Fallacies

A fallacy is a kind of error in reasoning. The alphabetical list below contains 207 names of the most
common fallacies, and it provides brief explanations and examples of each of them. Fallacies should
not be persuasive, but they often are. Fallacies may be created unintentionally, or they may be
created intentionally in order to deceive other people. The vast majority of the commonly identified
fallacies involve arguments, although some involve explanations, or definitions, or other products
of reasoning. Sometimes the term fallacy is used even more broadly to indicate any false belief or
cause of a false belief. The list below includes some fallacies of these sorts, but most are fallacies
that involve kinds of errors made while arguing informally in natural language.
The discussion that precedes the list begins with an account of the ways in which the term fallacy
is vague. Attention then turns to the number of competing and overlapping ways to classify fallacies
of argumentation. For pedagogical purposes, researchers in the field of fallacies disagree about the
following topics: which name of a fallacy is more helpful to students understanding; whether some
fallacies should be de-emphasized in favor of others; and which is the best taxonomy of the
fallacies. Researchers in the field are also deeply divided about how to define the term fallacy
itself, how to define certain fallacies, and whether any theory of fallacies at all should be pursued if
that theorys goal is to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing between
fallacious and non-fallacious reasoning generally. Analogously, there is doubt in the field of ethics
regarding whether researchers should pursue the goal of providing necessary and sufficient
conditions for distinguishing moral actions from immoral ones.
Table of Contents
1.

Introduction

2.

Taxonomy of Fallacies

3.

Pedagogy

4.

What is a fallacy?

5.

Other Controversies

6.

Partial List of Fallacies

7.

References and Further Reading

1. Introduction
The first known systematic study of fallacies was due to Aristotle in his De Sophisticis Elenchis
(Sophistical Refutations), an appendix to the Topics. He listed thirteen types. After the Dark Ages,
fallacies were again studied systematically in Medieval Europe. This is why so many fallacies have
Latin names. The third major period of study of the fallacies began in the later twentieth century
due to renewed interest from the disciplines of philosophy, logic, communication studies, rhetoric,
psychology, and artificial intelligence.

The more frequent the error within public discussion and debate the more likely it is to have a
name. That is one reason why there is no specific name for the fallacy of subtracting five from
thirteen and concluding that the answer is seven, though the error is common among elementary
school children.
The term fallacy is not a precise term. One reason is that it is ambiguous. It can refer either to (a)
a kind of error in an argument, (b) a kind of error in reasoning (including arguments, definitions,
explanations, and so forth), (c) a false belief, or (d) the cause of any of the previous errors including
what are normally referred to as rhetorical techniques. Philosophers who are researchers in fallacy
theory prefer to emphasize (a), but their lead is often not followed in textbooks and public
discussion.
Regarding (d), ill health, being a bigot, being hungry, being stupid, and being hypercritical of our
enemies are all sources of error in reasoning, so they could qualify as fallacies of kind (d), but they
are not included in the list below. On the other hand, wishful thinking, stereotyping, being
superstitious, rationalizing, and having a poor sense of proportion are sources of error and are
included in the list below, though they wouldnt be included in a list devoted only to faulty
arguments. Thus there is a certain arbitrariness to what appears in lists such as this. What have been
left off the list below are the following persuasive techniques commonly used to influence others
and to cause errors in reasoning: apple polishing, assigning the burden of proof inappropriately,
using propaganda techniques, ridiculing, being sarcastic, selecting terms with strong negative or
positive associations, using innuendo, and weasling. All of the techniques are worth knowing about
if one wants to reason well.
In describing the fallacies below, the custom is followed of not distinguishing between a reasoner
using a fallacy and the reasoning itself containing the fallacy.
In the list below, the examples are very short. If they were long, the article would be too long.
Nevertheless real arguments are often embedded within a very long discussion. Richard Whately,
one of the greatest of the 19th century researchers into informal logic, wisely said, A very long
discussion is one of the most effective veils of Fallacy; a Fallacy, which when stated barely
would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto volume.
2. Taxonomy of Fallacies
There are a number of competing and overlapping ways to classify fallacies of argumentation. For
example, they can be classified as either formal or informal. A formal fallacy can be detected by
examining the logical form of the reasoning, whereas an informal fallacy depends upon the content
of the reasoning and possibly the purpose of the reasoning. That is, informal fallacies are errors of
reasoning that cannot easily be expressed in our system of formal logic (such as symbolic,
deductive, predicate logic). The list below contains very few formal fallacies. Fallacious arguments
also can be classified as deductive or inductive, depending upon whether the fallacious argument is
most properly assessed by deductive standards or instead by inductive standards. Deductive
standards demand deductive validity, but inductive standards require inductive strength such as making the
conclusion more likely. Fallacies can be divided into categories according to the psychological
factors that lead people to use them, and they can also be divided into categories according to the
epistemological or logical factors that cause the error. In the latter division there are three
categories: (1) the reasoning is invalid but is presented as if it were a valid argument, or else it is
inductively much weaker than it is presented as being, (2) the argument has an unjustified premise,
or (3) some relevant evidence has been ignored or suppressed. Regarding (2), a premise can be

justified or warranted at a time even if we later learn that the premise was false, and it can be
justified if we are reasoning about what would have happened even when we know it didnt happen.
Similar fallacies are often grouped together under a common name intended to bring out how the
fallacies are similar. Here are three examples. Fallacies of relevance include fallacies that occur due
to reliance on an irrelevant reason. In addition, ad hominem, appeal to pity, and affirming the consequent are some other
fallacies of relevance. Accent, amphiboly and equivocation are examples of fallacies of ambiguity. The fallacies
of illegitimate presumption include begging the question, false dilemma, no true Scotsman, complex question and suppressed evidence.
Notice how these categories dont fall neatly into just one of the categories (1), (2), and (3) above.
3. Pedagogy
It is commonly claimed that giving a fallacy a name and studying it will help the student identify
the fallacy in the future and will steer them away from using the fallacy in their own reasoning. As
Steven Pinker says in The Stuff of Thought (p. 129),
If a language provides a label for a complex concept, that could make it easier to think about the
concept, because the mind can handle it as a single package when juggling a set of ideas, rather than
having to keep each of its components in the air separately. It can also give a concept an additional
label in long-term memory, making it more easily retrivable than ineffable concepts or those with
more roundabout verbal descriptions.
For pedagogical purposes, researchers in the field of fallacies disagree about the following topics:
which name of a fallacy is more helpful to students understanding; whether some fallacies should
be de-emphasized in favor of others; and which is the best taxonomy of the fallacies. Fallacy theory
is criticized by some teachers of informal reasoning for its over-emphasis on poor reasoning rather
than good reasoning. Do colleges teach the Calculus by emphasizing all the ways one can make
mathematical mistakes? The critics want more emphasis on the forms of good arguments and on the
implicit rules that govern proper discussion designed to resolve a difference of opinion. But there
has been little systematic study of which emphasis is more successful.
4. What is a fallacy?
Researchers disagree about how to define the very term fallacy. Focusing just on fallacies in sense
(a) above, namely fallacies of argumentation, some researchers define a fallacy as an argument that
is deductively invalid or that has very little inductive strength. Because examples of false dilemma,
inconsistent premises, and begging the question are valid arguments in this sense, this definition misses some
standard fallacies. Other researchers say a fallacy is a mistake in an argument that arises from
something other than merely false premises. But the false dilemma fallacy is due to false premises.
Still other researchers define a fallacy as an argument that is not good. Good arguments are then
defined as those that are deductively valid or inductively strong, and that contain only true, wellestablished premises, but are not question-begging. A complaint with this definition is that its
requirement of truth would improperly lead to calling too much scientific reasoning fallacious;
every time a new scientific discovery caused scientists to label a previously well-established claim
as false, all the scientists who used that claim as a premise would become fallacious reasoners. This
consequence of the definition is acceptable to some researchers but not to others. Because informal
reasoning regularly deals with hypothetical reasoning and with premises for which there is great
disagreement about whether they are true or false, many researchers would relax the requirement
that every premise must be true. One widely accepted definition defines a fallacious argument as
one that either is deductively invalid or is inductively very weak or contains an unjustified premise

or that ignores relevant evidence that is available and that should be known by the arguer. Finally,
yet another theory of fallacy says a fallacy is a failure to provide adequate proof for a belief, the
failure being disguised to make the proof look adequate.
Other researchers recommend characterizing a fallacy as a violation of the norms of good
reasoning, the rules of critical discussion, dispute resolution, and adequate communication. The
difficulty with this approach is that there is so much disagreement about how to characterize these
norms.
In addition, all the above definitions are often augmented with some remark to the effect that the
fallacies are likely to persuade many reasoners. It is notoriously difficult to be very precise about
this vague and subjective notion of being likely to persuade, and some researchers in fallacy theory
have therefore recommended dropping the notion in favor of can be used to persuade.
Some researchers complain that all the above definitions of fallacy are too broad and do not
distinguish between mere blunders and actual fallacies, the more serious errors.
Researchers in the field are deeply divided, not only about how to define the term fallacy and how
to define some of the individual fallacies, but also about whether any general theory of fallacies at
all should be pursued if that theorys goal is to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for
distinguishing between fallacious and non-fallacious reasoning generally. Analogously, there is
doubt in the field of ethics whether researchers should pursue the goal of providing necessary and
sufficient conditions for distinguishing moral actions from immoral ones.
5. Other Controversies
How do we defend the claim that an item of reasoning should be labeled as a particular fallacy? A
major goal in the field of informal logic is provide some criteria for each fallacy. Schwartz presents
the challenge this way:
Fallacy labels have their use. But fallacy-label texts tend not to provide useful criteria for applying
the labels. Take the so-called ad verecundiam fallacy, the fallacious appeal to authority. Just when is
it committed? Some appeals to authority are fallacious; most are not. A fallacious one meets the
following condition: The expertise of the putative authority, or the relevance of that expertise to the
point at issue, are in question. But the hard work comes in judging and showing that this condition
holds, and that is where the fallacy-label texts leave off. Or rather, when a text goes further, stating
clear, precise, broadly applicable criteria for applying fallacy labels, it provides a critical instrument
more fundamental than a taxonomy of fallacies and hence to that extent goes beyond the fallacylabel approach. The further it goes in this direction, the less it need to emphasize or event to use
fallacy labels. (Schwartz, 232)
The controversy here is the extent to which it is better to teach students what Schwartz calls the
critical instrument than to teach the fallacy-label approach. Is the fallacy-label approach better for
some kinds of fallacies than others? If so, which others?
Another controversy involves the relationship between the fields of logic and rhetoric. In the field
of rhetoric, the primary goal is to persuade the audience. The audience is not going to be persuaded
by an otherwise good argument with true premises unless they believe those premises are true.
Philosophers tend to de-emphasize this difference between rhetoric and informal logic, and they
concentrate on arguments that should fail to convince the ideally rational reasoner rather than on

arguments that are likely not to convince audiences who hold certain background beliefs. Given
specific pedagogical goals, how pedagogically effective is this de-emphasis?
Advertising in magazines and on television is designed to achieve visual persuasion. And a hug or
the fanning of fumes from freshly baked donuts out onto the sidewalk are occasionally used for
visceral persuasion. There is some controversy among researchers in informal logic as to whether
the reasoning involved in this nonverbal persuasion can always be assessed properly by the same
standards that are used for verbal reasoning.
6. Partial List of Fallacies
Consulting the list below will give a general idea of the kind of error involved in passages to which
the fallacy name is applied. However, simply applying the fallacy name to a passage cannot
substitute for a detailed examination of the passage and its context or circumstances because there
are many instances of reasoning to which a fallacy name might seem to apply, yet, on further
examination, it is found that in these circumstances the reasoning is really not fallacious.

Abusive Ad Hominem

Accent

Accident

Ad Baculum

Ad Consequentiam

Ad Crumenum

Ad Hoc Rescue

Ad Hominem

Ad Hominem, Circumstantial

Ad Ignorantiam

Ad Misericordiam

Ad Novitatem

Ad Numerum

Ad Populum

Ad Verecundiam

Affirming the Consequent

Against the Person

All-or-Nothing

Ambiguity

Amphiboly

Anecdotal Evidence

Anthropomorphism

Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Consequence

Appeal to Emotions

Appeal to Force

Appeal to Ignorance

Appeal to Money

Appeal to Past Practice

Appeal to Pity

Appeal to Snobbery

Appeal to the Gallery

Appeal to the Masses

Appeal to the Mob

Appeal to the People

Appeal to the Stick

Appeal to Traditional Wisdom

Appeal to Vanity

Appeal to Unqualified Authority

Argument from Ignorance

Argument from Outrage

Argument from Popularity

Argumentum Ad .

Argumentum Consensus Gentium

Avoiding the Issue

Avoiding the Question

Bald Man

Bandwagon

Begging the Question

Beside the Point

Biased Generalizing

Biased Sample

Biased Statistics

Bifurcation

Black-or-White

Cherry-Picking the Evidence

Circular Reasoning

Circumstantial Ad Hominem

Clouding the Issue

Common Belief

Common Cause.

Common Practice

Complex Question

Composition

Confirmation Bias

Confusing an Explanation with an Excuse

Consensus Gentium

Consequence

Converse Accident

Cover-up

Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Definist

Denying the Antecedent

Digression

Distraction

Division

Domino

Double Standard

Either/Or

Equivocation

Etymological

Every and All

Exaggeration

Excluded Middle

False Analogy

False Cause

False Dichotomy

False Dilemma

Far-Fetched Hypothesis

Faulty Comparison

Faulty Generalization

Formal

Four Terms

Gamblers

Genetic

Group Think

Guilt by Association

Hasty Conclusion

Hasty Generalization

Heap

Hedging

Hooded Man

Hypostatization

Ignoratio Elenchi

Ignoring a Common Cause

Incomplete Evidence

Inconsistency

Inductive Conversion

Insufficient Statistics

Intensional

Invalid Reasoning

Irrelevant Conclusion

Irrelevant Reason

Is-Ought

Jumping to Conclusions

Lack of Proportion

Line-Drawing

Loaded Language

Logic Chopping

Logical

Lying

Maldistributed Middle

Many Questions

Misconditionalization

Misleading Vividness

Misplaced Concreteness

Misrepresentation

Missing the Point

Mob Appeal

Modal

Monte Carlo

Name Calling

Naturalistic

Neglecting a Common Cause

No Middle Ground

No True Scotsman

Non Causa Pro Causa

Non Sequitur

Obscurum per Obscurius

One-Sidedness

Opposition

Outrage, Argument from

Overgeneralization

Oversimplification

Past Practice

Pathetic

Peer Pressure

Perfectionist

Persuasive Definition

Petitio Principii

Poisoning the Well

Popularity, Argument from

Post Hoc

Prejudicial Language

Proof Surrogate

Prosecutors Fallacy

Quantifier Shift

Question Begging

Questionable Analogy

Questionable Cause

Questionable Premise

Quibbling

Quoting out of Context

Rationalization

Red Herring

Refutation by Caricature

Regression

Reification

Reversing Causation

Scapegoating

Scare Tactic

Scope

Secundum Quid

Selective Attention

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Self-Selection

Sharpshooters

Slanting

Slippery Slope

Small Sample

Smear Tactic

Smokescreen

Sorites

Special Pleading

Specificity

Stacking the Deck

Stereotyping

Straw Man

Style Over Substance

Subjectivist

Superstitious Thinking

Suppressed Evidence

Sweeping Generalization

Syllogistic

Texas Sharpshooters

Tokenism

Traditional Wisdom

Tu Quoque

Two Wrongs Make a Right

Undistributed Middle

Unfalsifiability

Unrepresentative Sample

Unrepresentative Generalization

Untestability

Vested Interest

Weak Analogy

Willed ignorance

Wishful Thinking

Abusive Ad Hominem
See Ad Hominem.
Accent
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 Presidents new missile
defense system, and she responds, Im 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 Presidents missile
defense system. With an emphasis, instead, on the words effectively defends, her remark is likely
to be against the Presidents missile defense system. And by using neither emphasis, she can later
claim that her response was on either side of the issue. Aristotles version of the fallacy of accent
allowed only a shift in which syllable is accented within a word.
Accident
We often arrive at a generalization but dont or cant list all the exceptions. When we 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 hed 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 generaliztion as in this case of
the psychopath who wants Dwayne to keep his promise to return the knife.
Ad Baculum
See Scare Tactic and Appeal to Emotions (Fear).
Ad Consequentiam
See Appeal to Consequence.
Ad Crumenum
See Appeal to Money.
Ad Hoc Rescue

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, Ill bet you bought some bad tablets.
The burden of proof is definitely on Yolandas shoulders to prove that Juanitas vitamin C tablets
were probably bad that is, not really vitamin C. If Yolanda cant 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.
Ad Hominem
Your reasoning contains this fallacy if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggest that
this attack undermines the argument itself. It is a kind of Genetic Fallacy.
Example:
What she says about Johannes Keplers astronomy of the 1600s must be just so much garbage. Do
you realize shes only fifteen years old?
This attack may undermine the arguers credibility as a scientific authority, but it does not
undermine her reasoning itself because her age is irrelevant to quality of the reasoning. That
reasoning should stand or fall on the scientific evidence, not on the arguers age or anything else
about her personally. Reasoning that has the ad hominem form is not always fallacious, if the form
is: The reasoner said X, but the reasoner has unacceptable trait T, so X is not acceptable. The
major difficulty with labeling a piece of reasoning of this form as an ad hominem fallacy is deciding
whether the personal attack is relevant or irrelevant. For example, attacks on a person for their
actually 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.
If the fallacious reasoner points out irrelevant circumstances that the reasoner is in, the ad hominem
fallacy is a circumstantial ad hominem. Tu Quoque and Two Wrongs Make a Right are other types of the ad hominem
fallacy.
Ad Hominem, Circumstantial
See Guilt by Association.

Ad Ignorantiam
See Appeal to Ignorance.
Ad Misericordiam
See Appeal to Emotions.
Ad Novitatem
See Bandwagon.
Ad Numerum
See Appeal to the People.
Ad Populum
See Appeal to the People.
Ad Verecundiam
See Appeal to Authority.
Affirming the Consequent
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 shes 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.
Against the Person
See Ad Hominem.
All-or-Nothing
See Black-or-White Fallacy.
Ambiguity

Any fallacy that turns on ambiguity. See the fallacies of Amphiboly, Accent, and Equivocation.
Amphiboly
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, Wed 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.
Anecdotal Evidence
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, Ive read the health warnings on those cigarette packs and I know about all that health
research, but my brother smokes, and he says hes never been sick a day in his life, so I know
smoking cant really hurt you.
Anthropomorphism
This is the error of projecting uniquely human qualities onto something that isnt 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.

Appeal to Authority
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
authoritys 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.
Appeal to Consequence
Arguing that a belief is false because it implies something youd rather not believe. Also called
Argumentum Ad Consequentiam.
Example:
That cant be Senator Smith there in the videotape going into her apartment. If it were, hed be a liar
about not knowing her. Hes not the kind of man who would lie. Hes 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 its someone else in the videotape.
Appeal to Emotions
Your reasoning contains the fallacy of appeal to emotions when someones appeal to you to accept
their claim is accepted merely because the appeal arouses your feelings of anger, fear, grief, love,
outrage, pity, pride, sexuality, sympathy, relief, and so forth. Example of appeal to relief from grief:
[The speaker knows he is talking to an aggrieved person whose house is worth much more than
$100,000.] You had a great job and didnt deserve to lose it. I wish I could help somehow. I do have
one idea. Now your family needs financial security even more. You need cash. I can help you. Here
is a check for $100,000. Just sign this standard sales agreement, and we can skip the realtors and all
the headaches they would create at this critical time in your life.

