Questions tagged [fallacies]
Concerns formal (syllogistic) fallacies, informal (rhetorical) fallacies, tactical misdirection, and errors in logic or reasoning more broadly put.
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Is it a logical fallacy to discredit a conclusion because of argument disagreement?
Is it a logical fallacy to discredit a conclusion because proponents of the said conclusion disagree with one another as to what are valid arguments for that conclusion?
If so, what is the name for ...
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Term for alluding to options that don't exist
Is there a term for alluding to options that don't really exist or are extremly suboptimal? Something along the lines of "Well, if they don't like it they can always do something else." but ...
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survivorship bias when "failures" survive, "successes" die
Survivorship bias often operates with “failure” and “success.” We draw some conclusions from the “successful” things, which leads to the survivorship bias.
My question: is it still a survival bias, ...
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Searching for name of this logical fallacy: presuming a consensus
I recently encountered multiple instances of this kind of fallacy, but could not nail down its name or which group of fallacy that it belongs to. It bothers me enough to create a new account to ask ...
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Name for a Fallacy
I hope this is on topic, and trust it will be closed if it isn't.
Consider the following fallacious arguments:
There is an upper limit to the number of people the earth can support; therefore the ...
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What is the Logical Flaw in This Argument?
Background: It was my birthday, and I had a cake cut party and dinner party. After I cut the first piece of cake and my friends decided to push the cake into my face. But I tried to persuade them not ...
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How to be skeptical of transcendental arguments?
SEP and others have transcendental arguments as claims “namely that X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y—where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the ...
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What logical fallacy is "The Sun is very hard to look at, therefore there are no reliable witnesses of its existence."? [closed]
What logical fallacy is "The Sun is very hard to look at, therefore there are no reliable witnesses of its existence." or "A massacre is very hard to look at, therefore there are no ...
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What type of logical fallacy is this example?
Best way I can describe it is a person using their own personal sentiment/disposition towards a subject in their initial argument, but generalizes said disposition as a ground for succeeding arguments....
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Can two people simultaneously invent exactly same thing in a very specialized domain?
There are two people. Let's call those people as A and B. Person "A" has calm personality and Person "B" has aggressive personality. B has aggressive personality because the B ...
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Presenting new argument, ignoring the others- What Fallacy?
Sometimes people ignore a few arguments at hand and place new arguments to back up their case.For instance, there are already argument A, B and C, now since I don't have a rebuttal for A,B and C, I ...
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Fallacy/Cognitive Bias of assuming that being an expert in one field makes you an expert in other fields
Assume that Bob is truly an expert in field A. He can voice strong opinions about A and his ideas are considered valid or worthy of consideration by all other experts of field A. Bob also believes ...
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Is Martin Scorsese guilty of no true scotsman?
Genuine Question: When Martin Scorsese criticised the Marvel Cinematic Universe and directly said that they were theme parks not cinema, was that an example of the no true Scotsman fallacy?
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Is there a logical fallacy for falsely dismissing criticism as snobbery?
From Richard Nixon to Spiro Agnew to todays Marvel fans, there seems to be a particular penchant for framing light criticism, scepticism or even simple disagreement by others as snobbery/elitism.
'...
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What is the name of this cognitive bias?
When it comes to plane crashes, the statistical chance of getting into one is extremely low, however, due to the media making so much content about plane crashes, people assume they are much more ...
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bad practices in statistics - ratio of a ratio
I haven't been able to think of good search terms for my question, and I'm happy to be redirected to another stackoverflow site.
I frequently see statistics presented in scientific summaries (written ...
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Is it a fallacy when the opponent comes up with obviously nonsense arguments on my side to make me look stupid?
For example, I'm having a political debate and I am bringing up facts, like under this government the energy prices rose this amount, the unemployment rate is higher then ever and the government had ...
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Large cardinals and in intellectu existence?
I have had some success in the philosophy of mathematics. Briefly I compare Cantor's sets to the clear and distinct ideas of Descartes which is regarded as philosophically rigorous work; on the other ...
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Is the Ad Hominem fallacy a version of the Genetic Fallacy?
I'm not sure if this is on-topic, but it's an interesting question to me, though it may lack any real purpose.
The Ad Hominem fallacy is when someone takes where a claim or argument propagated from ...
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What is the fallacy Carl Jung is alluding to in this passage?
What kind of fallacy did he mean?
We start, for instance with a perfectly reasonable assumption,
such as "NO UNREASONABLE BEING IS FREE" - in other words, has free will.
This is ...
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What is the official name of the "but sometimes" logical fallacy or cognative bias?
Context
We often put equal importance on differing options, without taking factors such as frequency or risk into account.
Examples
Traffic Lights
In their video The LED Traffic Light and the Danger ...
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Is it fallacious to argue that something is correct, of good quality, or acceptable because a community of experts has established it as such?
Earlier today, I asked a programming question on a forum. I phrased the question as "What is the best way to do x?" Someone responded with something to the effect of, "the best way is ...
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What Logic fallacy is Person 1 using in this?
Person 1: Vaccines can cause Autism
Person 2: If it can cause Autism, why does all the Studies not support that in any way?
Person 1: Actually I'm not saying it does but "Maybe" it can cause ...
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fallacy for shifting among multiple premises in argument without defending any
Has any name been assigned for a class of informal fallacy (or cognitive bias) in which someone shifts in dialog between use of various premises to support an argument, without ever allowing any to be ...
