The first of these types is called formal fallacy, which refers to a fallacy that can be disproven in a straightforward manner using a standard system of logic. The other type of fallacy, not surprisingly, is called informal fallacy, and refers to an error in reasoning rather than incorrect ...
It is easy to make the mistake of committing a fallacy of your own if you have strong feelings about a certain topic. When a conclusion seems obvious to you, you’re likely to assume that it’s true and not look for hard evidence to support the claim. ...
The purpose of this lesson is to help you understand a fallacy known as attacking the motive, or when someone attacks the reasoning behind an argument, rather than the validity of the claim. Through the use of easy-to-understand examples and explanations, you'll also find out how to balance...
like thered herringandad hominemfallacies, a claim can be both true andfallacious. With a false dilemma, the fallacy’s crux is that the binary options presented arenotaccurate.
Ad Hominem FallacyThis is when someone attacks the person instead of their argument.Imagine you're chatting about which game is the best, and instead of giving reasons, someone says, "Well, you wear glasses so that you wouldn’t understand!" That's not a good reason, right?
However, this is not always the case since what benefits a single sector of the economy can be detrimental if extrapolated to the entire country. Thus, economic policymakers have to consider the influence of this fallacy when crafting and implementing policies....
The gambler’s fallacy is not limited to gambling scenarios. It can also occur in situations that involve chance events, such as predicting the gender of newborn babies. Consider a family that has three boys and is expecting their fourth child. The parents might fall victim to the gambler’...
The concept comes from the metaphor of a straw man (or scarecrow). The straw man is not a real man. It’s a fake representation (e.g. a caricature) of one. Similarly, in the strawman fallacy,the person rebuttingan argument isn’t engaging in good faith with the real argument. Instea...
This fallacy is based on the law of averages, in the way that when a certain event occurs repeatedly, an imbalance of that event is produced, and this leads us to conclude logically that events of the opposite nature must soon occur in order to restore balance. Such a fallacy is mostly...
The broken window fallacy was first expressed by the 19th-century French economistFrederic Bastiat.1 Key Takeaways The core of the broken window fallacy argues that spending money on items that have been destroyed does not lead to economic gain. ...