There is nothing wrong with using emotions when you argue, but its a mistake to use emotions as
the key premises or as tools to downplay relevant information. Regarding the fallacy of appeal to pity, it
is proper to pity people who have had misfortunes, but if as the persons history instructor you
accept Maxs claim that he earned an A on the history quiz because he broke his wrist while playing
in your colleges last basketball game, then youve used the fallacy of appeal to pity.
Appeal to Force
See Scare Tactic.
Appeal to Ignorance
The fallacy of appeal to ignorance comes in two forms: (1) Not knowing that a certain statement is
true is taken to be a proof that it is false. (2) Not knowing that a statement is false is taken to be a
proof that it is true. The fallacy occurs in cases where absence of evidence is not good enough
evidence of absence. The fallacy uses an unjustified attempt to shift the burden of proof. The fallacy
is also called Argument from Ignorance.
Example:
Nobody has ever proved to me theres a God, so I know there is no God.
This kind of reasoning is generally fallacious. It would be proper reasoning only if the proof
attempts were quite thorough, and it were the case that if God did exist, then there would be a
discoverable proof of this. Another common example of the fallacy involves ignorance of a future
event: People have been complaining about the danger of Xs ever since they were invented, but
theres never been any big problem with them, so theres nothing to worry about.
Appeal to Money
The fallacy of appeal to money uses the error of supposing that, if something costs a great deal of
money, then it must be better, or supposing that if someone has a great deal of money, then theyre a
better person in some way unrelated to having a great deal of money. Similarly its a mistake to
suppose that if something is cheap it must be of inferior quality, or to suppose that if someone is
poor financially then theyre poor at something unrelated to having money.
Example:
Hes rich, so he should be the president of our Parents and Teachers Organization.
Appeal to Past Practice
See Appeal to the People.
Appeal to Pity
See Appeal to Emotions.
Appeal to Snobbery

See Appeal to Emotions.

Appeal to the Gallery
See Appeal to the People.
Appeal to the Mob
See Appeal to the People.
Appeal to the Masses
See Appeal to the People.
Appeal to the People
If you suggest too strongly that someones claim or argument is correct simply because its what
most everyone believes, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of appeal to the people. Similarly,
if you suggest too strongly that someones claim or argument is mistaken simply because its not
what most everyone believes, then your reasoning also uses the fallacy. Agreement with popular
opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of truth, and deviation from popular opinion is not
necessarily a reliable sign of error, but if you assume it is and do so with enthusiasm, then you are
using this fallacy. It is essentially the same as the fallacies of ad numerum, appeal to the gallery,
appeal to the masses, argument from popularity, argumentum ad populum, common practice, mob
appeal, past practice, peer pressure, traditional wisdom. The too strongly mentioned above is
important in the description of the fallacy because what most everyone believes is, for that reason,
somewhat likely to be true, all things considered. However, the fallacy occurs when this degree of
support is overestimated.
Example:
You should turn to channel 6. Its the most watched channel this year.
This is fallacious because of its implicitly accepting the questionable premise that the most watched
channel this year is, for that reason alone, the best channel for you. If you stress the idea of
appealing to a new idea held by the gallery, masses, mob, peers, people, and so forth, then it is a
bandwagon fallacy.
Appeal to the Stick
See Appeal to Emotions (fear).
Appeal to Unqualified Authority
See Appeal to Authority.
Appeal to Vanity
See Appeal to Emotions.

Argument from Ignorance

See Appeal to Ignorance.
Argument from Outrage
See Appeal to Emotions.
Argument from Popularity
See Appeal to the People.
Argumentum Ad .
See Ad . without the word Argumentum.
Argumentum Consensus Gentium
See Appeal to Traditional Wisdom.
Avoiding the Issue
A reasoner who is supposed to address an issue but instead goes off on a tangent is properly accused
of using the fallacy of avoiding the issue. Also called missing the point, straying off the subject,
digressing, and not sticking to the issue.
Example:
A city official is charged with corruption for awarding contracts to his wifes consulting firm. In
speaking to a reporter about why he is innocent, the city official talks only about his wifes
conservative wardrobe, the familys lovable dog, and his own accomplishments in supporting Little
League baseball.
However, the fallacy isnt used by a reasoner who says that some other issue must first be settled
and then continues by talking about this other issue, provided the reasoner is correct in claiming this
dependence of one issue on the other.
Avoiding the Question
The fallacy of avoiding the question is a type of fallacy of avoiding the issue that occurs when the
issue is how to answer some question. The fallacy occurs when someones answer doesnt really
respond to the question asked.
Example:
Question: Would the Oakland Athletics be in first place if they were to win tomorrows game?
Answer: What makes you think theyll ever win tomorrows game?

Bald Man
See Line-Drawing.
Bandwagon
If you suggest that someones claim is correct simply because its what most everyone is coming to
believe, then youre are using the bandwagon fallacy. Get up here with us on the wagon where the
band is playing, and go where we go, and dont think too much about the reasons. The Latin term
for this fallacy of appeal to novelty is Argumentum ad Novitatem.
Example:
[Advertisement] More and more people are buying sports utility vehicles. Isnt it time you bought
one, too? [You use the fallacy if you buy the vehicle solely because of this advertisement.]
Like its close cousin, the fallacy of appeal to the people, the bandwagon fallacy needs to be
carefully distinguished from properly defending a claim by pointing out that many people have
studied the claim and have come to a reasoned conclusion that it is correct. What most everyone
believes is likely to be true, all things considered, and if one defends a claim on those grounds, this
is not a fallacious inference. What is fallacious is to be swept up by the excitement of a new idea or
new fad and to unquestionably give it too high a degree of your belief solely on the grounds of its
new popularity, perhaps thinking simply that new is better. The key ingredient that is missing from
a bandwagon fallacy is knowledge that an item is popular because of its high quality.
Begging the Question
A form of circular reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from premises that presuppose the
conclusion. Normally, the point of good reasoning is to start out at one place and end up somewhere
new, namely having reached the goal of increasing the degree of reasonable belief in the conclusion.
The point is to make progress, but in cases of begging the question there is no progress.
Example:
Women have rights, said the Bullfighters Association president. But women shouldnt fight bulls
because a bullfighter is and should be a man.
The president is saying basically that women shouldnt fight bulls because women shouldnt fight
bulls. This reasoning isnt making any progress.
Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is contained in the premises from which
it is deduced, this containing might seem to be a case of presupposing, and thus any deductively
valid argument might seem to be begging the question. It is still an open question among logicians
as to why some deductively valid arguments are considered to be begging the question and others
are not. Some logicians suggest that, in informal reasoning with a deductively valid argument, if the
conclusion is psychologically new insofar as the premises are concerned, then the argument isnt an
example of the fallacy. Other logicians suggest that we need to look instead to surrounding
circumstances, not to the psychology of the reasoner, in order to assess the quality of the argument.
For example, we need to look to the reasons that the reasoner used to accept the premises. Was the
premise justified on the basis of accepting the conclusion? A third group of logicians say that, in

deciding whether the fallacy is present, more evidence is needed. We must determine whether any
premise that is key to deducing the conclusion is adopted rather blindly or instead is a reasonable
assumption made by someone accepting their burden of proof. The premise would here be termed
reasonable if the arguer could defend it independently of accepting the conclusion that is at issue.
Beside the Point
Arguing for a conclusion that is not relevant to the current issue. Also called Irrelevant Conclusion. It is a
form of the Red Herring Fallacy
Biased Generalizing
Generalizing from a biased sample. Using an unrepresentative sample and overestimating the
strength of an argument based on that sample.
See Unrepresentative Sample.
Biased Sample
See Unrepresentative Sample.
Biased Statistics
See Unrepresentative Sample.
Bifurcation
See Black-or-White.
Black-or-White
The black-or-white fallacy is a false dilemma fallacy that unfairly limits you to only two choices.
Example:
Well, its time for a decision. Will you contribute $10 to our environmental fund, or are you on the
side of environmental destruction?
A proper challenge to this fallacy could be to say, I do want to prevent the destruction of our
environment, but I dont want to give $10 to your fund. You are placing me between a rock and a
hard place. The key to diagnosing the black-or-white fallacy is to determine whether the limited
menu is fair or unfair. Simply saying, Will you contribute $10 or wont you? is not unfair.
Cherry-Picking the Evidence
This is another name for the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
Circular Reasoning

Circular reasoning occurs when the reasoner begins with what he or she is trying to end up with.
The most well known examples are cases of the fallacy of begging the question. However, if the
circle is very much larger, including a wide variety of claims and a large set of related concepts,
then the circular reasoning can be informative and so is not considered to be fallacious. For
example, a dictionary contains a large circle of definitions that use words which are defined in
terms of other words that are also defined in the dictionary. Because the dictionary is so
informative, it is not considered as a whole to be fallacious. However, a small circle of definitions is
considered to be fallacious.
Here is Steven Pinkers example:
Definition: endless loop, n. See loop, endless.
Definition: loop, endless, n. See endless loop.
In properly constructed recursive definitions, defining a term by using that term is not fallacious.
For example, here is a recursive definition of a stack of coins. Basis step: Two coins, with one on
top of the other, is a stack of coins. Recursion step: If p is a stack of coins, then adding a coin on top
of p produces a stack of coins. For additional difficulties in deciding whether an argument is
deficient because it is circular, see Begging the Question.
Circumstantial Ad Hominem
See Ad Hominem, Circumstantial.
Clouding the Issue
See Smokescreen.
Common Belief
See Appeal to the People and Traditional Wisdom.
Common Cause
This fallacy occurs during causal reasoning when a causal connection between two kinds of events
is claimed when evidence is available indicating that both are the effect of a common cause.
Example:
Noting that the auto accident rate rises and falls with the rate of use of windshield wipers, one
concludes that the use of wipers is somehow causing auto accidents.
However, its the rain thats the common cause of both.
Common Practice
See Appeal to the People and Traditional Wisdom.

Complex Question
You use this fallacy when you frame a question so that some controversial presupposition is made
by the wording of the question.
Example:
[Reporter's question] Mr. President: Are you going to continue your policy of wasting taxpayers
money on missile defense?
The question unfairly presumes the controversial claim that the policy really is a waste of money.
The fallacy of complex question is a form of begging the question.
Composition
The composition fallacy occurs when someone mistakenly assumes that a characteristic of some or
all the individuals in a group is also a characteristic of the group itself, the group composed of
those members. It is the converse of the division fallacy.
Example:
Each human cell is very lightweight, so a human being composed of cells is also very lightweight.
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to look only for evidence in favor of ones controversial hypothesis and not to look
for disconfirming evidence, or to pay insufficient attention to it. This is the most common kind of
Fallacy of Selective Attention.
Example:
She loves me, and there are so many ways that she has shown it. When we signed the divorce
papers in her lawyers office, she wore my favorite color. When she slapped me at the bar and called
me a handsome pig, she used the word handsome when she didnt have to. When I called her
and she said never to call her again, she first asked me how I was doing and whether my life had
changed. When I suggested that we should have children in order to keep our marriage together, she
laughed. If she can laugh with me, if she wants to know how I am doing and whether my life has
changed, and if she calls me handsome and wears my favorite color on special occasions, then I
know she really loves me.
Using the fallacy of confirmation bias is often a sign that one has adopted some belief dogmatically
and isnt seriously setting about to confirm or disconfirm the belief.
Confusing an Explanation with an Excuse
Treating someones explanation of a fact as if it were a justification of the fact. Explaining a crime
should not be confused with excusing the crime, but it too often is.
Example:

Speaker: The German atrocities committed against the French and Belgians during World War I
were in part due to the anger of German soldiers who learned that French and Belgian soldiers were
ambushing German soldiers, shooting them in the back, or even poisoning, blinding and castrating
them.
Respondent: I dont understand how you can be so insensitive as to condone those German
atrocities.
Consensus Gentium
Fallacy of argumentum consensus gentium (argument from the consensus of the nations). See Traditional
Wisdom.
Consequence
See Appeal to Consequence.
Converse Accident
If we reason by paying too much attention to exceptions to the rule, and generalize on the
exceptions, our reasoning contains this fallacy. This fallacy is the converse of the accident fallacy. It
is a kind of Hasty Generalization, by generalizing too quickly from a peculiar case.
Example:
Ive heard that turtles live longer than tarantulas, but the one turtle I bought lived only two days. I
bought it at Dowdens Pet Store. So, I think that turtles bought from pet stores do not live longer
than tarantulas.
The original generalization is Turtles live longer than tarantulas. There are exceptions, such as the
turtle bought from the pet store. Rather than seeing this for what it is, namely an exception, the
reasoner places too much trust in this exception and generalizes on it to produce the faulty
generalization that turtles bought from pet stores do not live longer than tarantulas.
Cover-up
See Suppressed Evidence.
Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc
Latin for with this, therefore because of this. This is a false cause fallacy that doesnt depend on time
order (as does the post hoc fallacy), but on any other chance correlation of the supposed cause being
in the presence of the supposed effect.
Example:
Gypsies live near our low-yield cornfields. So, gypsies are causing the low yield.
Definist

The definist fallacy occurs when someone unfairly defines a term so that a controversial position is
made easier to defend. Same as the Persuasive Definition.
Example:
During a controversy about the truth or falsity of atheism, the fallacious reasoner says, Lets define
atheist as someone who doesnt yet realize that God exists.
Denying the Antecedent
You are using this fallacy if you deny the antecedent of a conditional and then suppose that doing so
is a sufficient reason for denying the consequent. This formal fallacy is often mistaken for modus
tollens, a valid form of argument using the conditional. A conditional is an if-then statement; the ifpart is the antecedent, and the then-part is the consequent.
Example:
If she were Brazilian, then she would know that Brazils official language is Portuguese. She isnt
Brazilian; shes from London. So, she surely doesnt know this about Brazils language.
Digression
See Avoiding the Issue.
Distraction
See Smokescreen.
Division
Merely because a group as a whole has a characteristic, it often doesnt follow that individuals in
the group have that characteristic. If you suppose that it does follow, when it doesnt, your
reasoning contains the fallacy of division. It is the converse of the composition fallacy.
Example:
Joshuas soccer team is the best in the division because it had an undefeated season and won the
division title, so their goalie must be the best goalie in the division.
Domino
See Slippery Slope.
Double Standard
There are many situations in which you should judge two things or people by the same standard. If
in one of those situations you use different standards for the two, your reasoning contains the
fallacy of using a double standard.

