a general idea of the kind of error involved in passages
to which the fallacy name is applied. However, simply applying the fallacy name to a
passage cannot substitute for a detailed examination of the passage and its context or
circumstances because there are many instances of reasoning to which a fallacy name

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might seem to apply, yet, on further examination, it is found that in these circumstances
the reasoning is really not fallacious.
Abusive Ad Hominem
Accent
Accentus
Accident
Ad Baculum
Ad Consequentiam
Ad Crumenum
Ad Hoc Rescue
Ad Hominem
Ad Hominem, Circumstantial
Ad Ignorantiam
Ad Misericordiam
Ad Novitatem
Ad Numerum
Ad Populum
Ad Verecundiam
Affirming the Consequent
Against the Person
All-or-Nothing
Ambiguity
Amphiboly
Anecdotal Evidence
Anthropomorphism
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Consequence
Appeal to Emotions
Appeal to Force
Appeal to Ignorance
Appeal to Money
Appeal to Past Practice
Appeal to Pity

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Appeal to Snobbery
Appeal to the Gallery
Appeal to the Masses
Appeal to the Mob
Appeal to the People
Appeal to the Stick
Appeal to Traditional Wisdom
Appeal to Vanity
Appeal to Unqualified Authority
Argument from Ignorance
Argument from Outrage
Argument from Popularity
Argumentum Ad ….
Argumentum Consensus Gentium
Availability Heuristic
Avoiding the Issue
Avoiding the Question
Bad Seed
Bald Man
Bandwagon
Begging the Question
Beside the Point
Biased Generalizing
Biased Sample
Biased Statistics
Bifurcation
Black-or-White
Caricaturization
Changing the Question
Cherry-Picking
Circular Reasoning
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
Clouding the Issue
Common Belief

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Common Cause.
Common Practice
Complex Question
Composition
Confirmation Bias
Confusing an Explanation with an Excuse
Conjunction
Consensus Gentium
Consequence
Contextomy
Converse Accident
Cover-up
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
Curve Fitting
Definist
Denying the Antecedent
Digression
Disregarding Known Science
Distraction
Division
Domino
Double Standard
Either/Or
Equivocation
Etymological
Every and All
Exaggeration
Excluded Middle
False Analogy
False Balance
False Cause
False Dichotomy
False Dilemma
False Equivalence

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Far-Fetched Hypothesis
Faulty Comparison
Faulty Generalization
Faulty Motives
Formal
Four Terms
Gambler’s
Genetic
Group Think
Guilt by Association
Hasty Conclusion
Hasty Generalization
Heap
Hedging
Hooded Man
Hyperbolic Discounting
Hypostatization
Ideology-Driven Argumentation
Ignoratio Elenchi
Ignoring a Common Cause
Ignoring Inconvenient Data
Improper Analogy
Incomplete Evidence
Inconsistency
Inductive Conversion
Insufficient Statistics
Intensional
Invalid Reasoning
Irrelevant Conclusion
Irrelevant Reason
Is-Ought
Jumping to Conclusions
Lack of Proportion
Line-Drawing

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Loaded Language
Loaded Question
Logic Chopping
Logical Fallacy
Lying
Maldistributed Middle
Many Questions
Misconditionalization
Misleading Accent
Misleading Vividness
Misplaced Burden of Proof
Misplaced Concreteness
Misrepresentation
Missing the Point
Mob Appeal
Modal
Monte Carlo
Name Calling
Naturalistic
Neglecting a Common Cause
No Middle Ground
No True Scotsman
Non Causa Pro Causa
Non Sequitur
Obscurum per Obscurius
One-Sidedness
Opposition
Outrage, Argument from
Over-Fitting
Overgeneralization
Oversimplification
Past Practice
Pathetic
Peer Pressure

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Perfectionist
Persuasive Definition
Petitio Principii
Poisoning the Well
Popularity, Argument from
Post Hoc
Prejudicial Language
Proof Surrogate
Prosecutor’s Fallacy
Prosody
Quantifier Shift
Question Begging
Questionable Analogy
Questionable Cause
Questionable Premise
Quibbling
Quoting out of Context
Rationalization
Red Herring
Refutation by Caricature
Regression
Reification
Reversing Causation
Scapegoating
Scare Tactic
Scope
Secundum Quid
Selective Attention
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Self-Selection
Sharpshooter’s
Slanting
Slippery Slope
Small Sample

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Smear Tactic
Smokescreen
Sorites
Special Pleading
Specificity
Stacking the Deck
Stereotyping
Straw Man
Style Over Substance
Subjectivist
Superstitious Thinking
Suppressed Evidence
Sweeping Generalization
Syllogistic
Texas Sharpshooter’s
Tokenism
Traditional Wisdom
Tu Quoque
Two Wrongs do not Make a Right
Undistributed Middle
Unfalsifiability
Unrepresentative Sample
Unrepresentative Generalization
Untestability
Vested Interest
Victory by Definition
Willed ignorance
Wishful Thinking
You Too
Abusive Ad Hominem
See Ad Hominem.

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Accent
The Accent Fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity due to the different ways a word or syllable is
emphasized or accented. Also called Accentus, Misleading Accent, and Prosody.
Example:
A member of Congress is asked by a reporter if she is in favor of the President’s new

missile defense system, and she responds, “I’m in favor of a missile defense system
that effectively defends America.”
With an emphasis on the word “favor,” her response is likely to be for the President’s
missile defense system. With an emphasis, instead, on the word “effectively,” her remark
is likely to be against the President’s missile defense system. And by using neither em-
phasis, she can later claim that her response was on either side of the issue. For an ex-
ample of the Fallacy of Accent involving the accent of a syllable within a single word,
consider the word “invalid” in the sentence, “Did you mean the invalid one?” When we
accent the first syllable, we are speaking of a sick person, but when we accent the second
syllable, we are speaking of an argument failing to meet the deductive standard of being
valid. By not supplying the accent, and not supplying additional information to help us
disambiguate, then we are committing the Fallacy of Accent.
Accentus
See the Fallacy of Accent.
Accident
We often arrive at a generalization but don’t or can’t list all the exceptions. When we
then reason with the generalization as if it has no exceptions, our reasoning contains the
Fallacy of Accident. This fallacy is sometimes called the “Fallacy of Sweeping Generaliza-
tion.”
Example:

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People should keep their promises, right? I loaned Dwayne my knife, and he said
he’d return it. Now he is refusing to give it back, but I need it right now to slash up
my neighbors who disrespected me.
People should keep their promises, but there are exceptions to this generalization as in
this case of the psychopath who wants Dwayne to keep his promise to return the knife.
Ad Baculum
See Scare Tactic and Appeal to Emotions (Fear).
Ad Consequentiam
See Appeal to Consequence.
Ad Crumenum
See Appeal to Money.
Ad Hoc Rescue
Psychologically, it is understandable that you would try to rescue a cherished belief from
trouble. When faced with conflicting data, you are likely to mention how the conflict will
disappear if some new assumption is taken into account. However, if there is no good
reason to accept this saving assumption other than that it works to save your cherished
belief, your rescue is an Ad Hoc Rescue.
Example:
Yolanda: If you take four of these tablets of vitamin C every day, you will never get a
cold.
Juanita: I tried that last year for several months, and still got a cold.
Yolanda: Did you take the tablets every day?

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Juanita: Yes.
Yolanda: Well, I’ll bet you bought some bad tablets.
The burden of proof is definitely on Yolanda’s shoulders to prove that Juanita’s vitamin
C tablets were probably “bad”—that is, not really vitamin C. If Yolanda can’t do so, her
attempt to rescue her hypothesis (that vitamin C prevents colds) is simply a dogmatic
refusal to face up to the possibility of being wrong.
Ad Hominem
Your reasoning contains this fallacy if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and
suggest that this attack undermines the argument itself. “Ad Hominem” means “to the
person” as in being “directed at the person.”
Example:
What she says about Johannes Kepler’s astronomy of the 1600s must be just so much
garbage. Do you realize she’s only fifteen years old?
This attack may undermine the young woman’s credibility as a scientific authority, but it
does not undermine her reasoning itself because her age is irrelevant to quality of her
reasoning. That reasoning should stand or fall on the scientific evidence, not on the ar-
guer’s age or anything else about her personally.
The major difficulty with labeling a piece of reasoning an Ad Hominem Fallacy is decid-
ing whether the personal attack is relevant or irrelevant. For example, attacks on a per-
son for their immoral sexual conduct are irrelevant to the quality of their mathematical
reasoning, but they are relevant to arguments promoting the person for a leadership po-
sition in a church or mosque.
If the fallacious reasoner points out irrelevant circumstances that the reasoner is in,
such as the arguer’s having a vested interest in people accepting the position, then the ad
hominem fallacy may be called a Circumstantial Ad Hominem. If the fallacious attack

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points out some despicable trait of the arguer, it may be called an Abusive Ad
Hominem. An Ad hominem that attacks an arguer by attacking the arguer’s associates is
called the Fallacy of Guilt by Association. If the fallacy focuses on a complaint about the
origin of the arguer’s views, then it is a kind of Genetic Fallacy. If the fallacy is due to
claiming the person does not practice what is preached, it is the Tu Quoque Fallacy. Two
Wrongs do not Make a Right is also a type of Ad Hominem fallacy.
The intentional use of the ad hominem fallacy is a tactic used by all dictators and author-
itarian leaders. If you say something critical of them or their regime, their immediate
response is to attack you as unreliable, or as being a puppet of the enemy, or as being a
traitor.
Ad Hominem, Circumstantial
See Guilt by Association.
Ad Ignorantiam
See Appeal to Ignorance.
Ad Misericordiam
See Appeal to Emotions.
Ad Novitatem
See Bandwagon.
Ad Numerum
See Appeal to the People.
Ad Populum

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Ad Verecundiam
See Appeal to Authority.
Affirming the Consequent

If you have enough evidence to affirm the consequent of a conditional and then suppose
that as a result you have sufficient reason for affirming the antecedent, your reasoning
contains the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. This formal fallacy is often mistaken
for Modus Ponens, which is a valid form of reasoning also using a conditional. A condi-
tional is an if-then statement; the if-part is the antecedent, and the then-part is the con-
sequent. The following argument affirms the consequent that she does speak Por-
tuguese. Its form is an invalid form.
Example:
If she’s Brazilian, then she speaks Portuguese. Hey, she does speak Portuguese. So,
she is Brazilian.
Noticing that she speaks Portuguese suggests that she might be Brazilian, but it is weak
evidence by itself, and if the argument is assessed by deductive standards, then it is de-
ductively invalid. That is, if the arguer believes or suggests that her speaking Portuguese
definitely establishes that she is Brazilian, then the argumentation contains the Fallacy
of Affirming the Consequent.
Against the Person

See Ad Hominem.
All-or-Nothing
See Black-or-White Fallacy.

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Ambiguity
Any fallacy that turns on ambiguity. See the fallacies of Amphiboly, Accent, and Equivo-
cation. Amphiboly is ambiguity of syntax. Equivocation is ambiguity of semantics. Ac-
cent is ambiguity of emphasis.
Amphiboly
This is an error due to taking a grammatically ambiguous phrase in two different ways
during the reasoning.
Example:
Tests show that the dog is not part wolf, as the owner suspected.
Did the owner suspect the dog was part wolf, or was not part wolf? Who knows? The
sentence is ambiguous, and needs to be rewritten to remove the fallacy. Unlike Equivo-
cation, which is due to multiple meanings of a phrase, Amphiboly is due to syntactic am-
biguity, that is, ambiguity caused by multiple ways of understanding the grammar of the
phrase.
Anecdotal Evidence
This is fallacious generalizing on the basis of a some story that provides an inadequate
sample. If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of
a few firsthand stories, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of overemphasizing
anecdotal evidence.
Example:
Yeah, I’ve read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all
that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he’s never been sick a day
in his life, so I know smoking can’t really hurt you.