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Scotsman? "You'll know a true x when he does y" (y = false conclusion)
Sounds like a No True Scotsman but does not seem to fit its description.
For example:
"You'll know a true libertarian when he takes bribes from the
government he hates"
The conclusion is ...
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"Tell me who you vote for and I'll tell you how homophobic you are"
What fallacy/fallacies is this? Faulty Generalization? Ad Hominem? Association fallacy? False Cause? All? Others?
For context, this has been said in the forum of a political party in the context of a ...
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What logical fallacy involves claiming the opposition hasn't researched/studied enough?
I'm trying to find the name of any logical fallacy that involves claiming that the opposition hasn't done enough research to effectively participate in the debate. I've read through a hundred or so ...
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Fallacy: Pointing Other Dirty Houses
Your house is perhaps the dirtiest house in the world, yet when someone criticizes that multiple times, your reaction is, "Will you also criticize the other dirty houses?"
Is there a name ...
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What logical fallacy is "if some of my enemies/adversaries affirm my claim then it is correct"?
I apologize if this question has been asked before or if the question is poorly worded.
Consider the following situations:
(1) two religious sects, say X and Y are fiercely adversaries. To convince ...
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Where is the flaw in the bank robber's argument?
In Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books, the protagonist is an antihero thief. At one point he makes the argument that bank robbery is a victimless crime and is, in fact, a societal good ...
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What do you call refusing to accept any proposition when there is any remote possibility it could be false?
What do you call the philosophical position of a person who radically denies any knowledge saying the contrary might be true.
Example:
Aspirin cures headaches.
Response: There are people on which ...
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Looking for an answer on a fallacy or debate tactic to discredit the other person
I am trying to find out what it is called when you disagree with a certain group on the status, tactics, view, etc so they call you exactly what they are against just to discredit your viewpoint. Even ...
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Is there a non-preemptive version of Poisoning the Well fallacy?
Poisoning the well seems to rely on ad hominem happening prior to hearing the source's arguments. But what happens if the ad hominen/discrediting happens after hearing their arguments? What would such ...
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Does the brain in a vat problem shift the burden of proof?
When I've encountered arguments about the brain in a vat problem, they went something like
We could be brains in a vat, with a simulated reality,
how could we know we are not?
But isn't this ...
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Bias or fallacy of assuming rank when two things differ?
Is there a name for the assumption that, if two options or things are different from each other, one must be necessarily better than the other?
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"denial in discussion until full knowledge" fallacy
Is this a fallacy, to forbid any discussion until the opposing side is completely familiar with the basis for your arguments? And deny any counterarguments as caused by ignorance. If it is, what is ...
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Question on fallicious argument (appeal to popularity)
We are currently learning about fallacies and need help to clarify our understanding.
Take these 2 arguments:
When walking downtown, the majority of people I asked told me that the metro was on the ...
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Is there a name for this combination of generalization and the No True Scotsman fallacy?
The pattern:
When specific members of the Other Group display reprehensible behavior, they are cited as evidence that the Other Group as a whole is reprehensible.
When specific members of My Group ...
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What type of logical fallacy / assumption is this?
Is the following a type of logical fallacy? It's a false assumption from my understanding however I would like to understand more regarding the type of fallacy.
A jelly bean is a type of lolly or ...
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What is the name of the fallacy where people assume that complex ideas are automatically better?
I often hear variations of the following premise in people's discussions:
Your argument is too simplistic
Which means that this simplicity is undesirable for some reason not present in the argument. ...
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Hume's induction using circularity fallacy
Hello everyone, i was going through this reading of a book in which it present Hume's induction wrong using circularity . I was trying to find some error in it as given there but could not pinpoint ...
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Is demanding an ureasonable and unrealistic amount of sources a logical fallacy?
Let's suppose the following:
Person 1: All scientists agree that the sun is real.
Person 2: Oh yeah, why don't you list every single scientists as proof?
Here's another example:
Person 1: Humanoid ...
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What makes a fallacy... a fallacy?
According to Wikipedia, a fallacy is "the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or 'wrong moves' in the construction of an argument". I'm curious, however, about how are some things ...
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Is this an example of epistemic fallacy?
Is the following an instance of the epistemic fallacy (Wikipedia also calls this the "masked-man fallacy" or the "intensional fallacy"):
Premise 1: Bob supports Policy A
Premise 2:...
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Is the burden of proof a fallacy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the
other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of
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What is the logical fallacy that we face here?
Turkish government is going through some hard times as one of the mafia leaders started to publish youtube videos against the government officials. Although it is unrelated with the question, for ...
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What bias it would be called?
When someone thinks that he is being biased towards selecting option 1 (between option 1 and option 2) and hence he switched into option 2 where his correct decision would actually be selecting option ...
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Structure of "affirming the consequent fallacy"
The formal structure of affirming the consequent fallacy is,
P1 - If A is true, then B is true
P2 - B is true
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C - Therefore, A is true
Now if I give another similar ...
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What fallacy would be appropriate?
Someone claimed,
If cigarette is the cause of cancer, then why someone who is non smoker got cancer?
I think there are multiple fallacies we can point for this claim, i.e.
Hasty generalization
Non ...
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Fallacy by Sherlock Holmes 'Eliminate the impossible, and what remains must be the truth'
In The Sign of Four, Holmes asks Watson: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
This may be ...
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