Appendix Major Fallacies in Logic1

‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedle, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.

—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Question Framing: A well-framed question determines what facts are relevant Baconian: Conducting research without specific questions or hypotheses Declarative: Making an assertion instead of answering a question False dichotomy: Implying incorrectly that only two possibilities exist Fictional question: Answering by speculation Many questions: Demanding one answer to complex or multiple questions Metaphysical question: Answering a non-empirical question empirically Semantic: Supporting a position with opinion not evidence Shallow question: Asking a question nobody needs answered Tautology: Asking a question so that it is true by definition

Proof: Evidence that does not prove what it claims Circular: Assuming what is to be proved Hypostatized: Refusing to consider contrary evidence Insufficient: Asserting a proof rather than providing one Irrelevant: Answering a question that was not asked Misplaced precision: Using greater precision than warranted Negative: Claiming something is true because its opposite is false Outrage: Anger or injury alone never proves a person expressing it is correct.

Causation: Connections can be contributory, necessary, sufficient, or accidental Cum hoc, Propter hoc: Mistaking correlation for causation Identity: Assuming the cause must resemble the effect Indiscriminate pluralism: Making the simple seem complicated Mechanistic: Assuming parts of a whole work independently Post hoc, Propter hoc: Assuming one event caused a latter event Pro hoc, Propter hoc: Putting the effect before the cause Reductive: Treating complex events as having a single cause

Significance: Giving facts more or less importance than deserved Aesthetic: Placing elegance or beauty above truth Antinomian: Treating quantification or measurement as dehumanizing Damning the origin: Claiming a faulty source cannot be right about anything Essences: Using an unobservable characteristic as proof Furtive: Asserting an unlikely conspiracy based on circumstantial evidence Holist: Selecting trivial facts to fit a theory, ignoring major exceptions Moralistic: Judging friends and foes by different standards Pragmatic: Selecting trivial facts to support a cause Prodigious: Exaggerating the significance of a common event Quantitative: Treating only quantified facts as important

Generalization: The extent to which findings may be extended to new situations Composition: Assuming that what is true of a part must also be true of the whole Extrapolation: Assuming a trend will continue unchanged Gamblers: Assuming probabilities operate in the short run Impressionism: Treating impressions as precise data Interpolation: Assuming all data lies on a straight line. Lonely fact: Generalizing from a single instance Special pleading: Obscuring inconvenient data with rhetoric Sampling: Treating sample size as more important than sampling method

Semantic Distortion: Errors originating with faulty language Accent: Distorting by emphasis or innuendo Amphiboly: Obscuring meaning by syntax or euphemism Equivocation: Using a term in two ways Quibbling: The only difference is the way the term is defined

Narration: Untenable explanations of events Anachronism: Ascribing something to the wrong time Archetype: Erroneously treating a primordial concept as a prototype Didactic: Bending facts to extract a predetermined lesson or meaning Genetic: Mistaking process for outcome Periodization: Setting inappropriate temporal boundaries Presentism: Interpreting the past in terms of current values Static: Treating events as having a foreordained conclusion Tunnel Vision: Separating related events

Analogy: Falsely inferring that something similar in one way is similar in others Absurd: Claiming similarities that are ridiculous False: Drawing analogy from a mistaken similarity Literalist: Taking metaphors, myths, or figures of speech literally Perfect: Mistaking partial for total resemblance Prediction by analogy: Assuming that the future will be like the past

Motivation: Explanations of why people do things Apathetic: Treating animate creatures as objects Good reason: Offers a euphemism instead of the actual reason Historian’s: Assuming participants in events knew outcomes beforehand Man-Mass: Using one individual to represent everyone in a group Mass Man: Treating all people in a group as being the same One-dimensional Man: Explaining everything by one characteristic Pathetic: Attributing animate behavior or feelings to inanimate objects Self-righteousness: Claiming actions of the “morally pure” cannot be questioned Universal Man: Ignoring cultural, historical, and individual differences Zero-sum: economic transactions are total gain to one and total loss to the other

Substantive Distraction: Diverts attention from reasoned argument Ad antiquitam: Assuming something is true because it is old Ad baculum: Assuming that might makes right Ad crumenem: Measuring truth by money Ad hominem: Attacking the person not the argument Ad misericordiam: Claims pitiable people deserve special consideration Ad nauseum: Sustaining a thesis by repetition Ad novitam: Assuming something is true because it is new Ad temperatum: Assuming the truth lies midway between the extremes Ad verecudiam: Appealing to (often irrelevant) authority or expertise Reductio ad absurdum: An argument so ridiculous it refutes itself Footnote

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