LOGICAL FALLACIES Learning Outcomes

LOGICAL FALLACIES

• Learning Outcomes • Identify and describe logical fallacies and other bad arguments • Identify the different types of logical fallacies • Identify logical fallacies in selected texts

• What is wrong with these arguments? • Smoking isn’t bad for you; my granddad smoked thirty a day for his whole life and lived to be 92. • Saudi Arabia has a law that forbids women from driving. This is a good idea because all women are bad drivers. • People are poor because they choose to be poor so we should not help them. • If you spend too much time playing computer games you will not do well in school.

Logical Fallacies An error in reasoning due to misunderstanding, presumption or bias They appeal to emotions and bias rather than reason Think about and write some examples

“AD HOMINEM” • “Ad Hominem” is Latin for “against the man”. • It is the fallacy of attacking the person rather than offering the argument itself.

Ad hominems can be abuse: e. g. “don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot”. Any attack on the person's character, nationality or religion of the arguer rather than on his argument counts as an ad hominem. • Think about and write some examples

WHERE’S A FAULT? Margaret knows nothing about fixing cars. She is a woman.

CORRELATION NOT CAUSATION E. g. Since you started seeing that girl your grades have gone down. She’s obviously been distracting you from your work, so you mustn’t see her anymore. Where’s fallacy? Write one example of your own

CORRELATION NOT CAUSATION …is when one reasons that just because two things are found together (i. e. are correlated) there must be a direct causal connection between them. Event C happened immediately prior to event E. Therefore, C caused E.

RESTRICTING THE OPTIONS It is an attempt to justify an action or conclusion by making it seem as though there aren't any other options. Senator Jill: "We'll have to cut education funding this year. " Senator Bill: "Why? " Senator Jill: "Well, either we cut the social programs or we live with a huge deficit and we can't live with the deficit. “ Think about and write an example

STRAWMAN. . is when one misrepresents someone’s argument to make it easier to attack. Example: After Will said that we should put more money into health and education, Warren responded by saying that he was surprised that Will hates our country so much that he wants to leave it defenseless by cutting military spending. Thing about and write and example

HASTY GENERALIZATION. . is when arguments use specific cases to support general conclusions. E. g. “Smoking isn’t bad for you; my grandad smoked thirty a day for his whole life and lived to be 92. ” Think about and write an example

• Look at the cartoon on global warming sceptics and list the different types of logical fallacies that are used