Example:
I know we will hire any man who gets over a 70 percent on the screening test for hiring Post Office
employees, but women should have to get an 80 to be hired because they often have to take care of
their children.
This example is a fallacy if it can be presumed that men and women should have to meet the same
standard for becoming a Post Office employee.
Either/Or
See Black-or-White.
Equivocation
Equivocation is the illegitimate switching of the meaning of a term during the reasoning.
Example:
Brad is a nobody, but since nobody is perfect, Brad must be perfect, too.
The term nobody changes its meaning without warning in the passage. So does the term political
jokes in this joke: I dont approve of political jokes. Ive seen too many of them get elected.
Etymological
The etymological fallacy occurs whenever someone falsely assumes that the meaning of a word can
be discovered from its etymology or origins.
Example:
The word vise comes from the Latin that which winds, so it means anything that winds. Since a
hurricane winds around its own eye, it is a vise.
Every and All
The fallacy of every and all turns on errors due to the order or scope of the quantifiers every and
all and any. This is a version of the scope fallacy.
Example:
Every action of ours has some final end. So, there is some common final end to all our actions.
In proposing this fallacious argument, Aristotle believed the common end is the supreme good, so
he had a rather optimistic outlook on the direction of history.
Exaggeration

When we overstate or overemphasize a point that is a crucial step in a piece of reasoning, then we
are guilty of the fallacy of exaggeration. This is a kind of error called Lack of Proportion.
Example:
Shes practically admitted that she intentionally yelled at that student while on the playground in the
fourth grade. Thats verbal assault. Then she said nothing when the teacher asked, Who did that?
Thats lying, plain and simple. Do you want to elect as secretary of this club someone who is a
known liar prone to assault? Doing so would be a disgrace to our Collie Club.
When we exaggerate in order to make a joke, though, we do not use the fallacy because we do not
intend to be taken literally.
Excluded Middle
See False Dilemma or Black-or-White.
False Analogy
The problem is that the items in the analogy are too dissimilar. When reasoning by analogy, the
fallacy occurs when the analogy is irrelevant or very weak or when there is a more relevant
disanalogy. See also Faulty Comparison.
Example:
The book Investing for Dummies really helped me understand my finances better. The book Chess
for Dummies was written by the same author, was published by the same press, and costs about the
same amount. So, this chess book would probably help me understand my finances, too.
False Cause
Improperly concluding that one thing is a cause of another. The Fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa is
another name for this fallacy. Its four principal kinds are the Post Hoc Fallacy, the Fallacy of Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter
Hoc, the Regression Fallacy, and the Fallacy of Reversing Causation.
Example:
My psychic adviser says to expect bad things when Mars is aligned with Jupiter. Tomorrow Mars
will be aligned with Jupiter. So, if a dog were to bite me tomorrow, it would be because of the
alignment of Mars with Jupiter.
False Dichotomy
See False Dilemma or Black-or-White.
False Dilemma

A reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a choice must be made
among this short menu of choices is using the false dilemma fallacy, as does the person who accepts
this faulty reasoning.
Example:
I want to go to Scotland from London. I overheard McTaggart say there are two roads to Scotland
from London: the high road and the low road. I expect the high road would be too risky because its
through the hills and that means dangerous curves. But its raining now, so both roads are probably
slippery. I dont like either choice, but I guess I should take the low road and be safer.
This would be fine reasoning is you were limited to only two roads, but youve falsely gotten
yourself into a dilemma with such reasoning. There are many other ways to get to Scotland. Dont
limit yourself to these two choices. You can take other roads, or go by boat or train or airplane. The
fallacy is called the False Dichotomy Fallacy when the unfair menu contains only two choices.
Think of the unpleasant choice between the two as being a charging bull. By demanding other
choices beyond those on the unfairly limited menu, you thereby go between the horns of the
dilemma, and are not gored. For another example of the fallacy, see Black-or-White.
Far-Fetched Hypothesis
This is the fallacy of offering a bizarre (far-fetched) hypothesis as the correct explanation without
first ruling out more mundane explanations.
Example:
Look at that mutilated cow in the field, and see that flattened grass. Aliens must have landed in a
flying saucer and savaged the cow to learn more about the beings on our planet.
Faulty Comparison
If you try to make a point about something by comparison, and if you do so by comparing it with
the wrong thing, then your reasoning uses the fallacy of faulty comparison or the fallacy of questionable
analogy.
Example:
We gave half the members of the hiking club Durell hiking boots and the other half good-quality
tennis shoes. After three months of hiking, you can see for yourself that Durell lasted longer. You,
too, should use Durell when you need hiking boots.
Shouldnt Durell hiking boots be compared with other hiking boots, not with tennis shoes?
Faulty Generalization
A fallacy produced by some error in the process of generalizing. See Hasty Generalization or Unrepresentative
Generalization for examples.
Formal

Formal fallacies are all the cases or kinds of reasoning that fail to be deductively valid. Formal
fallacies are also called logical fallacies or invalidities.
Example:
Some cats are tigers. Some tigers are animals. So, some cats are animals.
This might at first seem to be a good argument, but actually it is fallacious because it has the same
logical form as the following more obviously invalid argument:
Some women are Americans. Some Americans are men. So, some women are men.
Nearly all the infinity of types of invalid inferences have no specific fallacy names.
Four Terms
The fallacy of four terms (quaternio terminorum) occurs when four rather than three categorical
terms are used in a standard-form syllogism.
Example:
All rivers have banks. All banks have vaults. So, all rivers have vaults.
The word banks occurs as two distinct terms, namely river bank and financial bank, so this
example also is an equivocation. Without an equivocation, the four term fallacy is trivially invalid.
Gamblers
This fallacy occurs when the gambler falsely assumes that the history of outcomes will affect future
outcomes.
Example:
I know this is a fair coin, but it has come up heads five times in a row now, so tails is due on the
next toss.
The fallacious move was to conclude that the probability of the next toss coming up tails must be
more than a half. The assumption that its a fair coin is important because, if the coin comes up
heads five times in a row, one would otherwise become suspicious that its not a fair coin and
therefore properly conclude that the probably is high that heads is more likely on the next toss.
Genetic
A critic uses the genetic fallacy if the critic attempts to discredit or support a claim or an argument
because of its origin (genesis) when such an appeal to origins is irrelevant.
Example:

