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Display name: budaman
Gender: male
Location: Omaha Nebraska
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Date joined: November 18th, 2008
Last seen: February 14th, 2012
About me: Common Argumentative Fallacies

Ad Hominem: An arguer who uses ad hominems attacks the person instead of the argument. Whenever an arguer cannot defend his position with evidence, facts or reason, he or she may resort to attacking an opponent.

Appeal to Ignorance: appealing to ignorance as evidence for something. (Because we have no knowledge of alien visitors, that means they do not exist). Ignorance about something says nothing about its existence or non-existence.

Argument from Omniscience: (e.g., All people believe in something. Everyone knows that.) Beware of words like "all," "everyone," "everything," "absolute."

Appeal to Faith: if the arguer relies on faith as the bases of his argument, then you can gain little from further discussion. Faith, by definition, relies on a belief that does not rest on logic or evidence. Faith depends on irrational thought and produces intransigence.

Argument from Authority: using the words of an "expert" or authority as the bases of the argument instead of using the logic or evidence that supports an argument. (e.g., Professor so-and-so believes in creation-science.) Simply because an authority makes a claim does not necessarily mean he got it right.

Bandwagon Fallacy: concluding that an idea has merit simply because many people believe it or practice it. (e.g., Most people believe in a god; therefore, it must prove true.) Simply because many people may believe something says nothing about the fact of that something. For example many people during the Black plague believed that demons caused disease. The number of believers say nothing at all about the cause of disease.

Circular Reasoning: stating in one's proposition that which one aims to prove. (e.g. God exists because the Bible says so; the Bible exists because God influenced it.)

Composition Fallacy: when the conclusion of an argument depends on an erroneous characteristic from parts of something to the whole or vice versa. (e.g., Humans have consciousness and human bodies consist of atoms; therefore, atoms have consciousness).

Confusion of Correlation and Causation: (e.g., Children who watch violence on TV tend to act violently when they grow up.) But does television programming cause violence or do violence oriented children prefer to watch violent programs? Perhaps an entirely different reason creates violence not related to television at all.

Excluded Middle: considering only the extremes. Many people use "either/or" logic tending to describe. Many times, a continuum occurs between the extremes that people fail to see. The universe also contains many "maybes."

Loaded Questions: embodies an assumption that, if answered, indicates an implied agreement. (e.g., Have you stopped beating your wife yet?)

Observational Selection: pointing out favorable circumstances while ignoring the unfavorable.

Proving Non-Existence: when an arguer cannot provide the evidence for his claims, he may challenge his opponent to prove it doesn't exist (e.g., prove God doesn't exist; prove UFO's haven't visited earth, etc.). Although one may prove non-existence, such as showing that a box does not contain certain items, one cannot prove universal or absolute non-existence, or non-existence out of ignorance. One cannot prove something that does not exist. The proof of existence must come from those who make the claims.

Red Herring: when the arguer diverts the attention by changing the subject.

Slippery Slope: "Give and inch and they'll take a mile." (e.g., If we allow doctor assisted suicide, then eventually the government will control how we die.) It does not necessarily follow that just because we make changes that a slippery slope will occur.

Statistics of Small Numbers: similar to observational selection (e.g., My parents smoked all their lives and they never got cancer. Or: I don't care what others say about Yugos, my Yugo has never had a problem.) Simply because someone can point to a few favorable numbers says nothing about the overall chances.

Straw man: creating a false scenario and then attacking it. (e.g., Evolutionists think that everything came about by random chance.) Most evolutionists think in terms of natural selection which may involve incidental elements, but does not depend entirely on random chance. Painting your opponent with false colors only deflects the purpose of the argument.

Non Sequitur: is an argument in which its conclusion does not follow from its premises. In a non sequitur, the conclusion can be either true or false, but the argument is fallacious because there is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion.





You don't need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.

-Robert A. Wilson




P.S. I never intend to hurt or offend anyone. I apologize ahead of time if I do. I have, in the past gotten carried away so do me a favor and let me know if I cross the line. Thanks.

Hakuna Matata!

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