Ask Your Questions About Logical Fallacies

Welcome! This is the place to ask the community of experts and other fallacyophites (I made up that word) if someone has a committed a fallacy or not. This is a great way to settle a dispute!


Dr. Bo's Criteria for Logical Fallacies:

  • It must be an error in reasoning not a factual error.
  • It must be commonly applied to an argument either in the form of the argument or in the interpretation of the argument.
  • It must be deceptive in that it often fools the average adult.
Therefore, we will define a logical fallacy as a concept within argumentation that commonly leads to an error in reasoning due to the deceptive nature of its presentation. Logical fallacies can comprise fallacious arguments that contain one or more non-factual errors in their form or deceptive arguments that often lead to fallacious reasoning in their evaluation.
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Possible fallacy regarding the political term flip-flopping?

I have been seeing people use the term flip flopping incorrectly lately regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. My understanding is that Flip-flopping is usually only valid when its in regards to something subjective. For example, if a politician says...

asked on Wednesday, Dec 08, 2021 12:21:07 PM by Jason Mathias
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Affirming the consequent?

P1: Only Targaryens can ride dragons P2: Tyrion Lannister rode a dragon C: Therefore, Tyrion Lannister is Targaryen I know the fallacious form if A then B. B. Therefore, A is invalid. But, what if the premise is true, that is only Tragaryens can ...

asked on Wednesday, Dec 08, 2021 05:35:38 AM by Jacob
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Can subjectivity make a fallacy not a fallacy?

Professional artist A creates paintings.  Person 1: Artist A's artwork is bad because he is a Biden supporter.  Now, I know this is usually a non sequitur  fallacy because the two things are completely unrelated. But, since artwork...

asked on Monday, Dec 06, 2021 04:09:24 PM by Jason Mathias
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Could this be begging the question?

P1: All the people at the table had their heads shaved.  P2: Jim was at the table.  C: Therefore, Jim had his head shaved. 

asked on Monday, Dec 06, 2021 01:13:41 AM by Jacob
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A error in reasoning about the pandemic that I see a lot lately.

What fallacy might this be? It seems like a version of the scapegoat fallacy but not sure.  A  (Pandemics),  causes B  (federal government and democrats),  to cause C  (economic hardship, mandates, restrictions, closed schools etc). We d...

asked on Saturday, Dec 04, 2021 05:28:03 PM by Jason Mathias
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answers
Fallacies involved in arguing for God or mythological characters

I've been thinking about the following arguments for a while:   Person 1: Just like how the PhD thesis of Stephen Hawking is evidence that he was intelligent, so too, in a similar way, the universe is evidence that whatever the cause behind it ...

asked on Saturday, Dec 04, 2021 02:41:22 PM by Alex
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fallacy of denying induction as logical method without good reason.

Not sure if my first post transferred, so here it is again. "INDUCTION MAY BE A NECESSARY THOUGHT PROCESS AND NO DOUBT IT PLAYS A ROLE IN THE FORMATION OF SOME GENERALIZATIONS.  BUT IT IS NOT A LOGICAL PROCESS. THERE IS NO NECESSITY THAT THE N...

asked on Thursday, Dec 02, 2021 01:14:21 AM by robert temple
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People who use Induction for deductive claims. How many fallacies is this?

I've seen statements of people arguing against medical science in peer reviewed Journals by saying: Person 1: Vaccines might not work Person 2: How so? What about the mountain of data from so many peer reviewed sources? Person 1: Yeah that data m...

asked on Monday, Nov 29, 2021 04:12:08 PM by Alexander
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Question about modus tollens

Hi,   I would like to know if this form of argument is valid or not: P1) If A is not true, then B is not true P2) B is true C1) A is true   Thanks!

asked on Monday, Nov 29, 2021 09:33:53 AM by Alex
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Presenting an impossible condition.

I was in a disagreement with someone about speed limits, I went into great detail about what's been shown to exacerbates speed limit-non compliance, as in what leads to people paying less attention to speed limits as in arbitrary placing of boundari...

asked on Saturday, Nov 27, 2021 09:22:14 PM by Alex Hosking
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