Bo Bennett - Logically Fallacious

Logically Fallacious

The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies

Written By

B O B ENNETT

http://www.LogicallyFallacious.com

eBookIt.com

365 Boston Post Road, #311

Sudbury, MA 01776

First edition - March 2012

http://www.ebookit.com

Copyright 2012, eBookIt.com

ISBN: 978-1-4566-0737-1

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Contents

Preface

Several years back, while entering some kind of early-stage, intellectual, mid-life crisis, I became passionate about science, philosophy, and religion, which eventually led to my starting a debate website called DebateGod ( http://www.debategod.org ), as a way to help me understand how other people think, and come to the conclusions they do. What I never imagined, is that this little side project of mine would result in hours a day of evaluating arguments, reasoning, and logic, opening my eyes to a world of truth, hidden by a world of fallacious reasoning .

But this discovery did not happen overnight.

After years of what I considered eloquent defense of my positions, I found that I was getting nowhere (in part, because those with whom I was debating did not value logic and reason, but more on that later); despite my facts being correct. My positions, those which I could confidently defend, were being over shadowed by what appeared to be well-crafted, air tight, arguments from the opposition, supporting the literal and historical existence of a talking snake, a 6000 year-old universe, and even a flat earth. At one point I actually thought I was in the Twilight Zone . But something had to be wrong; and something was.

As you might have already guessed, snakes really dont talk, the universe might be a bit older than 6000 years (give or take 13.7 billion years), our earth is about as flat as Dolly Partons chest, and every such similar argument is as flawed as the late Michael Jacksons late nose I just couldnt see why .

Then one day, I picked up a textbook on argumentation. This opened my eyes to a whole new area of study which led me to the study of logic (both formal and informal ) , reasoning, persuasion, critical thinking, rationality, rhetoric, the existence of cognitive biases, and fallacious reasoning . I felt like Neo learning Kung-Fu I devoured as much information as I could in these areas and could not stop. I can honestly say that I now see clearly what I missed the first 38 years of my life deception, erroneous thinking, and faulty reasoning, coming from others as well as coming from myself.

With my new superpower, I deconstructed many of my long-held beliefs and my reasons for having them. Let me tell you, this is a very humbling experience. My attitude changed towards those with bad reasons for holding different beliefs, because I now realize that our emotional, and often irrational, unreasonable, and illogical brains get in the way. It is this secret that every human being should know. Once we know that our brains deceive us, we can learn how they deceive us, how to recognize such deception, than allow our logic and reason to triumph.

For so long I have been trying to debunk one superstitious and/or irrational belief after another, which is like giving people intellectual fish, rather than teaching them how to intellectually fish for themselves. And then it hit me...

This book is a crash course, meant to catapult you into a world where you start to see things how they really are, not how you think they are . The focus of this book is on logical fallacies, which loosely defined, are simply errors in reasoning. With the reading of each page, you can make significant improvements in the way you reason and make decisions. And Ill bet you $1 that once you start reading this book you will find it difficult to stop. If I win, save your money and relish in your newly found enlightenment. If you find this book doesnt interest you, then you can just send me the $1 by mail. Otherwise, enjoy the book!

Introduction

While this book is written for the layperson, we do need to at least introduce some concepts which may be new to you, but play an important role in reasoning, as well as issue a few warnings, and explain how this book is organized. But first, lets answer the question, whats up with the title?

In debating claims against the supernatural, I have found that in virtually all situations, what is trying to be passed off as a magically delicious argument, it is actually just logically fallacious no magic involved. Using bad logic and fallacious reasoning, one can easily create an argument making some use of magic look like the only reasonable conclusion, when in fact, the reasonable conclusion is that the argument is fallacious. Although this book and the examples within extend in all areas where reason is required, the name still works. Besides, the domain name was available.

Reasoning

Humans have the capacity to establish and verify facts, to change and justify beliefs, and in general, to make sense of things. We do this by reason , and the process of doing so is called reasoning . While virtually all healthy humans are capable of reasoning, an alarmingly small percentage of us are actually any good at it. This is due to many reasons which we will be exploring throughout this book.

Arguments

When we hear the word argument, we tend to think of a confrontational argument between two or more people, with bickering, defensiveness, and increased negative emotions. This is only one kind of argument not the kind we will be focusing on in this book. In the more general sense, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something by giving reasons to accept a given conclusion . We make and hear arguments every day and often do not recognize them. We are constantly being bombarded with persuasion and led to conclusions, without being consciously aware. Sometimes the persuasion is very subtle, sometimes the reasons are implied, and sometimes the conclusion is assumed. For the purpose of this book, we just need to be able to recognize arguments when we hear them or make them.

An argument is made up of premises and a conclusion . The premises can also be referred to as reasons , supporting evidence , or claims . At times, our examples are just propositions or assertions a statement to be accepted.

I use the terms arguer and opponent or audience to represent the one making the argument and the person or persons considering the argument, respectively. Keep in mind that the arguer can be a political candidate, Jehovah's Witness, a spouse, the 17-year-old kid at the returns desk in Walmart, or anyone capable of rational communication, and the opponent/audience can be a police officer, your best friend, your spouse, or anyone capable of rational communication.

Deduction is a form of reasoning and argument in which the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. Sticking with the classic example:

If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. That is what makes an argument deductive. This is also referred to as a formal argument .

Arguments where the conclusion is merely based on probability, not necessity, are considered inductive arguments . These are usually constructed through inductive reasoning , which is the process of making general conclusions from specific instances. For example: