Fallicies

Question 1

Circular Reasoning

Answer 1

repeating or restating the question to sound like an answer. Ex. Books are useless because people have no use for them.

Question 2

Post Hoc Ergo Proptor

Answer 2

Creating a false relationship between one thing and another. Ex. Thinking is harmful because it makes people unhappy.

Question 3

Attacking the Person

Answer 3

Slandering people’s characters to slander their efforts. Ex. Smart people’s arrogance made people realize that intelligence is a bad thing.

Question 4

Hasty Generalization

Answer 4

Taking a too small sampling and making a sweeping rule. Ex. Nobody likes the brightest person in class; therefore, being smart is a bad thing.

Question 5

Bandwagon

Answer 5

Using numbers to impersonate facts. Ex. Since everyone enjoys sports and television, reading, thinking, and self-reflection are wastes of time.

Question 6

Slippery Slope

Answer 6

Asserting that one small problem will, inevitably, lead to catastrophe. Ex. Kids who play violent video games will surely become heartless mass murders someday.

Question 7

Either /Or Fallacy

Answer 7

Gives the listener only two choices as if that were all there were. Ex. Books are either harmful or wasteful

Question 8

False Analogy

Answer 8

Makes an illogical/untrue connection between two unlike things. Ex. Animals don’t think much, they don’t read, and yet they are contented and happy. Now society is also contented and happy because we don’t think and read.

Question 9

Fill-in-the-blank Fallacy

Answer 9

Allows the listeners’ fear or other negative feelings to impersonate truth. Ex. Just imagine the pain, chaos, and unhappiness in society if we stopped burning books.

Question 10

Hysteria

Answer 10

Over the top emotional appeals which are completely devoid of truth. Ex. Poets, thinkers, and dreamers are dangerous to a society. They bring distrust, sadness, and turmoil to the societies they infest. They are a cancer that must be cutout or we shall be in destroyed by them!

Question 11

Appeal to spite

Answer 11

inviting the listener/reader to decide from negative feelings. Ex. I won’t vote for Schmidt because he has a German background, and you remember what those Germans did during World War II!

Question 12

Guilt by association

Answer 12

This fallacy occurs when blame or some other negative perception is given to a person who happens to be near a known negative person. Ex. President Obama served on a committee that also had someone who had served time for being a violent war demonstrator. The President’s opponent tried to make this proximity seem like Mr. Obama either was guilty of the same thing or a sympathizer with violence.

Question 13

Gambler’s fallacy

Answer 13

Expecting a losing behavior to suddenly become winning because the “odds” must bring victory eventually. Ex. Continuing to pour money, blood, and prestige into a 10 year long war because “we have to win this thing sometime.”

Question 14

Spotlight fallacy

Answer 14

mistaking media generated images to represent truth. Ex. People believe that most if not all of New York is damaged by the storm because the tv reports show only the destruction sites.

Question 15

Description of composition

Answer 15

assuming that what is true for part is true for the whole. Ex. Atoms are colorless and cats are made of atoms, so cats must be colorless.