160
votes
Why do they say I am committing a fallacy when I am just insulting someone?
Because they expect arguments, not inflammatory noise
No, I am calling them an idiot because that's ... just my bloody opinion.
Exactly that: just your opinion. An opinion is not an argument; it ...
- 5,229
78
votes
Why do they say I am committing a fallacy when I am just insulting someone?
If an opinion isn't intended as an argument, it is noise
Frankly, nobody wants to hear your opinion unless you have some point to make about it.
You can have the opinion that a person is an idiot, ...
- 1,157
75
votes
Accepted
What is the fallacy “X is bad, Y is worse, therefore X is not bad” called?
This is (at least a subset of) the fallacy of relative privation.
From Wikipedia >> List of Fallacies >> Red herring fallacies
Fallacy of relative privation ("not as bad as") – dismissing an
...
- 856
74
votes
Is the “no true Scotsman'” fallacy actually a fallacy?
To my understanding, the no true Scotsman fallacy is not captured in the syllogism
No Scotsman microwaves his tea.
Angus microwaves his tea.
therefore Angus is not a Scotsman.
Rather, it may be ...
- 1,435
73
votes
Accepted
Is “If white privilege exists, why did Elizabeth Warren pretend to be an Indian?" a fallacy, and if so, which one?
“If you are so smart why aren't you rich?” “If this country is so bad why don't you leave?” “If it is so easy why aren't you doing it?” These types of rhetorical barbs rely on what is called an ...
- 43.8k
68
votes
If a person claims to know anything could it be disproven by saying 'prove that we are not in a simulation'?
The issue here, as it often is, is that colloquial English is horribly ambiguous, which makes any sort of precise and rigorous discussion difficult. But with sufficient effort, it is possible to make ...
- 1,359
68
votes
Is Yoda committing a fallacy?
The argument you're trying to formulate (as a rebuttal to Yoda) is this:
do successfully IMPLIES try
fail to do IMPLIES try
THEREFORE
(do successfully OR fail to do) IMPLIES try
However, this ...
- 30.4k
61
votes
Fallacy by Sherlock Holmes 'Eliminate the impossible, and what remains must be the truth'
There's a fallacy called Holmesian fallacy.
A Holmesian fallacy (also Sherlock Holmes fallacy or process of elimination fallacy) is a logical fallacy that occurs when some explanation is believed to ...
- 3,965
51
votes
Does the no true Scotsman fallacy apply to anti Stalinist etc. communism?
Marx, socialism and communism
Neither Marx nor Engels provided a blueprint for the socialist state. There could in their view be no such thing as a communist state since under communism, with no ...
- 35.9k
50
votes
Is it a fallacy if someone claims they need an explanation for every word of your argument to the point where they don't understand common terms?
A fallacy in an argument requires that there be an argument at all.
What you're describing:
Then someone counters, "What do you mean by 'bites'? Define 'biting people'. Define 'dog'."
is not even ...
- 601
49
votes
I have trouble understanding this fallacy: "If A, then B. Therefore if not-B, then not-A."
There are multiple good answers here, including references to modus tollens and the contrapositive (both of which are correct).
What helps me understand this concept is a more intuitive/layman's ...
- 599
47
votes
Accepted
What fallacy is the belief that we are special because our existence on Earth seems improbable an example of?
I believe you're thinking of the anthropic principle. There are actually two variations:
The strong anthropic principle says that the universe was made the way it is so that humans could exist.
The ...
- 836
44
votes
Isn't the notion that everything will occur in an infinite timeline an example of the gambler's fallacy?
It looks like you've hit upon the concept of almost surely in probability theory. Something occurs "almost surely" if it happens with probability 1, but there still exist situations where that thing ...
- 1,204
44
votes
Fallacy by Sherlock Holmes 'Eliminate the impossible, and what remains must be the truth'
Holmes' advice is correct if and only if you assume a complete search was done to list all possibilities before starting the elimination process.
Note that Sherlock Holmes is both incredibly observant,...
- 1,330
41
votes
What is this logical fallacy? (Nothing new under the sun?)
