That was Fallacious!
Accent
Definition:
This fallacy occurs when the meaning of some evidence is distorted by a change in emphasis. This can mean taking evidence out of context, etc. (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
When the suspect was being interrogated by the officer, the suspect realizes he is being falsely accused of shooting the clerk. In disbelief, he asks, "I shot the clerk?" The officer says, "yes, when did you shoot the clerk?" The suspect then asks, "I shot the clerk?"
The officer then misused the suspect's statement in court by saying it was a confession, leaving out the suspect's voice inflections, taking those words out of the context of the rest of his statement, etc.
Homer Simpson Ad Hominem Abusive.movAd Hominem: Abusive
Definition:
Literally meaning "to the person," the ad hominem fallacy is committed when an argument is directed at an opponent instead of at the opponent's argument (McKissick, 2019). Ad hominem abusive is a variation that employs attacks about an opponent's alleged personal characteristics.
Example from video:
Alone on stage, Homer Simpson begins by saying, "I'm sorry my opponent didn't think enough of you to show up for this debate." When joined by his opponent, he proceeds to make more personal attacks that have nothing to do with the purpose of the debate.
Finally, Homer's opponent responds with his own Ad Hominem attack.
Ad Hominem: Circumstantial
Definition:
Because of an arguers personal stake in the matter, or a position taken previously, the arguer is attacked instead of the arguer's reasoning (McKissick, 2019).
Example from photo:
Representative Maxine Waters accused Republican senators hearing evidence in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump of being unwilling to pay the political cost of convicting the President.
Her reference to the political situation of those senators disregards and distracts from relevant issues and evidence in the trial.
See also Name Calling and Ad Hominem Abusive.
Ad Hominem: Poisoning The Well
Definition:
Poisoning the Well is an ad hominem fallacy in which the opposing arguer is attacked before even making an argument (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
Ted Cruz is accused of lying whenever he speaks, which would include any of his arguments subsequent to this attack ad.
Again, this attack has no apparent relevance to any public policy issue, etc., that Ted Cruz tries to address.
Ad Hominem: Tu Quoque
Definition:
Meaning "Thou also" or "you're another," this fallacy is committed when an accusation is countered by accusing the accuser of the same thing (McKissick, 2019).
Example from photo:
Former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal argued against birthright citizenship for the children of non-citizens born in the United States (so-called "anchor babies").
This Tu Quoque Ad Hominem attack on Jindal disregards relevant arguments on the topic of birthright citizenship by instead accusing him of hypocrisy.
Tu Quoque attacks closely relate to what has been termed "whataboutism."
Argumentum Ad Nauseam
Definition:
The technique of persuasion by sheer repetition of a claim or argument (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
The phrase "Apply directly to forehead" is frequently repeated to convince consumers to buy the product.
Sheer repetition is substituted for addressing relevant issues about the medication's effectiveness, etc.
Argument from Ignorance
Definition:
This fallacy is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true because it has not been proven false, or that it is false simply because it has not been proven true. To argue on such a basis is to ignore the possibility of “not yet proven either true or false.”
Example from photo:
This Tweet was sent by Donald Trump soon after he was elected President by winning the Electoral College. In the same election, he lost the popular vote to his Democratic opponent.
Donald Trump made the claim that "millions" of votes for his opponent were fraudulent, which would thus be his burden to prove. That someone else has not disproved his claim is irrelevant.
See also, Ad Hominem Abusive
Bandwagon
Definition:
Occurs when you try to convince people that something is true because it is widely held to be true (Arp, et al., 2019).
Example from photo:
This ad is trying to convince you to buy hamburgers using the claim that over 99 billion hamburgers have been sold.
Appealing to the product's popularity is irrelevant to its actual merit (Ramage, et al., 2016).
Begging the Question
Definition:
Begging the Question is a variation of Questionable Premise in which the the main proposition that is the subject of the argumentation is assumed true before it is proven. (McKissick, 2019).
Example from the graphic:
In the examples from Twitter, two candidates for the 2020 Democratic Party nomination for President seem to be assuming not only that they will be nominated, but that they will then be elected. Neither was even nominated, let alone elected (but one did become Vice President of the United States).
This fallacy has also been called "assuming the outcome" or "assuming the thesis."
Circular Argument (Circulus in Probando)
Definition:
This fallacy is committed when two unproved propositions are used to prove each other (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
(At 2:10 in the video) Sheldon said, "I don't know where you just came from, but it couldn't have been a team meeting, because I'm on the team, and I wasn't there, ergo the team did not meet."
Hillary Clinton's Complex Question.movComplex Question (Loaded Question)
Definition:
This fallacy is committed when an unproved premise is included in a question (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
In the First Presidential Debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (9/26/2020), Clinton asked Trump "Do the thousands of people that you have stiffed over the course of your business not deserve an apology from someone who has taken their labor, taken the goods they produced and then refused to pay them?" (https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/clinton-trump-apologize-workers-228724)
The complex (loaded) question includes the questionable premise that he did indeed cheat "the thousands of people," which he denies.
See also Fallacious Appeal to the People, Plain Folks.
Concurrency Fallacy
(See Post Hoc Fallacy, below.)
Equivocation
Definition:
Any critical term in an argument must be used consistently, or the fallacy of equivocation has been committed.
Example from video:
In this example, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany refers to Amy Coney Barrett, nominee for Supreme Court Justice, as a "Rhodes Scholar," a term applied to recipients of a specific high-status scholarship to Oxford University in Great Britain.
When the error is pointed out to her, McEnany then concedes that Barret was not a Rhodes Scholar, but rather a graduate of Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee. (The term "scholar" may be used to simply mean student.)
Fallacious Appeal to Authority
Definition:
"It is fallacious to evoke the name and prestige of a person by citing that individual as a credible source when the matter in question is not in that person’s field of expertise or authority" (McKissick, 2020).
Example from video:
Celebrity Athlete Collin Kaepernick endorses MusclePharm supplements with references to "state of the art scientific research and the most advanced athlete-tested product development" even though he lacks the expertise to make such claims. Another concern with paid celebrity endorsers is the issue of impartiality: they are not disinterested parties (without personal gain) offering testimony.
The three people in the white lab coats are not identified and offer no testimony.
See also, Transfer, Fallacious Appeal to the People.
Fallacious Appeal to Force
Definition:
This fallacy could be termed “fallacious appeal to coercion,” in that any form of coercion (not just physical harm or the threat of it) may be used to achieve agreement with a claim, thus bypassing relevant issues (McKissick, 2020).
Example from the graphic:
In November of 2018, the Democrat controlled House of Representatives was holding hearings on whether or not to impeach President Donald Trump.
In this Tweet, the President threatens retaliation against the Democrats with investigations in the Republican controlled Senate. The threat is irrelevant to the merits of the case for impeachment against Donald Trump.
See also Ad Hominem Tu Quoque.
Fallacious Appeal to the People
Definition:
This fallacy is committed when there is an irrelevant appeal to emotion that uses common prejudices and passions in order to gain uncritical acceptance of an argument.
Example from video:
Celebrity Charlie Daniels evokes patriotism, fear, hostility, masculinity, tradition, etc. The images, music, and vocals all add to the emotional appeal.
None of this is clearly relevant to support for the NRA, or any particular public policy position.
See also, Transfer.
Faulty Analogy (False Equivalence)
Definition:
This fallacy is an argument based on a particularly weak or inappropriate comparison (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
Candidate for US Senate Joni Ernst compared cutting "pork" (a term for unnecessary government spending) with castrating hogs, for which she claims extensive experience. She also promises to "make them squeal," an apparent reference to political opponents.
Ernst is using a metaphor, which is, like a simile, a "figurative analogy" between two concepts that are not in the same category. All figurative analogies are logically faulty as proof.
See also, Plain Folks, Fallacious Appeal to the People, etc.
Glittering Generality
Definition:
A vague, richly emotive term with no clear meaning used in persuasion/argumentation (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
This video describes the product (breakfast cereal) as, "great," "supercharged," and "part of a good breakfast," which will "bring out the tiger in you."
These terms are emotive and appealing, but they are too vague to provide a reasonable basis on which to evaluate the product.
See also, Fallacious Appeal to the People.
Hasty Generalization
Definition:
This fallacy occurs when someone makes a broad generalization about a class or category on the basis of too few, or otherwise unrepresentative, examples. Also called the Fallacy of Faulty Sample. (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
Joe Biden carried the state of Pennsylvania over Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential Election, but the voter featured in the video expresses skepticism based on the impressive number of people ("20,000" to "30,000") who attended rallies supporting Donald Trump.
Despite such numbers, those attendees were not necessarily typical of the millions of Pennsylvania voters who did not attend the rallies.
See also, Accent Fallacy.
Irrelevant Argument
Definition:
Essentially, this is the fallacy of "changing the subject." An argument is made that is irrelevant to the topic at hand. It can manifest as not directly answering a question (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
While campaigning for the presidency , Donald Trump claimed that he knew "more about ISIS [the terrorist organization] than the generals."
When Trump was asked, "Do you still believe you know more than the generals?" Trump does not directly respond to the question and proceeds to continue changing the subject.
Name Calling/Labeling
Definition:
This fallacy is committed when insulting/demeaning words are applied to an individual or group. "Labeling" occurs when such terms are applied to an idea or argument (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
Olbermann uses a cascade of name calling and labeling.
The emotional impact of such language serves to distract from any rational discussion of Scott Brown's conduct or qualifications.
Also, see Ad Hominem Abusive
Non Sequitur
Definition:
This term means, "it does not follow." This fallacy occurs when an argument's premise is irrelevant to its conclusion (Arp., et al., 2019).
Example from video:
Michael notes that he is choosing a health plan for the employees. On that premise, he then claims that he "heals them," which does not follow.
He also concludes that makes him "their doctor ...in a way." Again, choosing a health care plan is irrelevant to that claim.
Also, see faulty analogy.
Plain Folk
Definition:
The opposite of Snob Appeal. This technique involves associating a person or idea with the "ordinary" or "common" person, or with the values associated with such people (McKissick, 2019).
Example from photo:
President Barack Obama shoots baskets on the White House basketball court with Justin Friedlander and his family, July 6, 2010. Friedlander, who was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in March, 2009, has launched an initiative called ÒJustinÕs Quest,Ó, in which he will shoot 40,000 basketball shots, one for every person diagnosed with a primary brain tumor each year in the United States. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Here, you can see the President of the United States playing basketball with children, associating himself with common people.
Post Hoc Fallacy
(and Concurrency Fallacy)
Definition:
The complete name of this fallacy is "Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc" (Latin for "after this, therefore because of this"). It is the fallacy of claiming that one event is the cause of a subsequent event merely because it happened first (McKissick, 2019).
Example from the video:
In the first segment of the video, Sheldon's mother thought that because she prayed for her son's safe arrival, he arrived safely.
The sequence of events is not, in itself, adequate proof of cause.
The Concurrency Fallacy is a variation of this fallacy that is even weaker logically. In this variation, two events occurring at the same time are inferred to be cause and effect, without even indicating which occurred first.
Questionable Premise
Definition:
A Questionable Premise occurs when the reasoning/evidence in an argument is untrue, or when their is significant doubt about its truth. (Premise is another term for reasoning or a statement used as evidence.)
Example from the graphic:
This August 1, 2020 Instagram post included a claim that California voters would be “turned away” from polling places unless they changed their voting preference to “No to mail in voting.”
The claim was investigated by Politifact, which found it to be untrue. Their determination was based on interviews with the California Secretary of State, among other sources, as explained in a post dated September 1, 2020. (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/sep/01/instagram-posts/social-media-posts-make-false-claim-ca-voters-will/#sources)
Snob Appeal
Definition:
The opposite of Plain Folks, this technique is an appeal to elitism. It plays on popular desires to be more sophisticated or fashionable, to obtain certain status symbols, etc. (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
This commercial shows one status symbol after another: the home, the sheets, the shower, etc. The word "luxury" also connotes higher status.
The elitism associated with the status symbols is associated with the product.
See also, Transfer.
Strawmanship
Definition:
This fallacy is committed when a persuader's position/argument is misrepresented in order to better attack it (McKissick, 2019).
Example from photo:
This tweet, supposedly from Donald Trump, was forwarded on Twitter along with harsh criticism of Trump for alleged disrespect of community colleges and community college students.
According to Snopes, fact-checking determined that the tweet was fabricated, and not a message from Donald Trump (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-say-community-college-13th-grade/).
See also Questionable Premise, Fallacious Appeal to the People, etc.
Transfer
Definition:
Sometimes simply surrounding something with various symbols will cause a "transfer" of positive or negative feelings about one into feelings about another (McKissick, 2019).
Example from video:
The commercial has images meant to evoke positive feelings, which are meant to transfer to the product (a Carl's Jr. salad).
This commercial includes a sexual appeal, logically irrelevant to salad.
See also Snob Appeal, Fallacious Appeal to the People, etc.