Why use fallacies

Support also known as the minor premise —The evidence facts, expert testimony, quotes, and statistics you present to back up your claims. Warrant also known as major premise —Any assumption that is taken for granted and underlies your claim. Claims of fact are assertions about the existence past, present, or future of a particular condition or phenomenon: Example: Japanese business owners are more inclined to use sustainable business practices than they were 20 years ago.

In contrast to claims of fact, those of value make a moral judgment about a phenomenon or condition: Example: Unsustainable business practices are unethical. Fallacies Although there are more than two dozen types and subtypes of logical fallacies, many of these are likelier to occur in persuasive, rather than expository or research, writing.

Example: Special education students should not be required to take standardized tests because such tests are meant for nonspecial education students.

This type of fallacy shows up in dissertation prospectus problem statements in which the problem and its cause are defined to be the same. Hasty generalization is an error of induction that occurs when a writer jumps to an inference based on limited or inadequate data. Something to pay attention to when reviewing research design for instance, when doing a literature review or an article critique is whether the authors of the research paper have based their conclusions on unreliable data or too small a sample size.

Example: Two out of three patients who were given green tea before bedtime reported sleeping more soundly. Therefore, green tea may be used to treat insomnia. In this example, a sample size of three is way too small to generalize about the effectiveness of green tea—not to mention that patients' self-reports do not always make the most reliable data! Sweeping generalizations are related to the problem of hasty generalizations.

In the former, though, the error consists in assuming that a particular conclusion drawn from a particular situation and context applies to all situations and contexts. For example, if I research a particular problem at a private performing arts high school in a rural community, I need to be careful not to assume that my findings will be generalizable to all high schools, including public high schools in an inner city setting.

Non sequitur is a Latin term that means "does not follow," and the fallacy occurs when no true logical especially cause-effect relationship exists between two notions. Example: Professor Berger has published numerous articles in immunology. Therefore, she is an expert in complementary medicine. Notice, in this example, that there is no necessary relationship between knowledge of immunology on the one hand and expertise in complementary medicine on the other.

It does not follow that Dr. Circular arguments occur when a person's argument repeats what they already assumed before without arriving at a new conclusion. For example, if someone says, "According to my brain, my brain is reliable," that's a circular argument. Circular arguments often use a claim as both a premise and a conclusion. This fallacy only appears to be an argument when in fact it's just restating one's assumptions. A hasty generalization is a claim based on a few examples rather than substantial proof.

Arguments based on hasty generalizations often don't hold up due to a lack of supporting evidence: The claim might be true in one case, but that doesn't mean it's always true.

Hasty generalizations are common in arguments because there's a wide range of what's acceptable for "sufficient" evidence. The rules for evidence can change based on the claim you're making and the environment where you are making it — whether it's rooted in philosophy, the sciences, a political debate, or discussing house rules for using the kitchen. A red herring is an argument that uses confusion or distraction to shift attention away from a topic and toward a false conclusion.

Red herrings usually contain an unimportant fact, idea, or event that has little relevance to the real issue. Red herrings are a common diversionary tactic when someone wants to shift the focus of an argument to something easier or safer to address. But red herrings can also be unintentional.

Now she's shopping for new patio furniture and not asking me about the garage. An appeal to hypocrisy — also known as the tu quoque fallacy — focuses on the hypocrisy of an opponent. The tu quoque fallacy deflects criticism away from oneself by accusing the other person of the same problem or something comparable. The tu quoque fallacy is an attempt to divert blame.

The fallacy usually occurs when the arguer uses apparent hypocrisy to neutralize criticism and distract from the issue. It was dumb then and it's dumb now. That's why I forbid you to smoke, chew, vape, use nicotine gum, or do whatever you kids do with tobacco these days. Causal fallacies are informal fallacies that occur when an argument incorrectly concludes that a cause is related to an effect. Think of the causal fallacy as a parent category for other fallacies about unproven causes.

One example is the false cause fallacy, which is when you draw a conclusion about what the cause was without enough evidence to do so.

Another is the post hoc fallacy, which is when you mistake something for the cause because it came first — not because it actually caused the effect. Crows must be the creators of the universe. A sunk cost fallacy is when someone continues doing something because of the effort they already put in it, regardless of whether the additional costs outweigh the potential benefits.

For example: Imagine that after watching the first six episodes of a TV show, you decide the show isn't for you. Those six episodes are your "sunk cost. No marriage. No kids.

No steady job. But I've been with him for seven years, so I'd better stay with him. This is so tough, and it's not nearly as fun as I thought it would be, but I don't know.

I guess I'll finish it and get my degree. Appeal to authority is the misuse of an authority's opinion to support an argument. While an authority's opinion can represent evidence and data, it becomes a fallacy if their expertise or authority is overstated, illegitimate, or irrelevant to the topic. For example, citing a foot doctor when trying to prove something related to psychiatry would be an appeal to authority fallacy. Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument.

Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim. Avoid these common fallacies in your own arguments and watch for them in the arguments of others. Slippery Slope: This is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C, So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either.

If we ban Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars, so we should not ban Hummers. In this example, the author is equating banning Hummers with banning all cars, which is not the same thing. Hasty Generalization: This is a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence. In other words, you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.

In this example, the author is basing his evaluation of the entire course on only the first day, which is notoriously boring and full of housekeeping tasks for most courses. To make a fair and reasonable evaluation the author must attend not one but several classes, and possibly even examine the textbook, talk to the professor, or talk to others who have previously finished the course in order to have sufficient evidence to base a conclusion on.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: This is a conclusion that assumes that if 'A' occurred after 'B' then 'B' must have caused 'A. In this example, the author assumes that if one event chronologically follows another the first event must have caused the second. But the illness could have been caused by the burrito the night before, a flu bug that had been working on the body for days, or a chemical spill across campus.

There is no reason, without more evidence, to assume the water caused the person to be sick. Genetic Fallacy: This conclusion is based on an argument that the origins of a person, idea, institute, or theory determine its character, nature, or worth.

In this example the author is equating the character of a car with the character of the people who built the car.