Can you name and define some logical fallacies?

Question

This is not for homework. It is personal research.

I actually have a fairly good understanding of fallacies. I am interested in how many others do. Fallacies such as:

Argumentum ad hominem (argument directed at the person)

Answer 1

Ad hominem -- arguing against a person instead of the argument.

Abusive ad hominem -- Insulting a person.

Appeal to false authority -- Celebrity X support the product -- so it must be good

Appeal to force -- agree with me or i will kill you (used in stick-ups)

Appeal to popular opinion. 99% of Americans think X, so X must be true

Slipper slope: Making a series of unfounded causation until you reach a clearly bad conclusion. Example: If we legalize marijuana -- everyone will start smoking it -- then no work will get done -- and the society will collapse.

Straw man -- misrepresenting your opponents argument and then making it look bad. Example:
Pundit: What is your stance on war in Iraq?
Politician: I am against the war.
Pundit: So you support the terrorists, how can you....

Circular reasoning -- assuming the conclusion in one of the premises.

Correlation does not imply causation. Teens who are violent tend to listen to Rap. Therefore rap causes violence. This overlooks that living in bad "hood" BOTH makes them violent AND rap fans.

False analogy. This is often used in conjunction with ad hominem. A was wrong 5 years ago, therefore he is wrong now.

Answer 2

Here are a couple great sources:

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/logicalfallacies.asp
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/skepticism/blfaq_fall_index_alpha.htm

I think my favorite fallacy is the argument from ignorance, which is commonly used to rationalize all sorts of notions which otherwise have zero basis in reality. The argument takes the form of, "this is unexplainable (at least by me), therefore the only explanation is that it is supernatural."

For instance, "scientists can't explain every last thing about evolution, therefore, evolution is false and it was the god I believe in that created life." Or, "I can't explain that strange pattern of lights I saw in the sky, therefore, it must have been alien UFO's from another planet." Translation: "I'm ignorant, therefore it must have been the fantastical explanation I prefer which is true."

A similar logical fallacy is the "argument from incredulity" which takes the form of, "I can't believe X, therefore X must be false." "I can't believe man descended from apes, therefore, god must have made us." "I can't believe that those lights in the sky were just an airplane's lights distorted by atmospheric turbulence, therefore, it must have been an alien UFO."

Both these fallacies, and to an extent other logical fallacies, when you recognize them only serve to show the ignorance of the person making the fallacy. Finding the logical fallacies in a person's argument, though, can be entertaining as well as a means to build up your own intellectual integrity. The New England Skeptical Society (NESS) has a podcast where they occasionally play "name that logical fallacy." They give some statement given by some pseudoscience or anti-science person/group, and the speakers point out all the errors in thinking that went into the statement in question. Here's a link to their podcasts: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive.asp

Answer 3

The "Psychologist's Fallacy," in which persons presume that others are literally not so unfamilar to themselves, so assumptions must be made up of the different man or woman's sanity, means with good judgment, reports, and so on. my own worst get mutually of this changed into over a 365 days in the past even as i began grumbling about spelling and ultimately a dyslexic set me instantly on lots of the the rationalization why they could miss some typos. not a lot later, Y!A extra a examine spelling function, so each and each part were appeased. "attraction to possibility" to some volume with the notorious Pascal's wager shows up in quite some situations no matter if alongside with a minimum of one different fallacy in the proposition itself. "bare statement fallacy" at times makes an visual attraction as before reported as "because I suggested so" or may also confer with the Bible referencing itself.

Answer 4

You will get far more thorough and useful information by doing a simple Google search for the term logical falacies than you will by asking the idiots on Yahoo! Answers... but then most intelligent people already know this.

(If you are truly interested in HOW MANY OTHERS have an interest in logical fallacies, then you should have phrased your question that way. The answer to your question, as it reads, can easily be garnered from a simple web search. There are numerous web sites listing logical fallacies.)

Answer 5

Circular reasoning - using an assumption to prove its self

Ex - how do you know god is real? bc the book says so. how do you know the book is right? bc god says so in the book.

Answer 6

One would be that you can get other people to do your homework, simply by posting a question on yahoo answers.

Answer 7

no