Its a funny thing. Like David Blomstrom, I don't think this is actually a fallacy.
The trick is that, in order to have a logical fallacy, one must have a logical argument. This consists of premises ...
- 18.4k
40
votes
What fallacy is the belief that we are special because our existence on Earth seems improbable an example of?
The underlying problem (and fallacy) with this argument is sometimes referred to as the 'Texas Sharpshooter' fallacy.
One is standing from a position of a known situation and asking what are the odds ...
- 401
39
votes
Is attacking an argument because it's machine generated an ad hominem fallacy?
It is fallacious to make the formal argument that a conclusion is false because of its provenance.
It not fallacious to dismiss an argument out of hand because it comes from a source which is well ...
- 7,328
38
votes
Accepted
Is there a name for the fallacy whereby the other party to the debate only suggests, does not articulate, what their point is?
First, my standard observation that the term 'fallacy' is often misused. A fallacy, properly put, is a mistake in the structure of an argument that makes a claim invalid without considering the sense ...
- 22k
37
votes
Is reductio ad absurdum a fallacy?
Reductio ad absurdum is not a fallacy. Rather, RAA is correct reasoning that exposes a fallacy. From the Logically Fallacious page for it:
[RAA is a] mode of argumentation or a form of argument in ...
- 6,596
36
votes
Is there a fallacy about "appeal to 'big words'"?
One fallacy that might fit is proof by intimidation. Here is Bo Bennett's description:
Making an argument purposely difficult to understand in an attempt to intimidate your audience into accepting ...
- 19.6k
35
votes
What type of rhetorical device is the offering of a source which is really long and not specifying what part of the source is relevant?
In general, if your opponent insists on claiming that her source provides substantiation in a way it clearly does not, that is false attribution, however, it should be noted that such a counterclaim ...
- 31.7k
35
votes
Is reductio ad absurdum a fallacy?
Your example is not a valid case of Reductio ad Absurdum. It's just an example of an absurd argument.
A real example would be:
Miles: "Copying a DVD is stealing"
Frank: "Why?"
Miles: "If ...
- 500
34
votes
What fallacy is assuming something is the case because of past events
This is not a fallacy, just the old problem of induction. A case of hasty generalisation would be to conclude that the witness tends to lie, if you have observed it two times in a row.
- 1,008
34
votes
Accepted
Where is the fallacy here?
When you say "the phenomenon of cats being born into this world is natural," what that means is, "the phenomenon of cats being born into this world is part of the set of natural phenomena." In other ...
- 534
34
votes
What is the name of the fallacy where people assume that complex ideas are automatically better?
If somebody said "your argument is simple, therefore it is wrong", that would definitely be a fallacy. But that is not what "your argument is too simplistic" is supposed to mean. ...
- 1,020
34
votes
Accepted
What kind of fallacy is it to say if abolition of something isn't possible, we shouldn't attempt to address it at all?
The fallacy is comparison to perfection. Commonly known as the Nirvana fallacy.
It is a common rhetorical maneuver. The person performing the move compares all opponents to perfection, finds them ...
- 1,015
33
votes
Is "I cannot imagine a mechanism for X to happen, so X can never happen" a named logical fallacy?
This fallacy is generally called argument from incredulity, or argument from failure of imagination. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity It also is a subset of the argument from ...
- 15.4k
33
votes
What fallacy is assuming something is the case because of past events
All informal fallacies take their force from their similarity to strong arguments. In this case, if you say "This boy lied 19 days in a row, therefore we have good reason to disbelieve him on Day 20,"...
- 30.4k
33
votes
Accepted
What is the name of this fallacy: 101 is either binary or decimal?
EDITED 9/11/2020
What is the name of this fallacy: Is 101 binary or decimal?
I prefer to call it the either-or fallacy, but it is also known as false dilemma among others. The idea is that a choice ...
- 31.7k
33
votes
Is it fallacious to argue that something is correct, of good quality, or acceptable because a community of experts has established it as such?
Well, if I asked a community of non-experts how to perform key-hole surgery and I also asked a community of doctors, I am more likely to get a better answer from the second group. But of course, these ...
- 48.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible