Fallacies

Question 1

Anecdotal Evidence

Answer 1

One of the simplest fallacies is to rely on anecdotal evidence. For example: “Violent crime is on the increase because you hear a lot more about it on the news these days.” It’s quite valid to use personal experience to illustrate a point; but such anecdotes don’t really prove anything to anyone. Your friend may say he met Elvis in the supermarket, but those who haven’t had the same experience will require more than your friend’s anecdotal evidence to convince them.

Question 2

Argumentum ad baculum / Appeal to force

Answer 2

An Appeal to Force happens when someone resorts to force (or the threat of force) to try and push others to accept a conclusion. This fallacy is often used by politicians, and can be summarized as “might makes right”. The threat doesn’t have to come directly from the person arguing. For example: “If you don’t turn to Jesus Christ, you’ll burn in Hell!” “… In any case, I know your phone number and I know where you live. Have I mentioned I am licensed to carry concealed weapons?”

Question 3

Argumentum ad hominem

Answer 3

Argumentum ad Hominem literally means “argument directed at the man”. There are two types, abusive and circumstantial. If you argue against some assertion by attacking the person who made the assertion, then you have committed the abusive form of argumentum ad hominem. A personal attack isn’t a valid argument, because the truth of an assertion doesn’t depend on the virtues of the person asserting it. For example: “No intelligent person could believe in Creation.” Sometimes in a court of law doubt is cast on the testimony of a witness. For example, the prosecution might show that the witness is a known perjurer. This is a valid way of reducing the credibility of the testimony given by the witness, and not Argumentum ad Hominem. However, it doesn’t demonstrate that the witness’s testimony is false. If you argue that someone should accept the truth of an assertion because of that person’s particular circumstances, then you have committed the circumstantial form of argumentum ad hominem. For example: “It is perfectly acceptable to kill animals for food. How can you argue otherwise when you’re quite happy to wear leather shoes?” This is an abusive charge of inconsistency, used as an excuse for dismissing the opponent’s argument. The fallacy can also be used as a means of rejecting a particular conclusion. For example: “Of course you would argue that positive discrimination is a bad thing. You’re white.” This particular form of Argumentum ad Hominem, when you allege that someone is rationalizing a conclusion for selfish reasons, is also known as “poisoning the well”.

Question 4

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

Answer 4

Argumentum ad ignorantiam means “argument from ignorance”. The fallacy occurs when it’s argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn’t been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn’t been proved true. (Note that this isn’t the same as assuming that something is false until it has been proved true; that’s a basic scientific principle.) For example: “Of course telepathy and other psychic phenomena do not exist. Nobody has shown any proof that they are real.” Note that this fallacy doesn’t apply in a court of law, where you’re generally assumed innocent until proven guilty.

Question 5

Argumentum ad misericordiam/Appeal to Pity

Answer 5

This is the Appeal to Pity, also known as Special Pleading. The fallacy is committed when someone appeals to pity for the sake of getting a conclusion accepted. For example: “I did not murder my mother and father with an axe! Please don’t find me guilty; I’m suffering enough through being an orphan.”

Question 6

Argumentum ad populum

Answer 6

This is known as Appealing to the Gallery, or Appealing to the People. You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. For example: “If we allow religion in schools all our children will get brain- washed.”

Question 7

Argumentum ad numerum

Answer 7

This fallacy is closely related to the argumentum ad populum. It consists of asserting that the more people who support or believe a proposition, the more likely it is that that proposition is correct. For example: “The vast majority of people in this country believe that capital punishment has a noticable deterrent effect. To suggest that it doesn’t in the face of so much evidence is ridiculous. “All I’m saying is that thousands of people believe in pyramid power, so there must be something to it.”

Question 8

Argumentum ad verecundiam

Answer 8

The Appeal to Authority uses admiration of a famous person to try and win support for an assertion. For example: “Bultmann didn’t believe in a physical resurrection of Christ” This line of argument isn’t always completely bogus; it may be relevant to refer to a widely-regarded authority in a particular field, if you’re discussing that subject. For example, we can distinguish quite clearly between: “Hawking has concluded that black holes give off radiation” and “Penrose has concluded that it is impossible to build an intelligent computer” Hawking is a physicist, and so we can reasonably expect his opinions on black hole radiation to be informed. Penrose is a mathematician, so it is questionable whether he is well-qualified to speak on the subject of machine intelligence.

Question 9

Argumentum ad antiquitatem

Answer 9

This is the fallacy of asserting that something is right or good simply because it’s old, or because “that’s the way it’s always been.” The opposite of Argumentum ad Novitatem. “This interpretation has been accepted for hundreds of years. It must be correct.”

Question 10

Argumentum ad novitatem

Answer 10

This is the opposite of the Argumentum ad Antiquitatem; it’s the fallacy of asserting that something is more correct simply because it is new, or newer than something else.

Question 11

Argumentum ad crumenam

Answer 11

The fallacy of believing that money is a criterion of correctness; that those with more money are more likely to be right. The opposite of Argumentum ad Lazarum.

Question 12

Argumentum ad lazarum

Answer 12

The fallacy of assuming that someone poor is sounder or more virtuous than someone who’s wealthier. This fallacy is the opposite of the Argumentum ad Crumenam.

Question 13

Argumentum ad nauseam

Answer 13

This is the incorrect belief that an assertion is more likely to be true, or is more likely to be accepted as true, the more often it is heard. So an Argumentum ad Nauseam is one that employs constant repetition in asserting something; saying the same thing over and over again until you’re sick of hearing it. This is a common technique used by preachers (usually with a very shaky argument!).

Question 14

The fallacy of accident / Sweeping generalization / Dicto simpliciter

Answer 14

A sweeping generalization occurs when a general rule is applied to a particular situation, but the features of that particular situation mean the rule is inapplicable. It’s the error made when you go from the general to the specific. For example: “Most aborigines have been in trouble with the law. You are an aborigine so you must have been in trouble with the law as well.” This fallacy is often committed by people who try to decide moral and legal questions by mechanically applying general rules.

Question 15

Converse accident / Hasty generalization

Answer 15

This fallacy is the reverse of the Fallacy of Accident. It occurs when you form a general rule by examining only a few specific cases which aren’t representative of all possible cases. For example: “Jim Bakker was an insincere, immoral Christian. Therefore all Christians are insincere.”

Question 16

Non causa pro causa

Answer 16

The fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa occurs when something is identified as the cause of an event, but it has not actually been shown to be the cause. For example: “I took an aspirin and prayed to God, and my headache disappeared. So God cured me of the headache.” This is known as a false cause fallacy.

Question 17

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Answer 17

The fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc occurs when something is assumed to be the cause of an event merely because it happened before that event. This is another type of false cause fallacy.

Question 18

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc

Answer 18

This fallacy is similar to post hoc ergo propter hoc. The fallacy is to assert that because two events occur together, they must be causally related. It’s a fallacy because it ignores other factors that may be the cause(s) of the events.

Question 19

Petitio principii / Begging the question

Answer 19

This fallacy occurs when the premises are at least as questionable as the conclusion reached. For example: “Aliens are abducting innocent victims every week. The government must know what is going on. Therefore the government is in league with the aliens.”

Question 20

Circulus in demonstrando

Answer 20

This fallacy occurs if you assume as a premise the conclusion which you wish to reach. Often, the proposition is rephrased so that the fallacy appears to be a valid argument. For example: “Real scientists are evolutionists. Evolutionists propose scientific theories of evolution. Therefore real scientists are evolutionists.” Note that the argument is entirely circular. Circular arguments are surprisingly common, unfortunately. If you’ve already reached a particular conclusion once, it’s easy to accidentally make it an assertion when explaining your reasoning to someone else.

Question 21

Complex question / Fallacy of interrogation / Fallacy of presupposition

Answer 21

This is the interrogative form of Begging the Question. One example is the classic loaded question: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” The question presupposes a definite answer to another question which has not even been asked. This trick is often used by lawyers in cross-examination, when they ask questions like: “Where did you hide the money you stole?” Similarly, politicians often ask loaded questions such as: “How long will this EU interference in our affairs be allowed to continue?” or “Does the Prime Minister plan two more years of ruinous privatization?” Another form of this fallacy is to ask for an explanation of something which is untrue or not yet established.

Question 22

Ignoratio elenchi / Irrelevant conclusion

Answer 22

The fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion consists of claiming that an argument supports a particular conclusion when it is actually logically nothing to do with that conclusion. For example, a Bhuddist may begin by saying that he will argue that the teachings of the Bhuddahs are undoubtably true. If he then argues at length that Bhuddism is of great help to many people, no matter how well he argues he will not have shown that Bhuddist teachings are true. Sadly, such fallacious arguments are often successful because they arouse emotions which cause others to view the supposed conclusion in a more favourable light.

Question 23

Equivocation / Fallacy of four terms

Answer 23

Equivocation occurs when a key word is used with two or more different meanings in the same argument. For example: “What could be more affordable than free software? But to make sure that it remains free, that users can do what they like with it, we must place a license on it to make sure that it will always be freely redistributable.” One way to avoid this fallacy is to choose your terminology carefully before beginning the argument, and avoid words like “free” which have many meanings.

Question 24

Amphiboly

Answer 24

Amphiboly occurs when the premises used in an argument are ambiguous because of careless or ungrammatical phrasing.

Question 25

Accent

Answer 25

Accent is another form of fallacy through shifting meaning. In this case, the meaning is changed by altering which parts of a statement are emphasized. For example, consider: “We should not speak *ill* of our friends” and “We should not speak ill of our *friends*” Be particularly wary of this fallacy in written communication, where it’s easy to mis-read the emphasis of what’s written.

Question 26

Fallacies of composition

Answer 26

One Fallacy of Composition is to conclude that a property shared by the parts of something must apply to the whole. For example: “The bicycle is made entirely of low mass components, and is therefore very lightweight.” The other Fallacy of Composition is to conclude that a property of a number of individual items is shared by a collection of those items. For example: “A car uses less petrol and causes less pollution than a bus. Therefore cars are less environmentally damaging than buses.”

Question 27

Fallacy of division

Answer 27

The fallacy of division is the opposite of the Fallacy of Composition. Like its opposite, it exists in two varieties. The first is to assume that a property of some thing must apply to its parts. For example: “You are studying at a rich college. Therefore you must be rich.” The other is to assume that a property of a collection of items is shared by each item. For example: “Ants can destroy a tree. Therefore this ant can destroy a tree.”

Question 28

The slippery slope argument

Answer 28

This argument states that should one event occur, so will other harmful events. There is no proof made that the harmful events are caused by the first event. For example: “If we allow people to sing anything other than hymns in church then we’ll start having rock bands, then heavy-metal bands and then the whole place will turn into disco.”

Question 29

“A is based on B” fallacies / “…is a type of…” fallacies / Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle

Answer 29

These fallacies occur if you attempt to argue that things are in some way similar, but you don’t actually specify in what way they are similar. Examples: “Isn’t history based upon faith? If so, then isn’t the Bible also a form of history?” “Islam is based on faith, Christianity is based on faith, so isn’t Islam a form of Christianity?” “Cats are a form of animal based on carbon chemistry, dogs are a form of animal based on carbon chemistry, so aren’t dogs a form of cat?”

Question 30

Affirmation of the consequent

Answer 30

This fallacy is an argument of the form “A implies B, B is true, therefore A is true”. To understand why it is a fallacy, examine the truth table for implication given earlier. Here’s an example: “If I fall into the swimming pool, I get wet. I am wet, so I must have fallen into the swimming pool.” This is the converse of Denial of the Antecedent.

Question 31

Denial of the antecedent

Answer 31

This fallacy is an argument of the form “A implies B, A is false, therefore B is false”. The truth table for implication makes it clear why this is a fallacy. Note that this fallacy is different from Non Causa Pro Causa. That has the form “A implies B, A is false, therefore B is false”, where A does not in fact imply B at all. Here, the problem isn’t that the implication is invalid; rather it’s that the falseness of A doesn’t allow us to deduce anything about B. “If I fall into the swimming pool, I get wet. I did not fall into the swimming pool, therefore I am not wet.” This is the converse of the fallacy of Affirmation of the Consequent.

Question 32

Converting a conditional

Answer 32

This fallacy is an argument of the form “If A then B, therefore if B then A”. “If educational standards are lowered, the quality of argument seen on the Internet worsens. So if we see the level of debate on the net get worse over the next few years, we’ll know that our educational standards are still falling.” “If it’s raining outside and I don’t have an umbrella I get wet. So if I get wet, then it’s raining outside and I don’t have an umbrella.” This fallacy is similar to the Affirmation of the Consequent, but phrased as a conditional statement.

Question 33

Bifurcation

Answer 33

Also referred to as the “black and white” fallacy, bifurcation occurs if you present a situation as having only two alternatives, where in fact other alternatives exist or can exist.

Question 34

Plurium interrogationum / Many questions

Answer 34

This fallacy occurs when someone demands a simple (or simplistic) answer to a complex question.

Question 35

Non sequitur

Answer 35

A non sequitur is an argument where the conclusion is drawn from premises which aren’t logically connected with it. For example: “Since Egyptians did so much excavation to construct the pyramids, they were well versed in paleontology.”

Question 36

Red herring

Answer 36

This fallacy is committed when someone introduces irrelevant material to the issue being discussed, so that everyone else’s attention is diverted away from the points made, towards a different conclusion.

Question 37

Reification / Hypostatization

Answer 37

Reification occurs when an abstract concept is treated as a concrete thing.

Question 38

Shifting the burden of proof

Answer 38

The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. “OK, so if you don’t think aliens have gained control of the US government, can you prove it?” It should be noted though, that if no “proof” can be offered for a particular assertion, that in no way implies the assertion is not true. There is a danger in any form of “positivism” which holds that ONLY propositions that can be proved beyond doubt should be accepted as true.

Question 39

Straw man

Answer 39

The straw man fallacy is when you misrepresent someone else’s position so that it can be attacked more easily, then knock down that misrepresented position, then conclude that the original position has been demolished. It’s a fallacy because it fails to deal with the actual arguments that have been made. “Textual criticism is wrong because it is inconsistent. Aleph and B are accepted as the best manuscripts available but they disagree so often in the gospels.” The above is straw man argument because the person that uses this kind of argument does not really understand Textual Criticism. Textual decisions are very complex and are not simply a matter of manuscript preference. Aleph and B disgree in the gospels because B is Alexandrian whereas Aleph is Western in the gospels and Alexandrian in the rest of the NT.

Question 40

The extended analogy

Answer 40

The fallacy of the Extended Analogy often occurs when some suggested general rule is being argued over. The fallacy is to assume that mentioning two different situations, in an argument about a general rule, constitutes a claim that those situations are analogous to each other. This fallacy is best explained using a real example from a debate about anti-cryptography legislation: “I believe it is always wrong to oppose the law by breaking it.” “Such a position is odious: it implies that you would not have supported Martin Luther King.” “Are you saying that cryptography legislation is as important as the struggle for Black liberation? How dare you!”

Question 41

Tu quoque

Answer 41

This is the famous “you too” fallacy. It occurs if you argue that an action is acceptable because your opponent has performed it. For instance: “You’re just being randomly abusive.” “So? You’ve been abusive too.” This is a personal attack, and is therefore a special case of Argumentum ad Hominem.

Question 42

Audiatur et altera pars

Answer 42

Often, people will argue from assumptions which they don’t bother to state. The principle of Audiatur et Altera Pars is that all of the premises of an argument should be stated explicitly. It’s not strictly a fallacy to fail to state all of your assumptions; however, it’s often viewed with suspicion. For example, many scholars reject the doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy. This will of course dramatically affect their reasoning and conclusions.

Question 43

Ad hoc

Answer 43

There is a difference between argument and explanation. If we’re interested in establishing A, and B is offered as evidence, the statement “A because B” is an argument. If we’re trying to establish the truth of B, then “A because B” is not an argument, it’s an explanation. The Ad Hoc fallacy is to give an after-the-fact explanation which doesn’t apply to other situations. Often this ad hoc explanation will be dressed up to look like an argument. For example, if we assume that God treats all people equally, then the following is an ad hoc explanation: “I was healed from cancer.” “Praise the Lord, then. He is your healer - so, will He heal others who have cancer?” “Er… The ways of God are mysterious.”

Question 44

Argumentum ad logicam

Answer 44

This is the “fallacy fallacy” of arguing that a proposition is false because it has been presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument. Remember always that fallacious arguments can arrive at true conclusions. “Take the fraction 16/64. Now, cancelling a 6 on top and a six on the bottom, we get that 16/64 = 1/4.” “Wait a second! You can’t just cancel the six!” “Oh, so you’re telling us 16/64 is not equal to 1/4, are you?”

Question 45

The “No True Scotsman…” fallacy

Answer 45

Suppose I assert that no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. You counter this by pointing out that your friend Angus likes sugar with his porridge. I then say “Ah, yes, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge. This is an example of an ad hoc change being used to shore up an assertion, combined with an attempt to shift the meaning of the words used original assertion. You might call it a combination of fallacies.

Question 46

Accent Fallacy

Answer 46

The Accent Fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity due to the different ways a word is emphasized or accented.

Example:

A member of Congress is asked by a reporter if she is in favor of the President’s new missile defense system, and she responds, “I’m in favor of a missile defense system that effectively defends America.”

With an emphasis on the word “favor,” her response is likely to favor the President’s missile defense system. With an emphasis, instead, on the words “effectively defends,” her remark is likely to be against the President’s missile defense system. And by using neither emphasis, she can later claim that her response was on either side of the issue. Aristotle’s version of the Fallacy of Accent allowed only a shift in which syllable is accented within a word.

Question 47

Accident Fallacy

Answer 47

We often arrive at a generalization but don’t or can’t list all the exceptions. When we then reason with the generalization as if it has no exceptions, our reasoning contains the Fallacy of Accident. This fallacy is sometimes called the “Fallacy of Sweeping Generalization.”

Example:

People should keep their promises, right? I loaned Dwayne my knife, and he said he’d return it. Now he is refusing to give it back, but I need it right now to slash up my neighbors who disrespected me.

People should keep their promises, but there are exceptions to this generalization as in this case of the psychopath who wants Dwayne to keep his promise to return the knife.

Question 48

Ad Hoc Rescue Fallacy

Answer 48

Psychologically, it is understandable that you would try to rescue a cherished belief from trouble. When faced with conflicting data, you are likely to mention how the conflict will disappear if some new assumption is taken into account. However, if there is no good reason to accept this saving assumption other than that it works to save your cherished belief, your rescue is an Ad Hoc Rescue.

Example:

Yolanda: If you take four of these tablets of vitamin C every day, you will never get a cold.

Juanita: I tried that last year for several months, and still got a cold.

Yolanda: Did you take the tablets every day?

Juanita: Yes.

Yolanda: Well, I’ll bet you bought some bad tablets.

The burden of proof is definitely on Yolanda’s shoulders to prove that Juanita’s vitamin C tablets were probably “bad” – that is, not really vitamin C. If Yolanda can’t do so, her attempt to rescue her hypothesis (that vitamin C prevents colds) is simply a dogmatic refusal to face up to the possibility of being wrong.

Question 49

Ad Hominem Fallacy

Answer 49

Your reasoning contains this fallacy if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggest that this attack undermines the argument itself. “Ad Hominem” means “to the person” as in being “directed at the person.”

Example:

What she says about Johannes Kepler’s astronomy of the 1600s must be just so much garbage. Do you realize she’s only fifteen years old?

This attack may undermine the young woman’s credibility as a scientific authority, but it does not undermine her reasoning itself because her age is irrelevant to quality of her reasoning. That reasoning should stand or fall on the scientific evidence, not on the arguer’s age or anything else about her personally.

The major difficulty with labeling a piece of reasoning an Ad Hominem Fallacy is deciding whether the personal attack is relevant or irrelevant. For example, attacks on a person for their immoral sexual conduct are irrelevant to the quality of their mathematical reasoning, but they are relevant to arguments promoting the person for a leadership position in a church or mosque.

If the fallacious reasoner points out irrelevant circumstances that the reasoner is in, such as the arguer’s having a vested interest in people accepting the position, then the ad hominem fallacy may be called a Circumstantial Ad Hominem. If the fallacious attack points out some despicable trait of the arguer, it may be called an Abusive Ad Hominem. An Ad hominem that attacks an arguer by attacking the arguer’s associates is called the Fallacy of Guilt by Association. If the fallacy focuses on a complaint about the origin of the arguer’s views, then it is a kind of Genetic Fallacy. If the fallacy is due to claiming the person does not practice what is preached, it is the Tu Quoque Fallacy. Two Wrongs do not Make a Right is also a type of Ad Hominem fallacy.

Question 50

Affirming the Consequent Fallacy

Answer 50

If you have enough evidence to affirm the consequent of a conditional and then suppose that as a result you have sufficient reason for affirming the antecedent, your reasoning contains the Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. This formal fallacy is often mistaken for Modus Ponens, which is a valid form of reasoning also using a conditional. A conditional is an if-then statement; the if-part is the antecedent, and the then-part is the consequent. The following argument affirms the consequent that she does speaks Portuguese.

Example:

If she’s Brazilian, then she speaks Portuguese. Hey, she does speak Portuguese. So, she is Brazilian.

If the arguer believes or suggests that the premises definitely establish that she is Brazilian, then the argumentation contains the fallacy. See the Non Sequitur Fallacy for more discussion of this point.

Question 51

Amphiboly Fallacy

Answer 51

This is an error due to taking a grammatically ambiguous phrase in two different ways during the reasoning.

Example:

In a cartoon, two elephants are driving their car down the road in India. They say, “We’d better not get out here,” as they pass a sign saying:

ELEPHANTS

PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Upon one interpretation of the grammar, the pronoun “YOUR” refers to the elephants in the car, but on another it refers to those humans who are driving cars in the vicinity. Unlike Equivocation, which is due to multiple meanings of a phrase, Amphiboly is due to syntactic ambiguity, ambiguity caused by multiple ways of understanding the grammar of the phrase.

Question 52

Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy

Answer 52

This is fallacious generalizing on the basis of a some story that provides an inadequate sample. If you discount evidence arrived at by systematic search or by testing in favor of a few firsthand stories, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of overemphasizing anecdotal evidence.

Example:

Yeah, I’ve read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health research, but my brother smokes, and he says he’s never been sick a day in his life, so I know smoking can’t really hurt you.

Question 53

Anthropomorphism Fallacy

Answer 53

This is the error of projecting uniquely human qualities onto something that isn’t human. Usually this occurs with projecting the human qualities onto animals, but when it is done to nonliving things, as in calling the storm cruel, the Pathetic Fallacy is created. There is also, but less commonly, called the Disney Fallacy or the Walt Disney Fallacy.

Example:

My dog is wagging his tail and running around me. Therefore, he knows that I love him.

The fallacy would be averted if the speaker had said “My dog is wagging his tail and running around me. Therefore, he is happy to see me.” Animals are likely to have some human emotions, but not the ability to ascribe knowledge to other beings. Your dog knows where it buried its bone, but not that you also know where the bone is.

Question 54

Appeal to Authority Fallacy

Answer 54

You appeal to authority if you back up your reasoning by saying that it is supported by what some authority says on the subject. Most reasoning of this kind is not fallacious, and much of our knowledge properly comes from listening to authorities. However, appealing to authority as a reason to believe something is fallacious whenever the authority appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority cannot be trusted to tell the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth. Although spotting a fallacious appeal to authority often requires some background knowledge about the subject or the authority, in brief it can be said that it is fallacious to accept the words of a supposed authority when we should be suspicious of the authority’s words.

Example:

The moon is covered with dust because the president of our neighborhood association said so.

This is a Fallacious Appeal to Authority because, although the president is an authority on many neighborhood matters, you are given no reason to believe the president is an authority on the composition of the moon. It would be better to appeal to some astronomer or geologist. A TV commercial that gives you a testimonial from a famous film star who wears a Wilson watch and that suggests you, too, should wear that brand of watch is using a fallacious appeal to authority. The film star is an authority on how to act, not on which watch is best for you.

Question 55

Appeal to Consequence Fallacy

Answer 55

Arguing that a belief is false because it implies something you’d rather not believe. Also called Argumentum Ad Consequentiam.

Example:

That can’t be Senator Smith there in the videotape going into her apartment. If it were, he’d be a liar about not knowing her. He’s not the kind of man who would lie. He’s a member of my congregation.

Smith may or may not be the person in that videotape, but this kind of arguing should not convince us that it’s someone else in the videotape.