Question

explain in your own words how the fallacy is revealed through analysis

Answer 1

Fallacies are defects that weaken arguments. By learning to look for them in your own and others’ writing, you can strengthen your ability to evaluate the arguments you make, read, and hear. It is important to realize two things about fallacies: first, fallacious arguments are very, very common and can be quite persuasive, at least to the casual reader or listener. You can find dozens of examples of fallacious reasoning in newspapers, advertisements, and other sources. Second, it is sometimes hard to evaluate whether an argument is fallacious. An argument might be very weak, somewhat weak, somewhat strong, or very strong. An argument that has several stages or parts might have some strong sections and some weak ones. The goal of this handout, then, is not to teach you how to label arguments as fallacious or fallacy-free, but to help you look critically at your own arguments and move them away from the “weak” and toward the “strong” end of the continuum.

If you can spot logical flaws, you can save yourself from bad information.  

This includes defending yourself from politicians, sales people, diet books, doctors, and even your own kids.  

In logical arguments, where logic matters, it’s important to avoid your own logical fallacies, as well as spot them in counter-arguments.  

In rhetoric, your overall persuasion is more important than logic.  

While logic plays a role, it’s also about emotion and character.

The key thing is don’t start trying to spot logic fallacies in all your conversations.  

Instead, spot fallacies when logic really counts such as a logical debate or when you are making important decisions based on information based on logic.

Bad Proofs

This includes three sins:

• The false comparison, such as lumping examples into the wrong categories.
• bad examples
• ignorance as proof, such as asserting that the lack of examples proves something.

Wrong Number of Choices

This is the case where you simply don’t have the right number of choices. Either you are offered two choices when there’s actually more, or three choices are merged into one.

Disconnect Between Proof and Conclusion

This includes:

• The proof and conclusion are identical
• The red herring (a distraction)
• The wrong ending (the proof fails to lead to the conclusion)