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Anthropomorphism
This is the error of projecting uniquely human qualities onto something that isn’t hu-
man. Usually this occurs with projecting the human qualities onto animals, but when it
is done to nonliving things, as in calling the storm cruel, the Pathetic Fallacy is created.
It is also, but less commonly, called the Disney Fallacy or the Walt Disney Fallacy.
Example:
My dog is wagging his tail and running around me. Therefore, he knows that I love
him.
The fallacy would be averted if the speaker had said “My dog is wagging his tail and run-
ning around me. Therefore, he is happy to see me.” Animals do not have the ability to
ascribe knowledge to other beings such as humans. Your dog knows where it buried its
bone, but not that you also know where the bone is.
Appeal to Authority
You appeal to authority if you back up your reasoning by saying that it is supported by
what some authority says on the subject. Most reasoning of this kind is not fallacious,
and much of our knowledge properly comes from listening to authorities. However, ap-
pealing to authority as a reason to believe something is fallacious whenever the authority
appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority can-
not be trusted to tell the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the
occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth. Al-
though spotting a fallacious appeal to authority often requires some background knowl-
edge about the subject matter and the who is claimed to be the authority, in brief it can
be said we are reasoning fallacious if we accept the words of a supposed authority when
we should be suspicious of the authority’s words.
Example:
The moon is covered with dust because the president of our neighborhood associa-
tion said so.

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This is a Fallacious Appeal to Authority because, although the president is an authority
on many neighborhood matters, you are given no reason to believe the president is an
authority on the composition of the moon. It would be better to appeal to some as-
tronomer or geologist. A TV commercial that gives you a testimonial from a famous film
star who wears a Wilson watch and that suggests you, too, should wear that brand of
watch is using a fallacious appeal to authority. The film star is an authority on how to
act, not on which watch is best for you.
Appeal to Consequence
Arguing that a belief is false because it implies something you’d rather not believe. Also
called Argumentum Ad Consequentiam.
Example:
That can’t be Senator Smith there in the videotape going into her apartment. If it
were, he’d be a liar about not knowing her. He’s not the kind of man who would lie.
He’s a member of my congregation.
Smith may or may not be the person in that videotape, but this kind of arguing should
not convince us that it’s someone else in the videotape.
Appeal to Emotions
Your reasoning contains the Fallacy of Appeal to Emotions when someone’s appeal to
you to accept their claim is accepted merely because the appeal arouses your feelings of
anger, fear, grief, love, outrage, pity, pride, sexuality, sympathy, relief, and so forth. Ex-
ample of appeal to relief from grief:
[The speaker knows he is talking to an aggrieved person whose house is worth much
more than $100,000.] You had a great job and didn’t deserve to lose it. I wish I could
help somehow. I do have one idea. Now your family needs financial security even
more. You need cash. I can help you. Here is a check for $100,000. Just sign this
standard sales agreement, and we can skip the realtors and all the headaches they
would create at this critical time in your life.

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There is nothing wrong with using emotions when you argue, but it’s a mistake to use
emotions as the key premises or as tools to downplay relevant information. Regarding
the Fallacy of Appeal to Pity, it is proper to pity people who have had misfortunes, but if
as the person’s history instructor you accept Max’s claim that he earned an A on the his-
tory quiz because he broke his wrist while playing in your college’s last basketball game,
then you’ve used the fallacy of appeal to pity.
Appeal to Force
See Scare Tactic.
Appeal to Ignorance
The Fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance comes in two forms: (1) Not knowing that a certain
statement is true is taken to be a proof that it is false. (2) Not knowing that a statement
is false is taken to be a proof that it is true. The fallacy occurs in cases where absence of
evidence is not good enough evidence of absence. The fallacy uses an unjustified attempt
to shift the burden of proof. The fallacy is also called “Argument from Ignorance.”
Example:
Nobody has ever proved to me there’s a God, so I know there is no God.
This kind of reasoning is generally fallacious. It would be proper reasoning only if the
proof attempts were quite thorough, and it were the case that, if the being or object were
to exist, then there would be a discoverable proof of this. Another common example of
the fallacy involves ignorance of a future event: You people have been complaining
about the danger of Xs ever since they were invented, but there’s never been any big
problem with Xs, so there’s nothing to worry about.
Appeal to Money
The Fallacy of Appeal to Money uses the error of supposing that, if something costs a
great deal of money, then it must be better, or supposing that if someone has a great deal

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of money, then they’re a better person in some way unrelated to having a great deal of
money. Similarly it’s a mistake to suppose that if something is cheap it must be of inferi-
or quality, or to suppose that if someone is poor financially then they’re poor at some-
thing unrelated to having money.
Example:
He’s rich, so he should be the president of our Parents and Teachers Organization.
Appeal to Past Practice

Appeal to Pity
Appeal to Snobbery
Appeal to the Gallery

Appeal to the Masses

Appeal to the Mob


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Appeal to the People
If you suggest too strongly that someone’s claim or argument is correct simply because
it’s what most everyone believes, then your reasoning contains the Fallacy of Appeal to
the People. Similarly, if you suggest too strongly that someone’s claim or argument is
mistaken simply because it’s not what most everyone believes, then your reasoning also
uses the fallacy. Agreement with popular opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of
truth, and deviation from popular opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of error, but
if you assume it is and do so with enthusiasm, then you are using this fallacy. It is essen-
tially the same as the fallacies of Ad Numerum, Appeal to the Gallery, Appeal to the
Masses, Argument from Popularity, Argumentum ad Populum, Common Practice, Mob
Appeal, Past Practice, Peer Pressure, and Traditional Wisdom. The “too strongly” men-
tioned above is important in the description of the fallacy because what most everyone
believes is, for that reason, somewhat likely to be true, all things considered. However,
the fallacy occurs when this degree of support is overestimated.
Example:
You should turn to channel 6. It’s the most watched channel this year.
This is fallacious because of its implicitly accepting the questionable premise that the
most watched channel this year is, for that reason alone, the best channel for you. If you
stress the idea of appealing to a new idea held by the gallery, masses, mob, peers, peo-
ple, and so forth, then it is a Bandwagon Fallacy.
Appeal to the Stick

See Appeal to Emotions (fear).
Appeal to Unqualified Authority

See Appeal to Authority.
Appeal to Vanity

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Argument from Ignorance

See Appeal to Ignorance.
Argument from Outrage

Argument from Popularity

Argumentum Ad ….
See Ad …. without the word “Argumentum.”
Argumentum Consensus Gentium

See Appeal to Traditional Wisdom.
Availability Heuristic
We have an unfortunate instinct to base an important decision on an easily recalled, dra-
matic example, even though we know the example is atypical. It is a specific version of
the fallacy of Confirmation Bias.
Example:
I just saw a video of a woman dying by fire in a car crash because she was unable to
unbuckle her seat belt as the flames increased in intensity. So, I am deciding today
no longer to wear a seat belt when I drive.

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This reasoning commits the Fallacy of the Availability Heuristic because the reasoner
would realize, if he would stop and think for a moment, that a great many more lives are
saved due to wearing seat belts rather than due to not wearing seat belts, and the video
of the situation of the woman unable to unbuckle her seat belt in the car crash is an
atypical situation. The name of this fallacy is not very memorable, but it is in common
use.
Avoiding the Issue

A reasoner who is supposed to address an issue but instead goes off on a tangent is prop-
erly accused of using the Fallacy of Avoiding the Issue. Also called missing the point,
straying off the subject, digressing, and not sticking to the issue.
Example:
A city official is charged with corruption for awarding contracts to his wife’s consult-
ing firm. In speaking to a reporter about why he is innocent, the city official talks
only about his wife’s conservative wardrobe, the family’s lovable dog, and his own
accomplishments in supporting Little League baseball.
However, the fallacy isn’t used by a reasoner who says that some other issue must first
be settled and then continues by talking about this other issue, provided the reasoner is
correct in claiming this dependence of one issue upon the other.
Avoiding the Question

The Fallacy of Avoiding the Question is a type of Fallacy of Avoiding the Issue that oc-
curs when the issue is how to answer some question. The fallacy occurs when someone’s
answer doesn’t really respond to the question asked. The fallacy is also called “Changing
the Question.”
Example:
Question: Would the Oakland Athletics be in first place if they were to win tomor-
row’s game?

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Answer: What makes you think they’ll ever win tomorrow’s game?
Bad Seed
Attempting to undermine someone’s reasoning by pointing our their “bad” family histo-
ry, when it is an irrelevant point. See Genetic Fallacy.
Bald Man
See Line-Drawing.
Bandwagon
If you suggest that someone’s claim is correct simply because it’s what most everyone is
coming to believe, then you’re are using the Bandwagon Fallacy. Get up here with us on
the wagon where the band is playing, and go where we go, and don’t think too much
about the reasons. The Latin term for this Fallacy of Appeal to Novelty is Argumentum
ad Novitatem.
Example:
[Advertisement] More and more people are buying sports utility vehicles. It is time
you bought one, too.
Like its close cousin, the Fallacy of Appeal to the People, the Bandwagon Fallacy needs
to be carefully distinguished from properly defending a claim by pointing out that many
people have studied the claim and have come to a reasoned conclusion that it is correct.
What most everyone believes is likely to be true, all things considered, and if one de-
fends a claim on those grounds, this is not a fallacious inference. What is fallacious is to
be swept up by the excitement of a new idea or new fad and to unquestionably give it too
high a degree of your belief solely on the grounds of its new popularity, perhaps thinking
simply that ‘new is better.’ The key ingredient that is missing from a bandwagon fallacy
is knowledge that an item is popular because of its high quality.

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Begging the Question
A form of circular reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from premises that presup-
pose the conclusion. Normally, the point of good reasoning is to start out at one place
and end up somewhere new, namely having reached the goal of increasing the degree of
reasonable belief in the conclusion. The point is to make progress, but in cases of beg-
ging the question there is no progress, and the arguer is essentially arguing by repeating
the point.
Example:
“Women have rights,” said the Bullfighters Association president. “But women
shouldn’t fight bulls because a bullfighter is and should be a man.”
The president is saying basically that women shouldn’t fight bulls because women
shouldn’t fight bulls. This reasoning isn’t making any progress.
Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is “contained” in the premises

from which it is deduced, this containing might seem to be a case of presupposing, and
thus any deductively valid argument might seem to be begging the question. It is still an
open question among logicians as to why some deductively valid arguments are consid-
ered to be begging the question and others are not. Some logicians suggest that, in infor-
mal reasoning with a deductively valid argument, if the conclusion is psychologically
new insofar as the premises are concerned, then the argument isn’t an example of the
fallacy. Other logicians suggest that we need to look instead to surrounding circum-
stances, not to the psychology of the reasoner, in order to assess the quality of the argu-
ment. For example, we need to look to the reasons that the reasoner used to accept the
premises. Was the premise justified on the basis of accepting the conclusion? A third
group of logicians say that, in deciding whether the fallacy is present, more evidence is
needed. We must determine whether any premise that is key to deducing the conclusion
is adopted rather blindly or instead is a reasonable assumption made by someone ac-
cepting their burden of proof. The premise would here be termed reasonable if the ar-
guer could defend it independently of accepting the conclusion that is at issue.

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Beside the Point
Arguing for a conclusion that is not relevant to the current issue. Also called Irrelevant
Conclusion. It is a form of the Red Herring Fallacy
Biased Generalizing
Generalizing from a biased sample. Using an unrepresentative sample and overestimat-
ing the strength of an argument based on that sample.
See Unrepresentative Sample.
Biased Sample
Biased Statistics
Bifurcation
See Black-or-White.
Black-or-White
The Black-or-White fallacy or Black-White fallacy is a False Dilemma Fallacy that limits
you unfairly to only two choices, as if you were made to choose between black and white.
Example:
Well, it’s time for a decision. Will you contribute $20 to our environmental fund, or
are you on the side of environmental destruction?
A proper challenge to this fallacy could be to say, “I do want to prevent the destruction of

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our environment, but I don’t want to give $20 to your fund. You are placing me between
a rock and a hard place.” The key to diagnosing the Black-or-White Fallacy is to deter-
mine whether the limited menu is fair or unfair. Simply saying, “Will you contribute $20
or won’t you?” is not unfair. The black-or-white fallacy is often committed intentionally
in jokes such as: “My toaster has two settings—burnt and off.” In thinking about this
kind of fallacy it is helpful to remember that everything is either black or not black, but
not everything is either black or white.
Caricaturization
Attacking a person’s argument by presenting a caricaturization is a form of the Straw
Man Fallacy and the Ad Hominem Fallacy. A critical thinker should attack the real man
and his argument, not a caricaturization of the man or the argument. Ditto for women,
of course. The fallacy is a form of the Straw Man Fallacy because Ideally an argument
should not be assessed by a technique that unfairly misrepresents it. The Caricaturiza-
tion Fallacy is the same as the Fallacy of Refutation by Caricature.
Changing the Question

This is another name for the Fallacy of Avoiding the Question.
Cherry-Picking
Cherry-Picking the Evidence is another name for the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
Circular Reasoning
The Fallacy of Circular Reasoning occurs when the reasoner begins with what he or she
is trying to end up with.
Here is Steven Pinker’s example:
Definition: endless loop, n. See loop, endless.

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Definition: loop, endless, n. See endless loop.
The most well known examples of circular reasoning are cases of the Fallacy of Begging
the Question. Here the circle is as short as possible. However, if the circle is very much
larger, including a wide variety of claims and a large set of related concepts, then the cir-
cular reasoning can be informative and so is not considered to be fallacious. For exam-
ple, a dictionary contains a large circle of definitions that use words which are defined in
terms of other words that are also defined in the dictionary. Because the dictionary is so
informative, it is not considered as a whole to be fallacious. However, a small circle of
definitions is considered to be fallacious.
In properly-constructed recursive definitions, defining a term by using that same term is

not fallacious. For example, here is an appropriate recursive definition of the term “a
stack of coins.” Basis step: Two coins, with one on top of the other, is a stack of coins.
Recursion step: If p is a stack of coins, then adding a coin on top of p produces a stack of
coins. For a deeper discussion of circular reasoning see Infinitism in Epistemology.
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
See Ad Hominem, Circumstantial.
Clouding the Issue

See Smokescreen.
Common Belief
See Appeal to the People and Traditional Wisdom.
Common Cause
This fallacy occurs during causal reasoning when a causal connection between two kinds
of events is claimed when evidence is available indicating that both are the effect of a
common cause.

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Example:
Noting that the auto accident rate rises and falls with the rate of use of windshield
wipers, one concludes that the use of wipers is somehow causing auto accidents.
However, it’s the rain that’s the common cause of both.
Common Practice
See Appeal to the People and Traditional Wisdom.
Complex Question
You use this fallacy when you frame a question so that some controversial presupposi-
tion is made by the wording of the question.
Example:
[Reporter’s question] Mr. President: Are you going to continue your policy of wasting
taxpayer’s money on missile defense?
The question unfairly presumes the controversial claim that the policy really is a waste
of money. The Fallacy of Complex Question is a form of Begging the Question.
Composition
The Composition Fallacy occurs when someone mistakenly assumes that a characteristic
of some or all the individuals in a group is also a characteristic of the group itself, the
group “composed” of those members. It is the converse of the Division Fallacy.
Example:
Each human cell is very lightweight, so a human being composed of cells is also very
lightweight.

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Confirmation Bias
The tendency to look for evidence in favor of one’s controversial hypothesis and not to
look for disconfirming evidence, or to pay insufficient attention to it. This is the most
common kind of Fallacy of Selective Attention, and it is the foundation of many conspir-
acy theories.
Example:
She loves me, and there are so many ways that she has shown it. When we signed the
divorce papers in her lawyer’s office, she wore my favorite color. When she slapped
me at the bar and called me a “handsome pig,” she used the word “handsome” when
she didn’t have to. When I called her and she said never to call her again, she first
asked me how I was doing and whether my life had changed. When I suggested that
we should have children in order to keep our marriage together, she laughed. If she
can laugh with me, if she wants to know how I am doing and whether my life has
changed, and if she calls me “handsome” and wears my favorite color on special oc-
casions, then I know she really loves me.
Using the Fallacy of Confirmation Bias is usually a sign that one has adopted some belief
dogmatically and isn’t willing to disconfirm the belief, or is too willing to interpret am-
biguous evidence so that it conforms to what one already believes. Confirmation bias
often reveals itself in the fact that people of opposing views can each find support for
those views in the same piece of evidence.
Conjunction
Mistakenly supposing that event E is less likely than the conjunction of events E and F.
Here is an example from the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
Example:
Suppose you know that Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She
majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of dis-
crimination and social justice. Then you are asked to choose which is more likely: (A)
Linda is a bank teller or (B) Linda is a bank teller and active in the feminist move-

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ment. If you choose (B) you commit the Conjunction Fallacy
Confusing an Explanation with an Excuse

Treating someone’s explanation of a fact as if it were a justification of the fact. Explain-
ing a crime should not be confused with excusing the crime, but it too often is.
Example:
Speaker: The German atrocities committed against the French and Belgians during
World War I were in part due to the anger of German soldiers who learned that
French and Belgian soldiers were ambushing German soldiers, shooting them in the
back, or even poisoning, blinding and castrating them.
Respondent: I don’t understand how you can be so insensitive as to condone those

German atrocities.
Consensus Gentium
Fallacy of Argumentum Consensus Gentium (argument from the consensus of the na-
tions). See Traditional Wisdom.
Consequence
See Appeal to Consequence.
Contextomy
See Quoting out of Context.
Converse Accident
If we reason by paying too much attention to exceptions to the rule, and generalize on
the exceptions, our reasoning contains this fallacy. This fallacy is the converse of the Ac-
cident Fallacy. It is a kind of Hasty Generalization, by generalizing too quickly from a
peculiar case.

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Example:
I’ve heard that turtles live longer than tarantulas, but the one turtle I bought lived
only two days. I bought it at Dowden’s Pet Store. So, I think that turtles bought from
pet stores do not live longer than tarantulas.
The original generalization is “Turtles live longer than tarantulas.” There are exceptions,
such as the turtle bought from the pet store. Rather than seeing this for what it is, name-
ly an exception, the reasoner places too much trust in this exception and generalizes on
it to produce the faulty generalization that turtles bought from pet stores do not live
longer than tarantulas.
Cover-up
See Suppressed Evidence.
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Latin for “with this, therefore because of this.” This is a False Cause Fallacy that doesn’t
depend on time order (as does the post hoc fallacy), but on any other chance correlation
of the supposed cause being in the presence of the supposed effect.
Example:
Loud musicians live near our low-yield cornfields. So, loud musicians must be caus-
ing the low yield.
Curve Fitting
Curve fitting is the process of constructing a curve that has the best fit to a series of data
points. The curve is a graph of some mathematical function. The function or functional
relationship might be between variable x and variable y, where x is the time of day and y
is the temperature of the ocean. When you collect data about some relationship, you in-
evitably collect information that is affected by noise or statistical fluctuation. If you cre-

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ate a function between x and y that is too sensitive to your data, you will be overempha-
sizing the noise and producing a function that has less predictive value than need be. If
you create your function by interpolating, that is, by drawing straight line segments be-
tween all the adjacent data points, or if you create a polynomial function that exactly fits
every data point, it is likely that your function will be worse than if you’d produced a
function with a smoother curve. Your original error of too closely fitting the data-points
is called the Fallacy of Curve Fitting or the Fallacy of Overfitting.
Example:
You want to know the temperature of the ocean today, so you measure it at 8:00
A.M. with one thermometer and get the temperature of 60.1 degrees. Then you mea-
sure the ocean at 8:05 A.M. with a different thermometer and get the temperature of
60.2 degrees; then at 8:10 A.M. and get 59.1 degrees perhaps with the first ther-
mometer, and so. If you fit your curve exactly to your data points, then you falsely
imply that the ocean’s temperature is shifting all around every five minutes. Howev-
er, the temperature is probably constant, and the problem is that your prediction is
too sensitive to your data, so your curve fits the data points too closely.
Definist
The Definist Fallacy occurs when someone unfairly defines a term so that a controversial
position is made easier to defend. Same as the Persuasive Definition.
Example:
During a controversy about the truth or falsity of atheism, the fallacious reasoner
says, “Let’s define ‘atheist’ as someone who doesn’t yet realize that God exists.”
Denying the Antecedent

You are using this fallacy if you deny the antecedent of a conditional and then suppose
that doing so is a sufficient reason for denying the consequent. This formal fallacy is of-
ten mistaken for Modus Tollens, a valid form of argument using the conditional. A con-
ditional is an if-then statement; the if-part is the antecedent, and the then-part is the

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consequent.
Example:
If she were Brazilian, then she would know that Brazil’s official language is Por-
tuguese. She isn’t Brazilian; she’s from London. So, she surely doesn’t know this
about Brazil’s language.
Disregarding Known Science

This fallacy is committed when a person makes a claim that knowingly or unknowingly
disregards well known science, science that weighs against the claim. They should know
better. This fallacy is a form of the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
Example:
John claims in his grant application that he will be studying the causal effectiveness
of bone color on the ability of leg bones to support indigenous New Zealand mam-
mals. He disregards well known scientific knowledge that color is not what causes
any bones to work the way they do by saying that this knowledge has never been
tested in New Zealand.
Digression
See Avoiding the Issue.
Distraction
See Smokescreen.
Division
Merely because a group as a whole has a characteristic, it often doesn’t follow that indi-
viduals in the group have that characteristic. If you suppose that it does follow, when it
doesn’t, your reasoning contains the Fallacy of Division. It is the converse of the Compo-

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sition Fallacy.
Example:
Joshua’s soccer team is the best in the division because it had an undefeated season
and won the division title, so their goalie must be the best in the division.
As an example of division, Aristotle gave this example: The number 5 is 2 and 3. But 2 is
even and 3 is odd, so 5 is even and odd.
Domino
See Slippery Slope.
Double Standard
There are many situations in which you should judge two things or people by the same
standard. If in one of those situations you use different standards for the two, your rea-
soning contains the Fallacy of Using a Double Standard.
Example:
I know we will hire any man who gets over a 70 percent on the screening test for hir-
ing Post Office employees, but women should have to get an 80 to be hired because
they often have to take care of their children.
This example is a fallacy if it can be presumed that men and women should have to meet
the same standard for becoming a Post Office employee.
Either/Or
See Black-or-White.
Equivocation

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Equivocation is the illegitimate switching of the meaning of a term that occurs twice
during the reasoning; it is the use of one word taken in two ways. The fallacy is a kind of
Fallacy of Ambiguity.
Example:
Brad is a nobody, but since nobody is perfect, Brad must be perfect, too.
The term “nobody” changes its meaning without warning in the passage. Equivocation
can sometimes be very difficult to detect, as in this argument from Walter Burleigh:
If I call you a swine, then I call you an animal.

If I call you an animal, then I’m speaking the truth.
Therefore, if I call you a swine, then I’m speaking the truth.
Etymological
The Etymological Fallacy occurs whenever someone falsely assumes that the meaning of
a word can be discovered from its etymology or origins.
Example:
The word “vise” comes from the Latin “that which winds,” so it means anything that
winds. Since a hurricane winds around its own eye, it is a vise.
Every and All

The Fallacy of Every and All turns on errors due to the order or scope of the quantifiers
“every” and “all” and “any.” This is a version of the Scope Fallacy.
Example:
Every action of ours has some final end. So, there is some common final end to all
our actions.

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In proposing this fallacious argument, Aristotle believed the common end is the
supreme good, so he had a rather optimistic outlook on the direction of history.
Exaggeration
When we overstate or overemphasize a point that is a crucial step in a piece of reason-
ing, then we are guilty of the Fallacy of Exaggeration. This is a kind of error called Lack
of Proportion.
Example:
She’s practically admitted that she intentionally yelled at that student while on the
playground in the fourth grade. That’s verbal assault. Then she said nothing when
the teacher asked, “Who did that?” That’s lying, plain and simple. Do you want to
elect as secretary of this club someone who is a known liar prone to assault? Doing so
would be a disgrace to our Collie Club.
When we exaggerate in order to make a joke, though, we do not use the fallacy because
we do not intend to be taken literally.
Excluded Middle
See False Dilemma or Black-or-White.
False Analogy
The problem is that the items in the analogy are too dissimilar. When reasoning by anal-
ogy, the fallacy occurs when the analogy is irrelevant or very weak or when there is a
more relevant disanalogy. See also Faulty Comparison.
Example:
The book Investing for Dummies really helped me understand my finances better.
The book Chess for Dummies was written by the same author, was published by the
same press, and costs about the same amount. So, this chess book would probably

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help me understand my finances, too.
False Balance
A specific form of the False Equivalence Fallacy that occurs in the context of news re-
porting, in which the reporter misleads the audience by suggesting the evidence on two
sides of an issue is equally balanced, when the reporter knows that one of the two sides
is an extreme outlier. Reporters regularly commit this fallacy in order to appear “fair and
balanced.”
Example:
The news report of the yesterday’s city council meeting says, “David Samsung chal-
lenged the council by saying the Gracie Mansion is haunted, so it should not be torn
down. Councilwoman Miranda Gonzales spoke in favor of dismantling the old man-
sion saying its land is needed for an expansion of the water treatment facility. Both
sides seemed quite fervent in promoting their position.” Then the news report stops
there, covering up the facts that the preponderance of scientific evidence implies
there is no such thing as being haunted, and that David Samsung is the well known
“village idiot” who last month came before the council demanding a tax increase for
Santa Claus’ workers at the North Pole.
False Cause
Improperly concluding that one thing is a cause of another. The Fallacy of Non Causa
Pro Causa is another name for this fallacy. Its four principal kinds are the Post Hoc Fal-
lacy, the Fallacy of Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, the Regression Fallacy, and the Fallacy
of Reversing Causation.
Example:
My psychic adviser says to expect bad things when Mars is aligned with Jupiter. To-
morrow Mars will be aligned with Jupiter. So, if a dog were to bite me tomorrow, it
would be because of the alignment of Mars with Jupiter.

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False Dichotomy
See False Dilemma or Black-or-White.
False Dilemma
A reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a choice must be
made among this short menu of choices is using the False Dilemma Fallacy, as does the
person who accepts this faulty reasoning.
Example:
A pollster asks you this question about your job: “Would you say your employer is
drunk on the job about (a) once a week, (b) twice a week, or (c) more times per week?
The pollster is committing the fallacy by limiting you to only those choices. What about
the choice of “no times per week”? Think of the unpleasant choices as being the horns of
a bull that is charging toward you. By demanding other choices beyond those on the un-
fairly limited menu, you thereby “go between the horns” of the dilemma, and are not
gored. The fallacy is called the “False Dichotomy Fallacy” or the “Black-or-White” Falla-
cy when the unfair menu contains only two choices, and thus two horns.
False Equivalence
The Fallacy of False Equivalence is committed when someone implies falsely (and usual-
ly indirectly) that the two sides on some issue have basically equivalent evidence, while
knowingly covering up the fact that one side’s evidence is much weaker. A form of the
Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
Example:
A popular science article suggests there is no consensus about the Earth’s age, by
quoting one geologist who says she believes the Earth is billions of years old, and
then by quoting Bible expert James Ussher who says he calculated from the Bible
that the world began on Friday, October 28, 4,004 B.C.E. The article suppresses the

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evidence that geologists (who are the relevant experts on this issue) have reached a
consensus that the Earth is billions of years old.
Far-Fetched Hypothesis
This is the fallacy of offering a bizarre (far-fetched) hypothesis as the correct explanation
without first ruling out more mundane explanations.
Example:
Look at that mutilated cow in the field, and see that flattened grass. Aliens must have
landed in a flying saucer and savaged the cow to learn more about the beings on our
planet.
Faulty Comparison
If you try to make a point about something by comparison, and if you do so by compar-
ing it with the wrong thing, then your reasoning uses the Fallacy of Faulty Comparison
or the Fallacy of Questionable Analogy.
Example:
We gave half the members of the hiking club Durell hiking boots and the other half
good-quality tennis shoes. After three months of hiking, you can see for yourself that
Durell lasted longer. You, too, should use Durell when you need hiking boots.
Shouldn’t Durell hiking boots be compared with other hiking boots, not with tennis
shoes?
Faulty Generalization
A fallacy produced by some error in the process of generalizing. See Hasty Generaliza-
tion or Unrepresentative Generalization for examples.

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Faulty Motives
An irrelevant appeal to the motives of the arguer, and supposing that this revelation of
their motives will thereby undermine their reasoning. A kind of Ad Hominem Fallacy.
Example:
The councilman’s argument for the new convention center can’t be any good because
he stands to gain if it’s built.
Formal Fallacy
Formal fallacies are all the cases or kinds of reasoning that fail to be deductively valid.
Formal fallacies are also called Logical Fallacies or Invalidities. That is, they are deduc-
tively invalid arguments that are too often believed to be deductively valid.
Example:
Some cats are tigers. Some tigers are animals. So, some cats are animals.
This might at first seem to be a good argument, but actually it is fallacious because it has
the same logical form as the following more obviously invalid argument:
Some women are Americans. Some Americans are men. So, some women are men.
Nearly all the infinity of types of invalid inferences have no specific fallacy names.
Four Terms
The Fallacy of Four Terms (quaternio terminorum) occurs when four rather than three
categorical terms are used in a standard-form syllogism.
Example:
All rivers have banks. All banks have vaults. So, all rivers have vaults.

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The word “banks” occurs as two distinct terms, namely river bank and financial bank, so
this example also is an equivocation. Without an equivocation, the four term fallacy is
trivially invalid.
Gambler’s
This fallacy occurs when the gambler falsely assumes that the history of outcomes will
affect future outcomes.
Example:
I know this is a fair coin, but it has come up heads five times in a row now, so tails is
due on the next toss.
The fallacious move was to conclude that the probability of the next toss coming up tails
must be more than a half. The assumption that it’s a fair coin is important because, if the
coin comes up heads five times in a row, one would otherwise become suspicious that
it’s not a fair coin and therefore properly conclude that the probably is high that heads is
more likely on the next toss.
Genetic
A critic uses the Genetic Fallacy if the critic attempts to discredit or support a claim or
an argument because of its origin (genesis) when such an appeal to origins is irrelevant.
Example:
Whatever your reasons are for buying that gift, they’ve got to be ridiculous. You said
yourself that you got the idea for buying it from last night’s fortune cookie. Cookies
can’t think!
Fortune cookies are not reliable sources of information about what gift to buy, but the
reasons the person is willing to give are likely to be quite relevant and should be listened
to. The speaker is committing the Genetic Fallacy by paying too much attention to the

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genesis of the idea rather than to the reasons offered for it.
If I learn that your plan for building the shopping center next to the Johnson estate orig-
inated with Johnson himself, who is likely to profit from the deal, then my request that
the planning commission not accept your proposal without independent verification of
its merits wouldn’t be committing the genetic fallacy. Because appeals to origins are
sometimes relevant and sometimes irrelevant and sometimes on the borderline, in those
latter cases it can be very difficult to decide whether the fallacy has been committed. For
example, if Sigmund Freud shows that the genesis of a person’s belief in God is their de-
sire for a strong father figure, then does it follow that their belief in God is misplaced, or
is Freud’s reasoning committing the Genetic Fallacy?
Group Think
A reasoner uses the Group Think Fallacy if he or she substitutes pride of membership in
the group for reasons to support the group’s policy. If that’s what our group thinks, then
that’s good enough for me. It’s what I think, too. “Blind” patriotism is a rather nasty ver-
sion of the fallacy.
Example:
We K-Mart employees know that K-Mart brand items are better than Wall-Mart
brand items because, well, they are from K-Mart, aren’t they?
Guilt by Association
Guilt by Association is a version of the Ad Hominem Fallacy in which a person is said to
be guilty of error because of the group he or she associates with. The fallacy occurs when
we unfairly try to change the issue to be about the speaker’s circumstances rather than
about the speaker’s actual argument. Also called “Ad Hominem, Circumstantial.”
Example:
Secretary of State Dean Acheson is too soft on communism, as you can see by his

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inviting so many fuzzy-headed liberals to his White House cocktail parties.
Has any evidence been presented here that Acheson’s actions are inappropriate in re-
gards to communism? This sort of reasoning is an example of McCarthyism, the tech-
nique of smearing liberal Democrats that was so effectively used by the late Senator Joe
McCarthy in the early 1950s. In fact, Acheson was strongly anti-communist and the ar-
chitect of President Truman’s firm policy of containing Soviet power.
Hasty Conclusion
See Jumping to Conclusions.
Hasty Generalization
A Hasty Generalization is a Fallacy of Jumping to Conclusions in which the conclusion is
a generalization. See also Biased Statistics.
Example:
I’ve met two people in Nicaragua so far, and they were both nice to me. So, all people
I will meet in Nicaragua will be nice to me.
In any Hasty Generalization the key error is to overestimate the strength of an argument
that is based on too small a sample for the implied confidence level or error margin. In
this argument about Nicaragua, using the word “all” in the conclusion implies zero error
margin. With zero error margin you’d need to sample every single person in Nicaragua,
not just two people.
Heap
See Line-Drawing.
Hedging

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You are hedging if you refine your claim simply to avoid counterevidence and then act as
if your revised claim is the same as the original.
Example:
Samantha: David is a totally selfish person.
Yvonne: I thought we was a boy scout leader. Don’t you have to give a lot of your time
for that?
Samantha: Well, David’s totally selfish about what he gives money to. He won’t
spend a dime on anyone else.
Yvonne: I saw him bidding on things at the high school auction fundraiser.
Samantha: Well, except for that he’s totally selfish about money.
You do not use the fallacy if you explicitly accept the counterevidence, admit that your
original claim is incorrect, and then revise it so that it avoids that counterevidence.
Hooded Man
This is an error in reasoning due to confusing the knowing of a thing with the knowing
of it under all its various names or descriptions.
Example:
You claim to know Socrates, but you must be lying. You admitted you didn’t know
the hooded man over there in the corner, but the hooded man is Socrates.
Hyperbolic Discounting
The Fallacy of Hyperbolic Discounting occurs when someone too heavily weighs the im-
portance of a present reward over a significantly greater reward in the near future, but
only slightly differs in their valuations of those two rewards if they are to be received in

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the far future. The person’s preferences are biased toward the present.
Example:
When asked to decide between receiving an award of $50 now or $60 tomorrow, the
person chooses the $50; however, when asked to decide between receiving $50 in
two years or $60 in two years and one day, the person chooses the $60.
If the person is in a situation in which $50 now will solve their problem but $60 tomor-
row will not, then there is no fallacy in having a bias toward the present.
Hypostatization
The error of inappropriately treating an abstract term as if it were a concrete one. Also
known as the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness and the Fallacy of Reification.
Example:
Nature decides which organisms live and which die.
Nature isn’t capable of making decisions. The point can be made without reasoning fal-
laciously by saying: “Which organisms live and which die is determined by natural caus-
es.” Whether a phrase commits the fallacy depends crucially upon whether the use of the
inaccurate phrase is inappropriate in the situation. In a poem, it is appropriate and very
common to reify nature, hope, fear, forgetfulness, and so forth, that is, to treat them as if
they were objects or beings with intentions. In any scientific claim, it is inappropriate.
Ideology-Driven Argumentation
This occurs when an arguer presupposes some aspect of their own ideology that they are
unable to defend.
Example:

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Senator, if you pass that bill to relax restrictions on gun ownership and allow people
to carry concealed handguns, then you are putting your own voters at risk.
The arguer is presupposing a liberal ideology which implies that permitting private citi-
zens to carry concealed handguns increases crime and decreases safety. If the arguer is
unable to defend this presumption, then the fallacy is committed regardless of whether
the presumption is defensible. If the senator were to accept this liberal ideology, then
the senator is likely to accept the arguer’s conclusion, and the argument could be consid-
ered to be effective, but still it would be fallacious—such is the difference between
rhetoric and logic.
Ignoratio Elenchi
See Irrelevant Conclusion. Also called missing the point.
Ignoring a Common Cause

See Common Cause.
Ignoring Inconvenient Data

Incomplete Evidence
Improper Analogy
Another name for the Fallacy of False Analogy.
Inconsistency
The fallacy occurs when we accept an inconsistent set of claims, that is, when we accept

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a claim that logically conflicts with other claims we hold.
Example:
I never generalize because everyone who does is a hypocrite.
That last remark implies the speaker does generalize, although the speaker doesn’t no-
tice this inconsistency with what is said.
Inductive Conversion
Improperly reasoning from a claim of the form “All As are Bs” to “All Bs are As” or from
one of the form “Many As are Bs” to “Many Bs are As” and so forth.
Example:
Most professional basketball players are tall, so most tall people are professional bas-
ketball players.
The term “conversion” is a technical term in formal logic.
Insufficient Statistics
Drawing a statistical conclusion from a set of data that is clearly too small.
Example:
A pollster interviews ten London voters in one building about which candidate for
mayor they support, and upon finding that Churchill receives support from six of the
ten, declares that Churchill has the majority support of London voters.
This fallacy is a form of the Fallacy of Jumping to Conclusions.
Intensional

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The mistake of treating different descriptions or names of the same object as equivalent
even in those contexts in which the differences between them matter. Reporting some-
one’s beliefs or assertions or making claims about necessity or possibility can be such
contexts. In these contexts, replacing a description with another that refers to the same
object is not valid and may turn a true sentence into a false one.
Example:
Michelle said she wants to meet her new neighbor Stalnaker tonight. But I happen to
know Stalnaker is a spy for North Korea, so Michelle said she wants to meet a spy for
North Korea tonight.
Michelle said no such thing. The faulty reasoner illegitimately assumed that what is true
of a person under one description will remain true when said of that person under a sec-
ond description even in this context of indirect quotation. What was true of the person
when described as “her new neighbor Stalnaker” is that Michelle said she wants to meet
him, but it wasn’t legitimate for me to assume this is true of the same person when he is
described as “a spy for North Korea.”
Extensional contexts are those in which it is legitimate to substitute equals for equals
with no worry. But any context in which this substitution of co-referring terms is illegiti-
mate is called an intensional context. Intensional contexts are produced by quotation,
modality, and intentionality (propositional attitudes). Intensionality is failure of exten-
sionality, thus the name “Intensional Fallacy”.
Invalid Reasoning
An invalid inference. An argument can be assessed by deductive standards to see if the
conclusion would have to be true if the premises were to be true. If the argument cannot
meet this standard, it is invalid. An argument is invalid only if it is not an instance of any
valid argument form. The Fallacy of Invalid Reasoning is a formal fallacy.
Example:

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If it’s raining, then there are clouds in the sky. It’s not raining. Therefore, there are
no clouds in the sky.
This invalid argument is an instance of Denying the Antecedent. Any invalid inference
that is also inductively very weak is a Non Sequitur.
Irrelevant Conclusion
The conclusion that is drawn is irrelevant to the premises; it misses the point.
Example:
In court, Thompson testifies that the defendant is a honorable person, who wouldn’t
harm a flea. The defense attorney uses the fallacy by rising to say that Thompson’s
testimony shows once again that his client was not near the murder scene.
The testimony of Thompson may be relevant to a request for leniency, but it is irrelevant
to any claim about the defendant not being near the murder scene. Other examples of
this fallacy are Ad Hominem, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotions, and Argument
from Ignorance.
Irrelevant Reason
This fallacy is a kind of Non Sequitur in which the premises are wholly irrelevant to
drawing the conclusion.
Example:
Lao Tze Beer is the top selling beer in Thailand. So, it will be the best beer for Cana-
dians.
Is-Ought
The Is-Ought Fallacy occurs when a conclusion expressing what ought to be so is in-
ferred from premises expressing only what is so, in which it is supposed that no implicit

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or explicit ought-premises are need. There is controversy in the philosophical literature
regarding whether this type of inference is always fallacious.
Example:
He’s torturing the cat.
So, he shouldn’t do that.
This argument would not use the fallacy if there were an implicit premise indicating that
he is a person and that persons should not torture other beings.
Jumping to Conclusions
It is not always a mistake to make a quick decision, but when we draw a conclusion with-
out taking the trouble to acquire enough of the relevant evidence, our reasoning com-
mits the fallacy of jumping to conclusions, provided there was sufficient time to acquire
and assess that extra evidence, and provided that the extra effort it takes to get the evi-
dence isn’t prohibitive.
Example:
This car is really cheap. I’ll buy it.
Hold on. Before concluding that you should buy it, ask yourself whether you need to buy
another car and, if so, whether you should lease or rent or just borrow a car when you
need to travel by car. If you do need to buy a car, you ought to have someone check its
operating condition, or else you should make sure you get a guarantee about the car’s
being in working order. And, if you stop to think about it, there may be other factors you
should consider before making the purchase, such as its age, size, appearance, and
mileage.
Lack of Proportion

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The Fallacy of Lack of Proportion occurs either by exaggerating or downplaying or sim-
ply not noticing a point that is a crucial step in a piece of reasoning. You exaggerate
when you make a mountain out of a molehill. You downplay when you suppress relevant
evidence. The Genetic Fallacy blows the genesis of an idea out of proportion.
Example:
Did you hear about that tourist getting mugged in Russia last week? And then there
was the awful train wreck last year just outside Moscow where three of the twenty-
five persons killed were tourists. I’ll never visit Russia.
The speaker is blowing these isolated incidents out of proportion. Millions of tourists
visit Russia with no problems. Another example occurs when the speaker simply lacks
the information needed to give a factor its proper proportion or weight:
I don’t use electric wires in my home because it is well known that the human body
can be injured by electric and magnetic fields.
The speaker does not realize all experts agree that electric and magnetic fields caused by
home wiring are harmless. However, touching the metal within those wires is very dan-
gerous.
Line-Drawing
If we improperly reject a vague claim because it is not as precise as we’d like, then we are
using the line-drawing fallacy. Being vague is not being hopelessly vague. Also called the
Bald Man Fallacy, the Fallacy of the Heap and the Sorites Fallacy.
Example:
Dwayne can never grow bald. Dwayne isn’t bald now. Don’t you agree that if he loses
one hair, that won’t make him go from not bald to bald? And if he loses one hair after
that, then this one loss, too, won’t make him go from not bald to bald. Therefore, no
matter how much hair he loses, he can’t become bald.

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Loaded Language
Loaded language is emotive terminology that expresses value judgments. When used in
what appears to be an objective description, the terminology unfortunately can cause the
listener to adopt those values when in fact no good reason has been given for doing so.
Also called Prejudicial Language.
Example:
[News broadcast] In today’s top stories, Senator Smith carelessly cast the deciding
vote today to pass both the budget bill and the trailer bill to fund yet another exces-
sive watchdog committee over coastal development.
This broadcast is an editorial posing as a news report.
Loaded Question
Asking a question in a way that unfairly presumes the answer. This fallacy occurs com-
monly in polls, especially push polls, which are polls designed to push information onto
the person being polled and not designed to learn the person’s views.
Example:
“If you knew that candidate B was a liar and crook, would you support candidate A or
instead candidate B who is neither a liar nor a crook?”
Logic Chopping
Obscuring the issue by using overly-technical logic tools, especially the techniques of
formal symbolic logic, that focus attention on trivial details. A form of Smokescreen and
Quibbling.
Logical
See Formal.

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Lying
A fallacy of reasoning that depends on intentionally saying something that is known to
be false. If the lying occurs in an argument’s premise, then it is an example of the Fallacy
of Questionable Premise.
Example:
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Kennedy were assassinated.
They were U.S. presidents.
Therefore, at least three U.S. presidents have been assassinated.
Roosevelt was never assassinated.
Maldistributed Middle
See Undistributed Middle.
Many Questions
See Complex Question.
Misconditionalization
See Modal Fallacy.
Misleading Accent
Misleading Vividness
When the Fallacy of Jumping to Conclusions is due to a special emphasis on an anecdote

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or other piece of evidence, then the Fallacy of Misleading Vividness has occurred.
Example:
Yes, I read the side of the cigarette pack about smoking being harmful to your health.
That’s the Surgeon General’s opinion, him and all his statistics. But let me tell you
about my uncle. Uncle Harry has smoked cigarettes for forty years now and he’s nev-
er been sick a day in his life. He even won a ski race at Lake Tahoe in his age group
last year. You should have seen him zip down the mountain. He smoked a cigarette
during the award ceremony, and he had a broad smile on his face. I was really proud.
I can still remember the cheering. Cigarette smoking can’t be as harmful as people
say.
The vivid anecdote is the story about Uncle Harry. Too much emphasis is placed on it
and not enough on the statistics from the Surgeon General.
Misplaced Concreteness
Mistakenly supposing that something is a concrete object with independent existence,
when it’s not. Also known as the Fallacy of Reification and the Fallacy of
Hypostatization.
Example:
There are two footballs lying on the floor of an otherwise empty room. When asked to
count all the objects in the room, John says there are three: the two balls plus the
group of two.
John mistakenly supposed a group or set of concrete objects is also a concrete object.
A less metaphysical example would be a situation where John says a criminal was caught
by K-9 aid, and thereby supposed that K-9 aid was some sort of concrete object. John
could have expressed the same point less misleadingly by saying a K-9 dog aided in
catching a criminal.
Misplaced Burden of Proof

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Committing the error of trying to get someone else to prove you are wrong, when it is
your responsibility to prove you are correct.
Example:
Person A: I saw a green alien from outer space.

Person B: What!? Can you prove it?
Person A: You can’t prove I didn’t.
If someone says, “I saw a green alien from outer space,” you properly should ask for
some proof. If the person responds with no more than something like, “Prove I didn’t,”
then they are not accepting their burden of proof and are improperly trying to place it on
your shoulders.
Misrepresentation
If the misrepresentation occurs on purpose, then it is an example of lying. If the misrep-
resentation occurs during a debate in which there is misrepresentation of the opponent’s
claim, then it would be the cause of a Straw Man Fallacy.
Missing the Point

See Irrelevant Conclusion.
Mob Appeal
Modal
This is the error of treating modal conditionals as if the modality applies only to the
then-part of the conditional when it more properly applies to the entire conditional.
Example:

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James has two children. If James has two children, then he necessarily has more
than one child. So, it is necessarily true that James has more than one child.
This apparently valid argument is invalid. It is not necessarily true that James has more
than one child; it’s merely true that he has more than one child. He could have had no
children. It is logically possible that James has no children even though he actually has
two. The solution to the fallacy is to see that the premise “If James has two children,
then he necessarily has more than one child,” requires the modality “necessarily” to ap-
ply logically to the entire conditional “If James has two children,then he has more than
one child” even though grammatically it applies only to “he has more than one child.”
The Modal Fallacy is the most well known of the infinitely many errors involving modal
concepts. Modal concepts include necessity, possibility, and so forth.
Monte Carlo
See Gambler’s Fallacy.
Name Calling
See Ad Hominem.
Naturalistic
On a broad interpretation of this fallacy, it applies to any attempt to argue from an “is”
to an “ought,” that is, from a list of facts to a conclusion about what ought to be done.
Example:
Because women are naturally capable of bearing and nursing children while men are
not, women ought to be the primary caregivers of children.
Here is another example. Owners of financially successful companies are more success-
ful than poor people in the competition for wealth, power and social status. Therefore,
the poor deserve to be poor. There is considerable disagreement among philosophers

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regarding what sorts of arguments the term “Naturalistic Fallacy” legitimately applies to.
Neglecting a Common Cause

See Common Cause.
No Middle Ground
See False Dilemma.
No True Scotsman
This error is a kind of Ad Hoc Rescue of one’s generalization in which the reasoner re-
characterizes the situation solely in order to escape refutation of the generalization.
Example:
Smith: All Scotsmen are loyal and brave.
Jones: But McDougal over there is a Scotsman, and he was arrested by his com-
manding officer for running from the enemy.
Smith: Well, if that’s right, it just shows that McDougal wasn’t a TRUE Scotsman.
Non Causa Pro Causa

This label is Latin for mistaking the “non-cause for the cause.” See False Cause.
Non Sequitur
When a conclusion is supported only by extremely weak reasons or by irrelevant rea-
sons, the argument is fallacious and is said to be a Non Sequitur. However, we usually
apply the term only when we cannot think of how to label the argument with a more spe-
cific fallacy name. Any deductively invalid inference is a non sequitur if it also very weak

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when assessed by inductive standards.
Example:
Nuclear disarmament is a risk, but everything in life involves a risk. Every time you
drive in a car you are taking a risk. If you’re willing to drive in a car, you should be
willing to have disarmament.
The following is not an example: “If she committed the murder, then there’d be his
blood stains on her hands. His blood stains are on her hands. So, she committed the
murder.” This deductively invalid argument uses the Fallacy of Affirming the Conse-
quent, but it isn’t a non sequitur because it has significant inductive strength.
Obscurum per Obscurius

Explaining something obscure or mysterious by something that is even more obscure or
more mysterious.
Example:
Let me explain what a lucky result is. It is a fortuitous collapse of the quantum me-
chanical wave packet that leads to a surprisingly pleasing result.
One-Sidedness
See the related fallacies of Confirmation Bias, Slanting and Suppressed Evidence.
Opposition
Being opposed to someone’s reasoning because of who they are, usually because of what
group they are associated with. See the Fallacy of Guilt by Association.
Over-Fitting

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See Curve Fitting.
Overgeneralization
See Sweeping Generalization.
Oversimplification
You oversimplify when you cover up relevant complexities or make a complicated prob-
lem appear to be too much simpler than it really is.
Example:
President Bush wants our country to trade with Fidel Castro’s Communist Cuba. I
say there should be a trade embargo against Cuba. The issue in our election is Cuban
trade, and if you are against it, then you should vote for me for president.
Whom to vote for should be decided by considering quite a number of issues in addition
to Cuban trade. When an oversimplification results in falsely implying that a minor
causal factor is the major one, then the reasoning also uses the False Cause Fallacy.
Past Practice
See Traditional Wisdom.
Pathetic
The Pathetic Fallacy is a mistaken belief due to attributing peculiarly human qualities to
inanimate objects (but not to animals). The fallacy is caused by anthropomorphism.
Example:
Aargh, it won’t start again. This old car always breaks down on days when I have a
job interview. It must be afraid that if I get a new job, then I’ll be able to afford a re-
placement, so it doesn’t want me to get to my interview on time.

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Peer Pressure
Persuasive Definition
Some people try to win their arguments by getting you to accept their faulty definition. If
you buy into their definition, they’ve practically persuaded you already. Same as the
Definist Fallacy. Poisoning the Well when presenting a definition would be an example
of a using persuasive definition.
Example:
Let’s define a Democrat as a leftist who desires to overtax the corporations and abol-
ish freedom in the economic sphere.
Perfectionist
If you remark that a proposal or claim should be rejected solely because it doesn’t solve
the problem perfectly, in cases where perfection isn’t really required, then you’ve used
the Perfectionist Fallacy.
Example:
You said hiring a house cleaner would solve our cleaning problems because we both
have full-time jobs. Now, look what happened. Every week, after cleaning the toaster
oven, our house cleaner leaves it unplugged. I should never have listened to you
about hiring a house cleaner.
Petitio Principii
See Begging the Question.
Poisoning the Well

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Poisoning the well is a preemptive attack on a person in order to discredit their testimo-
ny or argument in advance of their giving it. A person who thereby becomes unreceptive
to the testimony reasons fallaciously and has become a victim of the poisoner. This is a
kind of Ad Hominem, Circumstantial Fallacy.
Example:
[Prosecuting attorney in court] When is the defense attorney planning to call that
twice-convicted child molester, David Barnington, to the stand? OK, I’ll rephrase
that. When is the defense attorney planning to call David Barnington to the stand?
Post Hoc
Suppose we notice that an event of kind A is followed in time by an event of kind B, and
then hastily leap to the conclusion that A caused B. If so, our reasoning contains the Post
Hoc Fallacy. Correlations are often good evidence of causal connection, so the fallacy
occurs only when the leap to the causal conclusion is done “hastily.” The Latin term for
the fallacy is Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (“After this, therefore because of this”). It is a
kind of False Cause Fallacy.
Example:
I have noticed a pattern about all the basketball games I’ve been to this year. Every
time I buy a good seat, our team wins. Every time I buy a cheap, bad seat, we lose.
My buying a good seat must somehow be causing those wins.
Your background knowledge should tell you that this pattern probably won’t continue in
the future; it’s just an accidental correlation that tells you nothing about the cause of
your team’s wins.
Prejudicial Language
See Loaded Language.

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Proof Surrogate
Substituting a distracting comment for a real proof.
Example:
I don’t need to tell a smart person like you that you should vote Republican.
This comment is trying to avoid a serious disagreement about whether one should vote
Republican.
Prosecutor’s Fallacy
This is the mistake of over-emphasizing the strength of a piece of evidence while paying
insufficient attention to the context.
Example:
Suppose a prosecutor is trying to gain a conviction and points to the evidence that at
the scene of the burglary the police found a strand of the burglar’s hair. A forensic
test showed that the burglar’s hair matches the suspect’s own hair. The forensic sci-
entist testified that the chance of a randomly selected person producing such a match
is only one in two thousand. The prosecutor concludes that the suspect has only a
one in two thousand chance of being innocent. On the basis of only this evidence, the
prosecutor asks the jury for a conviction.
That is fallacious reasoning, and if you are on the jury you should not be convinced.
Here’s why. The prosecutor paid insufficient attention to the pool of potential suspects.
Suppose that pool has six million people who could have committed the crime, all other
things being equal. If the forensic lab had tested all those people, they’d find that about
one in every two thousand of them would have a hair match, but that is three thousand
people. The suspect is just one of the 3000, so the suspect is very probably innocent un-
less the prosecutor can provide more evidence. The prosecutor over-emphasized the
strength of a

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piece of evidence by focusing on one suspect while paying insufficient attention to the
context which suggests a pool of many more suspects.
Prosody
Quantifier Shift
Confusing the phrase “For all x there is some y” with “There is some (one) y such that for
all x.”
Example:
Everything has a cause, so there’s one cause of everything.
The error is also made if you argue from “Everybody loves someone” to “There is some-
one whom everybody loves.”
Questionable Begging
See Begging the Question
Questionable Analogy
See False Analogy.
Questionable Cause
See False Cause.
Questionable Premise
If you have sufficient background information to know that a premise is questionable or

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unlikely to be acceptable, then you use this fallacy if you accept an argument based on
that premise. This broad category of fallacies of argumentation includes Appeal to Au-
thority, False Dilemma, Inconsistency, Lying, Stacking the Deck, Straw Man, Sup-
pressed Evidence, and many others.
Quibbling
We quibble when we complain about a minor point and falsely believe that this com-
plaint somehow undermines the main point. To avoid this error, the logical reasoner will
not make a mountain out of a mole hill nor take people too literally. Logic Chopping is a
kind of quibbling.
Example:
I’ve found typographical errors in your poem, so the poem is neither inspired nor
perceptive.
Quoting out of Context

If you quote someone, but select the quotation so that essential context is not available
and therefore the person’s views are distorted, then you’ve quoted “out of context.”
Quoting out of context in an argument creates a Straw Man Fallacy. The fallacy is also
called “contextomy.”
Example:
Smith: I’ve been reading about a peculiar game in this article about vegetarianism.
When we play this game, we lean out from a fourth-story window and drop down
strings containing “Free food” signs on the end in order to hook unsuspecting
passers-by. It’s really outrageous, isn’t it? Yet isn’t that precisely what sports fisher-
men do for entertainment from their fishing boats? The article says it’s time we put
an end to sport fishing.
Jones: Let me quote Smith for you. He says “We…hook unsuspecting passers-by.”
What sort of moral monster is this man Smith?

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Jones’s selective quotation is fallacious because it makes Smith appear to advocate this
immoral activity when the context makes it clear that he doesn’t.
Rationalization
We rationalize when we inauthentically offer reasons to support our claim. We are ratio-
nalizing when we give someone a reason to justify our action even though we know this
reason is not really our own reason for our action, usually because the offered reason
will sound better to the audience than our actual reason.
Example:
“I bought the matzo bread from Kroger’s Supermarket because it is the cheapest
brand and I wanted to save money,” says Alex [who knows he bought the bread from
Kroger’s Supermarket only because his girlfriend works there].
Red Herring
A red herring is a smelly fish that would distract even a bloodhound. It is also a digres-
sion that leads the reasoner off the track of considering only relevant information.
Example:
Will the new tax in Senate Bill 47 unfairly hurt business? I notice that the main pro-
vision of the bill is that the tax is higher for large employers (fifty or more employees)
as opposed to small employers (six to forty-nine employees). To decide on the fair-
ness of the bill, we must first determine whether employees who work for large em-
ployers have better working conditions than employees who work for small employ-
ers. I am ready to volunteer for a new committee to study this question. How do you
suppose the committee should go about collecting the data we need?
Bringing up the issue of working conditions and the committee is the red herring divert-
ing us from the main issue of whether Senate Bill 47 unfairly hurts business. An inten-
tional false lead in a criminal investigation is another example of a red herring.

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Refutation by Caricature
See the Fallacy of Caricaturization.
Regression
This fallacy occurs when regression to the mean is mistaken for a sign of a causal con-
nection. Also called the Regressive Fallacy. It is a kind of False Cause Fallacy.
Example:
You are investigating the average heights of groups of people living in the United
States. You sample some people living in Columbus, Ohio and determine their aver-
age height. You have the numerical figure for the mean height of people living in the
U.S., and you notice that members of your sample from Columbus have an average
height that differs from this mean. Your second sample of the same size is from peo-
ple living in Dayton, Ohio. When you find that this group’s average height is closer to
the U.S. mean height [as it is very likely to be due to common statistical regression to
the mean], you falsely conclude that there must be something causing people living
in Dayton to be more like the average U.S. resident than people living in Columbus.
There is most probably nothing causing people from Dayton to be more like the average
resident of the U.S.; but rather what is happening is that averages are regressing to the
mean.
Reification
Considering a word to be referring to an object, when the meaning of the word can be
accounted for more mundanely without assuming the object exists. Also known as the
Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness and the Hypostatization.
Example:
The 19th century composer Tchaikovsky described the introduction to his Fifth Sym-
phony as “a complete resignation before fate.”

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He is treating “fate” as if it is naming some object, when it would be less misleading, but
also less poetic, to say the introduction suggests that listeners will resign themselves to
accepting whatever events happen to them. The Fallacy occurs also when someone says,
“I succumbed to nostalgia.” Without committing the fallacy, one can make the same
point by saying, “My mental state caused actions that would best be described as my re-
flecting an unusual desire to return to some past period of my life.” Another common
way the Fallacy is used is when someone says that if you understand what “Sherlock
Holmes” means, then Sherlock Holmes exists in your understanding. The larger point
being made in this last example is that nouns can be meaningful without them referring
to an object, yet those who use the Fallacy of Reification do not understand this point.
Reversing Causation
Drawing an improper conclusion about causation due to a causal assumption that re-
verses cause and effect. A kind of False Cause Fallacy.
Example:
All the corporate officers of Miami Electronics and Power have big boats. If you’re
ever going to become an officer of MEP, you’d better get a bigger boat.
The false assumption here is that having a big boat helps cause you to be an officer in
MEP, whereas the reverse is true. Being an officer causes you to have the high income
that enables you to purchase a big boat.
Scapegoating
If you unfairly blame an unpopular person or group of people for a problem, then you
are scapegoating. This is a kind of Fallacy of Appeal to Emotions.
Example:
Augurs were official diviners of ancient Rome. During the pre-Christian period, when
Christians were unpopular, an augur would make a prediction for the emperor about,

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say, whether a military attack would have a successful outcome. If the prediction
failed to come true, the augur would not admit failure but instead would blame near-
by Christians for their evil influence on his divining powers. The elimination of these
Christians, the augur would claim, could restore his divining powers and help the
emperor. By using this reasoning tactic, the augur was scapegoating the Christians.
Scare Tactic
If you suppose that terrorizing your opponent is giving him a reason for believing that
you are correct, then you are using a scare tactic and reasoning fallaciously.
Example:
David: My father owns the department store that gives your newspaper fifteen per-
cent of all its advertising revenue, so I’m sure you won’t want to publish any story of
my arrest for spray painting the college.
Newspaper editor: Yes, David, I see your point. The story really isn’t newsworthy.
David has given the editor a financial reason not to publish, but he has not given a rele-
vant reason why the story is not newsworthy. David’s tactics are scaring the editor, but
it’s the editor who uses the Scare Tactic Fallacy, not David. David has merely used a
scare tactic. This fallacy’s name emphasizes the cause of the fallacy rather than the error
itself. See also the related Fallacy of Appeal to Emotions.
Scope
The Scope Fallacy is caused by improperly changing or misrepresenting the scope of a
phrase.
Example:
Every concerned citizen who believes that someone living in the US is a terrorist
should make a report to the authorities. But Shelley told me herself that she believes
there are terrorists living in the US, yet she hasn’t made any reports. So, she must
not be a concerned citizen.

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The first sentence has ambiguous scope. It was probably originally meant in this sense:
Every concerned citizen who believes (of someone that this person is living in the US
and is a terrorist) should make a report to the authorities. But the speaker is clearly tak-
ing the sentence in its other, less plausible sense: Every concerned citizen who believes
(that there is someone or other living in the US who is a terrorist) should make a report
to the authorities. Scope fallacies usually are Amphibolies.
Secundum Quid
See Accident and Converse Accident, two versions of the fallacy.
Selective Attention
Improperly focusing attention on certain things and ignoring others.
Example:
Father: Justine, how was your school day today? Another C on the history test like
last time?
Justine: Dad, I got an A- on my history test today. Isn’t that great? Only one student
got an A.
Father: I see you weren’t the one with the A. And what about the math quiz?
Justine: I think I did OK, better than last time.
Father: If you really did well, you’d be sure. What I’m sure of is that today was a
pretty bad day for you.
The pessimist who pays attention to all the bad news and ignores the good news thereby
use the Fallacy of Selective Attention. The remedy for this fallacy is to pay attention to
all the relevant evidence. The most common examples of selective attention are the falla-
cy of Suppressed Evidence and the fallacy of Confirmation Bias. See also the Sharp-
shooter’s Fallacy.

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The fallacy occurs when the act of prophesying will itself produce the effect that is
prophesied, but the reasoner doesn’t recognize this and believes the prophesy is a signif-
icant insight.
Example:
A group of students are selected to be interviewed individually by the teacher. Each

selected student is told that the teacher has predicted they will do significantly better
in their future school work. Actually, though, the teacher has no special information
about the students and has picked the group at random. If the students believe this
prediction about themselves, then, given human psychology, it is likely that they will
do better merely because of the teacher’s making the prediction.
The prediction will fulfill itself, so to speak, and the students’ reasoning contains the fal-
lacy.
This fallacy can be dangerous in an atmosphere of potential war between nations when
the leader of a nation predicts that their nation will go to war against their enemy. This
prediction could very well precipitate an enemy attack because the enemy calculates that
if war is inevitable then it is to their military advantage not to get caught by surprise.
Self-Selection
A Biased Generalization in which the bias is due to self-selection for membership in the
sample used to make the generalization.
Example:
The radio announcer at a student radio station in New York asks listeners to call in
and say whether they favor Jones or Smith for president. 80% of the callers favor
Jones, so the announcer declares that Americans prefer Jones to Smith.
The problem here is that the callers selected themselves for membership in the sample,
but clearly the sample is unlikely to be representative of Americans.

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Sharpshooter’s
The Sharpshooter’s Fallacy gets its name from someone shooting a rifle at the side of the
barn and then going over and drawing a target and bulls eye concentrically around the
bullet hole. The fallacy is caused by overemphasizing random results or making selective
use of coincidence. See the Fallacy of Selective Attention.
Example:
Psychic Sarah makes twenty-six predictions about what will happen next year. When
one, but only one, of the predictions comes true, she says, “Aha! I can see into the
future.”
Slanting
This error occurs when the issue is not treated fairly because of misrepresenting the evi-
dence by, say, suppressing part of it, or misconstruing some of it, or simply lying. See the
following related fallacies: Confirmation Bias, Lying, Misrepresentation, Questionable
Premise, Quoting out of Context, Straw Man, Suppressed Evidence.
Slippery Slope
Suppose someone claims that a first step (in a chain of causes and effects, or a chain of
reasoning) will probably lead to a second step that in turn will probably lead to another
step and so on until a final step ends in trouble. If the likelihood of the trouble occurring
is exaggerated, the Slippery Slope Fallacy is present.
Example:
Mom: Those look like bags under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?
Jeff: I had a test and stayed up late studying.
Mom: You didn’t take any drugs, did you?

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Jeff: Just caffeine in my coffee, like I always do.
Mom: Jeff! You know what happens when people take drugs! Pretty soon the caffeine
won’t be strong enough. Then you will take something stronger, maybe someone’s
diet pill. Then, something even stronger. Eventually, you will be doing cocaine. Then
you will be a crack addict! So, don’t drink that coffee.
The form of a Slippery Slope Fallacy looks like this:
A often leads to B.
B often leads to C.
C often leads to D.
Z leads to HELL.
We don’t want to go to HELL.
So, don’t take that first step A.
The key claim in the fallacy is that taking the first step will lead to the final, unacceptable
step. Arguments of this form may or may not be fallacious depending on the probabili-
ties involved in each step. The analyst asks how likely it is that taking the first step will
lead to the final step. For example, if A leads to B with a probability of 80 percent, and B
leads to C with a probability of 80 percent, and C leads to D with a probability of 80 per-
cent, is it likely that A will eventually lead to D? No, not at all; there is about a 50%
chance. The proper analysis of a slippery slope argument depends on sensitivity to such
probabilistic calculations. Regarding terminology, if the chain of reasoning A, B, C, D, …,
Z is about causes, then the fallacy is called the Domino Fallacy.
Small Sample
This is the fallacy of using too small a sample. If the sample is too small to provide a rep-

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resentative sample of the population, and if we have the background information to
know that there is this problem with sample size, yet we still accept the generalization
upon the sample results, then we use the fallacy. This fallacy is the Fallacy of Hasty Gen-
eralization, but it emphasizes statistical sampling techniques.
Example:
I’ve eaten in restaurants twice in my life, and both times I’ve gotten sick. I’ve learned
one thing from these experiences: restaurants make me sick.
How big a sample do you need to avoid the fallacy? Relying on background knowledge
about a population’s lack of diversity can reduce the sample size needed for the general-
ization. With a completely homogeneous population, a sample of one is large enough to
be representative of the population; if we’ve seen one electron, we’ve seen them all.
However, eating in one restaurant is not like eating in any restaurant, so far as getting
sick is concerned. We cannot place a specific number on sample size below which the
fallacy is produced unless we know about homogeneity of the population and the margin
of error and the confidence level.
Smear Tactic
A smear tactic is an unfair characterization either of the opponent or the opponent’s po-
sition or argument. Smearing the opponent causes an Ad Hominem Fallacy. Smearing
the opponent’s argument causes a Straw Man Fallacy.
Smokescreen
This fallacy occurs by offering too many details in order either to obscure the point or to
cover-up counter-evidence. In the latter case it would be an example of the Fallacy of
Suppressed Evidence. If you produce a smokescreen by bringing up an irrelevant issue,
then you produce a Red Herring Fallacy. Sometimes called Clouding the Issue.
Example:

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Senator, wait before you vote on Senate Bill 88. Do you realize that Delaware passed
a bill on the same subject in 1932, but it was ruled unconstitutional for these twenty
reasons. Let me list them here…. Also, before you vote on SB 88 you need to know
that …. And so on.
There is no recipe to follow in distinguishing smokescreens from reasonable appeals to

caution and care.
Sorites
See Line-Drawing.
Special Pleading
Special pleading is a form of inconsistency in which the reasoner doesn’t apply his or her
principles consistently. It is the fallacy of applying a general principle to various situa-
tions but not applying it to a special situation that interests the arguer even though the
general principle properly applies to that special situation, too.
Example:
Everyone has a duty to help the police do their job, no matter who the suspect is.
That is why we must support investigations into corruption in the police department.
No person is above the law. Of course, if the police come knocking on my door to ask
about my neighbors and the robberies in our building, I know nothing. I’m not about
to rat on anybody.
In our example, the principle of helping the police is applied to investigations of police
officers but not to one’s neighbors.
Specificity
Drawing an overly specific conclusion from the evidence. A kind of jumping to conclu-
sions.

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Example:
The trigonometry calculation came out to 5,005.6833 feet, so that’s how wide the
cloud is up there.
Stacking the Deck

See Suppressed Evidence and Slanting.
Stereotyping
Using stereotypes as if they are accurate generalizations for the whole group is an error
in reasoning. Stereotypes are general beliefs we use to categorize people, objects, and
events; but these beliefs are overstatements that shouldn’t be taken literally. For exam-
ple, consider the stereotype “She’s Mexican, so she’s going to be late.” This conveys a
mistaken impression of all Mexicans. On the other hand, even though most Mexicans
are punctual, a German is more apt to be punctual than a Mexican, and this fact is said
to be the “kernel of truth” in the stereotype. The danger in our using stereotypes is that
speakers or listeners will not realize that even the best stereotypes are accurate only
when taken probabilistically. As a consequence, the use of stereotypes can breed racism,
sexism, and other forms of bigotry.
Example:
German people aren’t good at dancing our sambas. She’s German. So, she’s not going
to be any good at dancing our sambas.
This argument is deductively valid, but it’s unsound because it rests on a false, stereo-
typical premise. The grain of truth in the stereotype is that the average German doesn’t
dance sambas as well as the average South American, but to overgeneralize and presume
that ALL Germans are poor samba dancers compared to South Americans is a mistake
called “stereotyping.”
Straw Man

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Your reasoning contains the Straw Man Fallacy whenever you attribute an easily refuted
position to your opponent, one that the opponent would not endorse, and then proceed
to attack the easily refuted position (the straw man) believing you have thereby under-
mined the real man, the opponent’s actual position. If the unfair and inaccurate repre-
sentation is on purpose, then the Straw Man Fallacy is caused by lying.
Example (a debate before the city council):
Opponent: Because of the killing and suffering of Indians that followed Columbus’s
discovery of America, the City of Berkeley should declare that Columbus Day will no
longer be observed in our city.
Speaker: This is ridiculous, fellow members of the city council. It’s not true that
everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the
Indians. I say we should continue to observe Columbus Day, and vote down this res-
olution that will make the City of Berkeley the laughing stock of the nation.
The Opponent is likely to respond with “Wait! That’s not what I said.” The Speaker has
twisted what his Opponent said. The Opponent never said nor even indirectly suggested
that everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the
Indians.
Style Over Substance

Unfortunately the style with which an argument is presented is sometimes taken as
adding to the substance or strength of the argument.
Example:
You’ve just been told by the salesperson that the new Maytag is an excellent washing
machine because it has a double washing cycle. If you notice that the salesperson
smiled at you and was well dressed, this does not add to the quality of the salesper-
son’s argument, but unfortunately it does for those who are influenced by style over
substance, as most of us are.

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Subjectivist
The Subjectivist Fallacy occurs when it is mistakenly supposed that a good reason to re-
ject a claim is that truth on the matter is relative to the person or group.
Example:
Justine has just given Jake her reasons for believing that the Devil is an imaginary
evil person. Jake, not wanting to accept her conclusion, responds with, “That’s per-
haps true for you, but it’s not true for me.”
Superstitious Thinking
Reasoning deserves to be called superstitious if it is based on reasons that are well
known to be unacceptable, usually due to unreasonable fear of the unknown, trust in
magic, or an obviously false idea of what can cause what. A belief produced by supersti-
tious reasoning is called a superstition. The fallacy is an instance of the False Cause Fal-
lacy.
Example:
I never walk under ladders; it’s bad luck.
It may be a good idea not to walk under ladders, but a proper reason to believe this is
that workers on ladders occasionally drop things, and that ladders might have dripping
wet paint that could damage your clothes. An improper reason for not walking under
ladders is that it is bad luck to do so.
Suppressed Evidence
Intentionally failing to use information suspected of being relevant and significant is
committing the fallacy of suppressed evidence. This fallacy usually occurs when the in-
formation counts against one’s own conclusion. Perhaps the arguer is not mentioning
that experts have recently objected to one of his premises. The fallacy is a kind of Fallacy
of Selective Attention.

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Example:
Buying the Cray Mac 11 computer for our company was the right thing to do. It meets
our company’s needs; it runs the programs we want it to run; it will be delivered
quickly; and it costs much less than what we had budgeted.
This appears to be a good argument, but you’d change your assessment of the argument
if you learned the speaker has intentionally suppressed the relevant evidence that the
company’s Cray Mac 11 was purchased from his brother-in-law at a 30 percent higher
price than it could have been purchased elsewhere, and if you learned that a recent unbi-
ased analysis of ten comparable computers placed the Cray Mac 11 near the bottom of
the list.
If the relevant information is not intentionally suppressed but rather inadvertently over-
looked, the fallacy of suppressed evidence also is said to occur, although the fallacy’s
name is misleading in this case. The fallacy is also called the Fallacy of Incomplete Evi-
dence and Cherry-Picking the Evidence. See also Slanting.
Sweeping Generalization
See Fallacy of Accident.
Syllogistic
Syllogistic fallacies are kinds of invalid categorical syllogisms. This list contains the Fal-
lacy of Undistributed Middle and the Fallacy of Four Terms, and a few others though
there are a great many such formal fallacies.
Tokenism
If you interpret a merely token gesture as an adequate substitute for the real thing,
you’ve been taken in by tokenism.
Example:

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How can you call our organization racist? After all, our receptionist is African Ameri-
can.
If you accept this line of reasoning, you have been taken in by tokenism.
Traditional Wisdom
If you say or imply that a practice must be OK today simply because it has been the ap-
parently wise practice in the past, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of traditional
wisdom. Procedures that are being practiced and that have a tradition of being practiced
might or might not be able to be given a good justification, but merely saying that they
have been practiced in the past is not always good enough, in which case the fallacy is
present. Also called Argumentum Consensus Gentium when the traditional wisdom is
that of nations.
Example:
Of course we should buy IBM’s computer whenever we need new computers. We

have been buying IBM as far back as anyone can remember.
The “of course” is the problem. The traditional wisdom of IBM being the right buy is
some reason to buy IBM next time, but it’s not a good enough reason in a climate of
changing products, so the “of course” indicates that the Fallacy of Traditional Wisdom
has occurred. The fallacy is essentially the same as the fallacies of Appeal to the Com-
mon Practice, Gallery, Masses, Mob, Past Practice, People, Peers, and Popularity.
Tu Quoque
The Fallacy of Tu Quoque occurs in our reasoning if we conclude that someone’s argu-
ment not to perform some act must be faulty because the arguer himself or herself has
performed it. Similarly, when we point out that the arguer doesn’t practice what he or
she preaches, and then suppose that there must be an error in the preaching for only this
reason, then we are reasoning fallaciously and creating a Tu Quoque. This is a kind of Ad
Hominem Circumstantial Fallacy.

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Example:
Look who’s talking. You say I shouldn’t become an alcoholic because it will hurt me
and my family, yet you yourself are an alcoholic, so your argument can’t be worth
listening to.
Discovering that a speaker is a hypocrite is a reason to be suspicious of the speaker’s rea-

soning, but it is not a sufficient reason to discount it.
Two Wrongs do not Make a Right

When you defend your wrong action as being right because someone previously has act-
ed wrongly, you are using the fallacy called “Two Wrongs do not Make a Right.” This is a
special kind of Ad Hominem Fallacy.
Example:
Oops, no paper this morning. Somebody in our apartment building probably stole
my newspaper. So, that makes it OK for me to steal one from my neighbor’s doormat
while nobody else is out here in the hallway.
Undistributed Middle
In syllogistic logic, failing to distribute the middle term over at least one of the other
terms is the fallacy of undistributed middle. Also called the Fallacy of Maldistributed
Middle.
Example:
All collies are animals.
All dogs are animals.
Therefore, all collies are dogs.

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The middle term (“animals”) is in the predicate of both universal affirmative premises
and therefore is undistributed. This formal fallacy has the logical form: All C are A. All D
are A. Therefore, all C are D.
Unfalsifiability
This error in explanation occurs when the explanation contains a claim that is not falsifi-
able, because there is no way to check on the claim. That is, there would be no way to
show the claim to be false if it were false.
Example:
He lied because he’s possessed by demons.
This could be the correct explanation of his lying, but there’s no way to check on whether
it’s correct. You can check whether he’s twitching and moaning, but this won’t be evi-
dence about whether a supernatural force is controlling his body. The claim that he’s
possessed can’t be verified if it’s true, and it can’t be falsified if it’s false. So, the claim is
too odd to be relied upon for an explanation of his lying. Relying on the claim is an in-
stance of fallacious reasoning.
Unrepresentative Generalization
If the plants on my plate are not representative of all plants, then the following general-
ization should not be trusted.
Example:
Each plant on my plate is edible.
So, all plants are edible.
The set of plants on my plate is called “the sample” in the technical vocabulary of sta-
tistics, and the set of all plants is called “the target population.” If you are going to gen-

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eralize on a sample, then you want your sample to be representative of the target popu-
lation, that is, to be like it in the relevant respects. This fallacy is the same as the Fallacy
of Unrepresentative Sample.
Unrepresentative Sample
If the means of collecting the sample from the population are likely to produce a sample
that is unrepresentative of the population, then a generalization upon the sample data is
an inference using the fallacy of unrepresentative sample. A kind of Hasty Generaliza-
tion. When some of the statistical evidence is expected to be relevant to the results but is
hidden or overlooked, the fallacy is called Suppressed Evidence. There are many ways to
bias a sample. Knowingly selecting atypical members of the population produces a bi-
ased sample.
Example:
The two men in the matching green suits that I met at the Star Trek Convention in
Las Vegas had a terrible fear of cats. I remember their saying they were from France.
I’ve never met anyone else from France, so I suppose everyone there has a terrible
fear of cats.
Most people’s background information is sufficient to tell them that people at this sort of
convention are unlikely to be representative, that is, are likely to be atypical members of
the rest of society. Having a small sample does not by itself cause the sample to be bi-
ased. Small samples are OK if there is a corresponding large margin of error or low con-
fidence level.
Large samples can be unrepresentative, too.
Example:
We’ve polled over 400,000 Southern Baptists and asked them whether the best reli-
gion in the world is Southern Baptist. We have over 99% agreement, which proves
our point about which religion is best.

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Getting a larger sample size does not overcome sampling bias.
Untestability
See Unfalsifiability.
Vested Interest
The Vested Interest Fallacy occurs when a person argues that someone’s claim is incor-
rect or their recommended action is not worthy of being followed because the person is
motivated by their interest in gaining something by it, with the implication that were it
not for this vested interest then the person wouldn’t make the claim or recommend the
action. Because this reasoning attacks the reasoner rather than the reasoning itself, it is
a kind of Ad Hominem fallacy.
Example:
According to Samantha we all should vote for Anderson for Congress. Yet she’s a lob-
byist in the pay of Anderson and will get a nice job in the capitol if he’s elected, so
that convinces me that she is giving bad advice.
This is fallacious reasoning by the speaker because whether Samantha is giving good ad-
vice about Anderson ought to depend on Anderson’s qualifications, not on whether
Samantha will or won’t get a nice job if he’s elected.
Victory by Definition
Same as the fallacy of Persuasive Definition.
Weak Analogy
See False Analogy.
Willed ignorance

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I’ve got my mind made up, so don’t confuse me with the facts. This is usually a case of
the Traditional Wisdom Fallacy.
Example:
Of course she’s made a mistake. We’ve always had meat and potatoes for dinner, and
our ancestors have always had meat and potatoes for dinner, and so nobody knows
what they’re talking about when they start saying meat and potatoes are bad for us.
Wishful Thinking
A reasoner who suggests that a claim is true, or false, merely because he or she strongly
hopes it is, is using the fallacy of wishful thinking. Wishing something is true is not a rel-
evant reason for claiming that it is actually true.
Example:
There’s got to be an error here in the history book. It says Thomas Jefferson had
slaves. I don’t believe it. He was our best president, and a good president would nev-
er do such a thing. That would be awful.
You-Too
This is an informal name for the Tu Quoque fallacy.
7. References and Further Reading

Eemeren, Frans H. van, R. F. Grootendorst, F. S. Henkemans, J. A. Blair, R. H. Johnson, E. C. W.
Krabbe, C. W. Plantin, D. N. Walton, C. A. Willard, J. A. Woods, and D. F. Zarefsky, 1996. Fun-
damentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contempo-
rary Developments. Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
Fearnside, W. Ward and William B. Holther, 1959. Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument. Prentice-
Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Fischer, David Hackett., 1970. Historian’s Fallacies: Toward Logic of Historical Thought. New
York, Harper & Row, New York, N.Y.
This book contains additional fallacies to those in this article, but they are much less common, and many

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have obscure names.
Groarke, Leo and C. Tindale, 2003. Good Reasoning Matters! 3rd edition, Toronto, Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Hamblin, Charles L., 1970. Fallacies. London, Methuen.
Hansen, Has V. and R. C. Pinto., 1995. Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings. University
Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.
Huff, Darrell, 1954. How to Lie with Statistics. New York, W. W. Norton.
Levi, D. S., 1994. “Begging What is at Issue in the Argument,” Argumentation, 8, 265-282.
Schwartz, Thomas, 1981. “Logic as a Liberal Art,” Teaching Philosophy 4, 231-247.
Walton, Douglas N., 1989. Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press.
Walton, Douglas N., 1995. A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy. Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama
Press.
Walton, Douglas N., 1997. Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority. University Park,
Pennsylvania State University Press.
Whately, Richard, 1836. Elements of Logic. New York, Jackson.
Woods, John and D. N. Walton, 1989. Fallacies: Selected Papers 1972-1982. Dordrecht, Holland,
Foris.
Research on the fallacies of informal logic is regularly published in the following jour-
nals: Argumentation, Argumentation and Advocacy, Informal Logic, Philosophy and
Rhetoric, and Teaching Philosophy.
Author Information
Bradley Dowden
Email: [email protected]
California State University, Sacramento
U. S. A.

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A charge of fallacious reasoning always needs to be justified. The burden of proof is on

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The fallacies of argumentation can be classified as either formal or informal. A formal

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Focusing just on fallacies of argumentation, some researchers define such a fallacy as an

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Other researchers recommend characterizing a fallacy as a violation of the norms of

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Advertising in magazines and on television is designed to achieve visual persuasion. And

6. Partial List of Fallacies

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A member of Congress is asked by a reporter if she is in favor of the President’s new

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Yolanda: Did you take the tablets every day?

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Yolanda: Well, I’ll bet you bought some bad tablets.

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Affirming the Consequent

Against the Person

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Nobody has ever proved to me there’s a God, so I know there is no God.

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Appeal to Past Practice

Appeal to the Gallery

Appeal to the Masses

Appeal to the Mob

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Appeal to the Stick

Appeal to Unqualified Authority

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Argument from Ignorance

Argument from Outrage

Argument from Popularity

Argumentum Consensus Gentium

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Avoiding the Issue

Avoiding the Question

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Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is “contained” in the premises

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Changing the Question

Here is Steven Pinker’s example: