critical thinking

Question 1

what are the fallacies of irrelevance

Answer 1

straw man:
red herring: 
ad/hominem/ad feminem:
Irrelevant Comparison: 
Two Wrongs: 
False Dilemma:

Question 2

straw man:

Answer 2

the misrepresentation of an opponent’s position to help their own argument

Question 3

red herring

Answer 3

red herring: changing the argument (introduces an irrelevant issue to distract the opponent from the question at hand

Question 4

ad/hominem/ad feminem:

Answer 4

ad/hominem/ad feminem: discredit the opponent’s conclusions, by attacking the opponent and not the opponent’s argument

Question 5

irrelevant comparison

Answer 5

An arguer commits the fallacy of irrelevant comparison when s/he criticizes a policy or program for not achieving goals that the program was never expected to achieve

Question 6

two wrongs

Answer 6

when they try to defend her/his (or another’s) action by citing the similar acts of other which are also wrong.

Question 7

false dilema

Answer 7

when they present a dilemma as if it exhausted the possible choices facing his/her opponent, but in fact, there are more choices available. This term is often used to criticize any kind of narrow-minded thinking which fails to entertain all relevant alternatives. For example: “Which would you rather have, the Russians dominating the world or Canada assisting the U.S. in testing its Cruise missile?”

Question 8

fallacies of insufficient reason

Answer 8

• popularity
• illegitimate appeal to
• authority
• hasty generalization
• anecdotal evidence argument - from ignorance
• questionable cause
• reduction ad absurdum

Question 9

popularity

Answer 9

arguer attempts to defend his/her position by citing the widespread activities or beliefs of others

BUT great many common practices are common not because they are right, but because people are morally weak.

Question 10

illegitimate appeal to authority

Answer 10

referencing an authority in an argument

**It is absolutely imperative if one makes an appeal to an authority, that a trail is left so that the skeptic can find his/her way to the actual argument. That is why footnoting, endnotes and appropriate bibliographical references are so crucial in academia.

Question 11

hasty generalization

Answer 11

sweeping claims often based on little to no evidence

Question 12

anecdotal evidence

Answer 12

when one treats the anecdote or story as conclusive evidence when, at best, it is only one case – a very small sample.

Question 13

argument from ignorance

Answer 13

when on the basis of lack of evidence, s/he concludes that her/his position is correct.

** A lack of documented cases does not provide evidence for safety, in other words, the ABSENCE of EVIDENCE does not indicate EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE.

Question 14

questionable cause

Answer 14

A claim that one event causes another is fallacious if there is not sufficient evidence to support the claimed correlation, or if a mere correlation is taken as proof of a causal relationship

Question 15

reduction ad absurdum

Answer 15

A principle used in the argument leads to an “absurdity.” To demonstrate this fallacy, show that a position held by someone has implications that that person finds unacceptable, thus forcing them to modify their position.

Question 16

Fallacies of Problematic Premise

Answer 16

begging the question

faulty analogy

Question 17

begging the question

Answer 17

when they uses a premise that is either identical to their conclusion or equally controversial as the conclusion,

EX: “Post-secondary fees should remain frozen.” (conclusion) “Students have a right to a high quality education at an affordable price.” (premise) Who says students have a right to high quality education at an affordable price? The premise itself is open to debate and is not sufficient to support the conclusion. Making this conclusion begs the questioning of the premise.

Question 18

faulty analogy

Answer 18

The more remote an analogy the more difficult to assess its value and the less we should give it any plausibility