Fallacies of Emotion and Language

1. Bandwagon Appeals
ex: Everybody at school is involved with fighting and bullying. If I don't fight or fight back, I'll be beaten up by everybody.

This is a fallacy because "everybody" in this case is a small sample group of students known to the narrator, based on perspective and bias. "Everybody" is used to excuse or rationalize the actions of the narrator without basis or evidence.

2. Name Calling
ex: Those protesters are flag-burning, freedom hating, Taliban supporting, granola crunching, left wing nutcakes.
The name calling attempts to discredit an idea, concept, or person by attacking or dismissing character or integrity without addressing the issue presented. Because so and so or such and such is (in vague undefined terms) that negetive, dangerous, vile, unpopular or unworthy word, the concept presented is implied to be incorrect.

3. Polarization
ex: Either you are willing to do whatever's necessary to defend the United States, or you are a freedom hating terrorist sympothiser.
This presents an either-or situation that asks you to choose from one idea or another, while truly, there are a host of other options. The person in question might be inclined to go only so far, might be religiously non-violent, dubious of the supporting evidence, wating to decide, or have no opinion at all.

4. Straw Man
ex: The left just wants to ration health care in a way that will kill our grandparents and the elderly, and leave us dying in long lines in the E.R..
The concept or idea is changed, oversimplified, misstated, or restated in a way that makes it look absurd, and more easy to argue against.

Fallacies of Logic

1. Begging the Question
ex: a. All witches are things that can burn. b. All things that burn are made of wood. c. Therefore, all witches are made of wood. d. All things that are made of wood are things that can float. e. All things that can float weigh as much as a duck (who also can float). f. So all things that weigh as much as a duck must be made of wood. g. Since this thing weighs the same as a duck, this thing, therefore, must be a witch.
(Adapted from: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail 1975)

This begs the question, because we must assume that a and b, d, e and f are true in order to come to the conclusions c and g. The statements are obviously false, but in the context of facts less familiar, might be accepted as true.

ex: All living beings are made of cells. Therefore, this cellular thing must be a living being. In fact, the being could also be recently deceased, or the first statement might be untrue.

2. Either-or
ex: Either we keep healthcare a private buisness transaction or we will have long waits to see doctors, medicine will be rationed, and government will interfere with our medical care.

This poses choices that are not necessarily the only two options. There are many factors involved in long medical lines, and government interferance is not the only way to regulate care. Medical rationing is related to factors including ease of access, availability of the drug, weather it is the only medicine of its kind, severity and rarity of the condition, side affects and marketing. This statement also presumes that health care in a private buisness format does not have such issues as long lines, rationing, or interferance.

3. False Analogies
ex: Universal health care was voted strongly against more than 20 years ago. It has already been decided that Americans do not support a public system of health care.

This example of false analogy does not take into account differences in issues, mindset, and medical availability between today and the time it had been previously decided. It is also a false analogy because it does not account for the new voting pool changed by deaths in population, new citizens or citizens who have come of age since the last vote and their differences in experience.

4. Hasty Generalization
ex: Black men are 26% more likely than caucasion men to become incarcerated. We must therefore take precautions to prevent criminality among black men.

This generalizes black men into criminals. It jumps over many other factors to come to this conclusion: differences in liklihood of being caught in a crime, differences in frequency of accusation, jury bias, differences in sentencing between blacks and whites. It also implies that black criminality requires more intervention that white criminality.

5. Non Sequitur
ex: People with higher incomes can better afford to shoulder the burdon of their own health care or insurance costs.

This statement links 2 ideas that might or might not be related. Income is not necessarily related to health care costs. A person with a $35,000 income and multiple sclerosis living in Manhattin would have a completely different situation than a $15,000 per year intern in Idaho with a sprained knee. The two do not corrolate rationally.

6. Oversimplification
ex: Child predation could be prevented simply by ripping the offending parts off the men who commit child sex crimes.

One cannot say whether this would be effective or not. It simplifies the issue and simplifies the solution. Many questions remain: Is the drive to commit the crime so strong that a man would take the chance? Would the solution create a problem greater than the original? Are offenders caugt often enough to make this a viable consequence?

7. Post hoc Fallacy
Months that contain 5 fridays tend to yield higher spending and stock prices. The following, month, as a result suffers slower yield and growth.

This is a hypothesis I made up years ago based on my own spending. At some time, I might look to see how well it corrolates with actual dollars and numbers, it follows at this point an irrational logic. Because one month is good, doesn't mean it will or won't be counterbalanced in another month. Maybe the entire year goes well. Maybe it follows that pattern, but only under certain conditions. There is no evidence to support the effect.

8. Rationalization
ex: I would not have punched you if you'd just stopped studying with that guy from biology. It comes across like I'm the bad guy, but you're practically sleeping with him!

This statement does a few things. It shifts the blame to the victim, and it provides a motivating excuse for the offender. By shifting the actions into a more socially acceptible reason for violence, the offender lets him or herself off the hook a little. By blaming the victim, he or she is asking the victim to accept at least some responsibility for the offenders' conduct.

9. Slippery Slope
ex: If professors keep loading me with so much homework, before long I'll be exhausted to the point that I might hurt myself at work, drive poorly and cause a crash, be unable to wake up, or fail classes. Before long, I'll have messed up so much at work or slept in, that I'll have lost my job, but due to my failing grades, I won't be able to find a new job. I'll lose my apartment and have to sleep in my car. My son will have to work in a sweatshop or beg for food, money and medicine, while I try everyday to fight the harsh winters while searching for work. And we'll look back in time with a wistful sigh and wonder how our lives might have turned out differently if I'd only had less homework in 2009.

I can't fairly argue that this is a complete fallacy, but for arguments' sake... I choose one possible worst case event, and imagine it is inevitable. I reepeat this process throughout the rest of the paragraph, choosing the worst case of every outcome.