Whatever your reasons are for buying that DVD theyve got to be ridiculous. You said yourself that
you got the idea for buying it from last nights fortune cookie. Cookies cant think!
Fortune cookies are not reliable sources of information about what DVD to buy, but the reasons the
person is willing to give are likely to be quite relevant and should be listened to. The speaker is
using the genetic fallacy by paying too much attention to the genesis of the idea rather than to the
reasons offered for it. An ad hominem fallacy is one kind of genetic fallacy, but the genetic fallacy in our
passage isnt an ad hominem.
If I learn that your plan for building the shopping center next to the Johnson estate originated with
Johnson himself, who is likely to profit from the deal, then my pointing out to the planning
commission the origin of the deal would be relevant in their assessing your plan. Because not all
appeals to origins are irrelevant, it sometimes can be difficult to decide if the fallacy has been used.
For example, if Sigmund Freud shows that the genesis of a persons belief in God is their desire for
a strong father figure, then does it follow that their belief in God is misplaced, or is Freuds
reasoning using the genetic fallacy?
Group Think
A reasoner uses the group think fallacy if he or she substitutes pride of membership in the group for
reasons to support the groups policy. If thats what our group thinks, then thats good enough for
me. Its what I think, too. Blind patriotism is a rather nasty version of the fallacy.
Example:
We K-Mart employees know that K-Mart brand items are better than Wall-Mart brand items
because, well, they are from K-Mart, arent they?
Guilt by Association
Guilt by association is a version of the ad hominem fallacy in which a person is said to be guilty of error
because of the group he or she associates with. The fallacy occurs when we unfairly try to change
the issue to be about the speakers circumstances rather than about the speakers actual argument.
Also called Ad Hominem, Circumstantial.
Example:
Secretary of State Dean Acheson is too soft on communism, as you can see by his inviting so many
fuzzy-headed liberals to his White House cocktail parties.
Has any evidence been presented here that Achesons actions are inappropriate in regards to
communism? This sort of reasoning is an example of McCarthyism, the technique of smearing
liberal Democrats that was so effectively used by the late Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s.
In fact, Acheson was strongly anti-communist and the architect of President Trumans firm policy of
containing Soviet power.
Hasty Conclusion
See Jumping to Conclusions.

Hasty Generalization
A hasty generalization is a fallacy of jumping to conclusions in which the conclusion is a generalization. See
also Biased Statistics.
Example:
Ive met two people in Nicaragua so far, and they were both nice to me. So, all people I will meet in
Nicaragua will be nice to me.
In any hasty generalization the key error is to overestimate the strength of an argument that is based
on too small a sample for the implied confidence level or error margin. In this argument about
Nicaragua, using the word all in the conclusion implies zero error margin. With zero error margin
youd need to sample every single person in Nicaragua, not just two people.
Heap
See Line-Drawing.
Hedging
You are hedging if you refine your claim simply to avoid counterevidence and then act as if your
revised claim is the same as the original.
Example:
Samantha: David is a totally selfish person.
Yvonne: I thought we was a boy scout leader. Dont you have to give a lot of your time for that?
Samantha: Well, Davids totally selfish about what he gives money to. He wont spend a dime on
anyone else.
Yvonne: I saw him bidding on things at the high school auction fundraiser.
Samantha: Well, except for that hes totally selfish about money.
You do not use the fallacy if you explicitly accept the counterevidence, admit that your original
claim is incorrect, and then revise it so that it avoids that counterevidence.
Hooded Man
This is an error in reasoning due to confusing the knowing of a thing with the knowing of it under
all its various names or descriptions.
Example:
You claim to know Socrates, but you must be lying. You admitted you didnt know the hooded man
over there in the corner, but the hooded man is Socrates.

Hypostatization
The error of inappropriately treating an abstract term as if it were a concrete one.
Example:
Nature decides which organisms live and which die.
Nature isnt capable of making decisions. The point can be made without reasoning fallaciously by
saying: Which organisms live and which die is determined by natural causes.
Ignoratio Elenchi
See Irrelevant Conclusion. Also called missing the point.
Ignoring a Common Cause
See Common Cause.
Incomplete Evidence
See Suppressed Evidence.
Inconsistency
The fallacy occurs when we accept an inconsistent set of claims, that is, when we accept a claim
that logically conflicts with other claims we hold.
Example:
Im not racist. Some of my best friends are white. But I just dont think that white women love their
babies as much as our women do.
That last remark implies the speaker is a racist, although the speaker doesnt notice the
inconsistency.
Inductive Conversion
Improperly reasoning from a claim of the form All As are Bs to All Bs are As or from one of
the form Many As are Bs to Many Bs are As and so forth.
Example:
Most professional basketball players are tall, so most tall people are professional basketball players.
The term conversion is a technical term in formal logic.
Insufficient Statistics

Drawing a statistical conclusion from a set of data that is clearly too small.
Example:
A pollster interviews ten London voters in one building about which candidate for mayor they
support, and upon finding that Churchill receives support from six of the ten, declares that Churchill
has the majority support of London voters.
This fallacy is a form of the Fallcy of Jumping to Conclusions.
Intensional
The mistake of treating different descriptions or names of the same object as equivalent even in
those contexts in which the differences between them matter. Reporting someones beliefs or
assertions or making claims about necessity or possibility can be such contexts. In these contexts,
replacing a description with another that refers to the same object is not valid and may turn a true
sentence into a false one.
Example:
Michelle said she wants to meet her new neighbor Stalnaker tonight. But I happen to know
Stalnaker is a spy for North Korea, so Michelle said she wants to meet a spy for North Korea
tonight.
Michelle said no such thing. The faulty reasoner illegitimately assumed that what is true of a person
under one description will remain true when said of that person under a second description even in
this context of indirect quotation. What was true of the person when described as her new neighbor
Stalnaker is that Michelle said she wants to meet him, but it wasnt legitimate for me to assume
this is true of the same person when he is described as a spy for North Korea.
Extensional contexts are those in which it is legitimate to substitute equals for equals with no worry.
But any context in which this substitution of co-referring terms is illegitimate is called an
intensional context. Intensional contexts are produced by quotation, modality, and intentionality
(propositional attitudes). Intensionality is failure of extensionality, thus the name intensional
fallacy.
Invalid Reasoning
An invalid inference. An argument can be assessed by deductive standards to see if the conclusion
would have to be true if the premises were to be true. If the argument cannot meet this standard, it is
invalid. An argument is invalid only if it is not an instance of any valid argument form. The fallacy of
invalid reasoning is a formal fallacy.
Example:
If its raining, then there are clouds in the sky. Its not raining. Therefore, there are no clouds in the
sky.

This invalid argument is an instance of denying the antecedent. Any invalid inference that is also inductively
very weak is a non sequitur.
Irrelevant Conclusion
The conclusion that is drawn is irrelevant to the premises; it misses the point.
Example:
In court, Thompson testifies that the defendant is a honorable person, who wouldnt harm a flea.
The defense attorney uses the fallacy by rising to say that Thompsons testimony shows once again
that his client was not near the murder scene.
The testimony of Thompson may be relevant to a request for leniency, but it is irrelevant to any
claim about the defendant not being near the murder scene. Other examples of this fallacy are Ad
Hominem, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Emotions, and Argument from Ignorance.
Irrelevant Reason
This fallacy is a kind of non sequitur in which the premises are wholly irrelevant to drawing the
conclusion.
Example:
Lao Tze Beer is the top selling beer in Thailand. So, it will be the best beer for Canadians.
Is-Ought
The is-ought fallacy occurs when a conclusion expressing what ought to be so is inferred from
premises expressing only what is so, in which it is supposed that no implicit or explicit oughtpremises are need. There is controversy in the philosophical literature regarding whether this type
of inference is always fallacious.
Example:
Hes torturing the cat.
So, he shouldnt do that.
This argument would not use the fallacy if there were an implicit premise indicating that he is a
person and persons shouldnt torture other beings.
Jumping to Conclusions
It is not always a mistake to make a quick decision, but when we draw a conclusion without taking
the trouble to acquire enough of the relevant evidence, our reasoning uses the fallacy of jumping to
conclusions, provided there was sufficient time to acquire and assess that extra evidence, and
provided that the extra effort it takes to get the evidence isnt prohibitive.

Example:
This car is really cheap. Ill buy it.
Hold on. Before concluding that you should buy it, you ought to have someone check its operating
condition, or else you should make sure you get a guarantee about the cars being in working order.
And, if you stop to think about it, there may be other factors you should consider before making the
purchase, such as size, appearance, and gas usage.
Lack of Proportion
Either exaggerating or downplaying a point that is a crucial step in a piece of reasoning is an example of
the Fallacy of Lack of Proportion. Its a mistake of not adopting the proper perspective. An extreme
form of downplaying occurs in the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.
Example:
Chandra just overheard the terrorists say that they are about to plant the bomb in the basement of
the courthouse, after which theyll drive to the airport and get away. But they wont be taking along
their cat. The poor cat. The first thing that Chandra and I should do is to call the Humane Society
and check the Cat Wanted section of the local newspapers to see if we can find a proper home for
the cat.
Line-Drawing
If we improperly reject a vague claim because it is not as precise as wed like, then we are using the
line-drawing fallacy. Being vague is not being hopelessly vague. Also called the Bald Man Fallacy,
the Fallacy of the Heap and the Sorites Fallacy.
Example:
Dwayne can never grow bald. Dwayne isnt bald now. Dont you agree that if he loses one hair, that
wont make him go from not bald to bald? And if he loses one hair after that, then this one loss, too,
wont make him go from not bald to bald. Therefore, no matter how much hair he loses, he cant
become bald.
Loaded Language
Loaded language is emotive terminology that expresses value judgments. When used in what
appears to be an objective description, the terminology unfortunately can cause the listener to adopt
those values when in fact no good reason has been given for doing so. Also called Prejudicial
Language.
Example:
[News broadcast] In todays top stories, Senator Smith carelessly cast the deciding vote today to
pass both the budget bill and the trailer bill to fund yet another excessive watchdog committee over
coastal development.

This broadcast is an editorial posing as a news report.

Logic Chopping
Obscuring the issue by using overly-technical logic tools, especially the techniques of formal
symbolic logic, that focus attention on trivial details. A form of Smokescreen and Quibbling.
Logical
See Formal.
Lying
A fallacy of reasoning that depends on intentionally saying something that is known to be false. If
the lying occurs in an arguments premise, then it is an example of the fallacy of questionable premise.
Example:
Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Kennedy were assassinated.
They were U.S. presidents.
Therefore, at least three U.S. presidents have been assassinated.
Roosevelt was never assassinated.
Maldistributed Middle
See Undistributed Middle.
Many Questions
See Complex Question.
Misconditionalization
See Modal Fallacy.
Misleading Vividness
When the fallacy of jumping to conclusions is due to a special emphasis on an anecdote or other piece of
evidence, then the fallacy of misleading vividness has occurred.
Example:
Yes, I read the side of the cigarette pack about smoking being harmful to your health. Thats the
Surgeon Generals opinion, him and all his statistics. But let me tell you about my uncle. Uncle
Harry has smoked cigarettes for forty years now and hes never been sick a day in his life. He even
won a ski race at Lake Tahoe in his age group last year. You should have seen him zip down the

mountain. He smoked a cigarette during the award ceremony, and he had a broad smile on his face.
I was really proud. I can still remember the cheering. Cigarette smoking cant be as harmful as
people say.
The vivid anecdote is the story about Uncle Harry. Too much emphasis is placed on it and not
enough on the statistics from the Surgeon General.
Misplaced Concreteness
Mistakenly supposing that something is a concrete object with independent existence, when its not.
Example:
There are two footballs lying on the floor of an otherwise empty room. When asked to count all the
objects in the room, John says there are three: the two balls plus the group of two.
John mistakenly supposed a group or set of concrete objects is also a concrete object.
Misrepresentation
If the misrepresentation occurs on purpose, then it is an example of lying. If the misrepresentation
occurs during a debate in which there is misrepresentation of the opponents claim, then it would be
the cause of a straw man fallacy.
Missing the Point
See Irrelevant Conclusion.
Mob Appeal
See Appeal to the People.
Modal
This is the error of treating modal conditionals as if the modality applies only to the then-part of the
conditional when it more properly applies to the entire conditional.
Example:
If James has two children, then he necessarily has more than one child. But since we know he does
have two children, it is necessarily true that James has more than one child.
This apparently valid argument is invalid. It is not necessarily true that James has more than one
child; its merely true that he has more than one child. He could have had no children. The solution
to the fallacy is to see that the premise If James has two children, then he necessarily has more
than one child, requires the modality necessarily to apply logically to the entire conditional If
James has two children,then he has more than one child even though grammatically it applies only
to he has more than one child. The modal fallacy is the most well known of the infinitely many
errors involving modal concepts. Modal concepts include necessity, possibility, and so forth.

Monte Carlo
See Gamblers Fallacy.
Name Calling
See Ad Hominem.
Naturalistic
On a broad interpretation of the fallacy, it is said to apply to any attempt to argue from an is to an
ought, that is, to argue directly from a list of facts to a claim about what ought to be done.
Example:
Owners of financially successful companies are more successful than poor people in the
competition for wealth, power and social status. Therefore, these owners are morally better than
poor people, and the poor deserve to be poor.
The fallacy would also occur if one argued from the natural to the moral as follows: since women
are naturally capable of bearing and nursing children, they ought to be the primary caregivers of
children. There is considerable disagreement among philosophers regarding what sorts of arguments
the term Naturalistic Fallacy applies to, and even whether it is a fallacy at all.
Neglecting a Common Cause
See Common Cause.
No Middle Ground
See False Dilemma.
No True Scotsman
This error is a kind of ad hoc rescue of ones generalization in which the reasoner re-characterizes the
situation solely in order to escape refutation of the generalization.
Example:
Smith: All Scotsmen are loyal and brave.
Jones: But McDougal over there is a Scotsman, and he was arrested by his commanding officer for
running from the enemy.
Smith: Well, if thats right, it just shows that McDougal wasnt a TRUE Scotsman.
Non Causa Pro Causa
This label is Latin for mistaking the non-cause for the cause. See False Cause.

Non Sequitur
When a conclusion is supported only by extremely weak reasons or by irrelevant reasons, the
argument is fallacious and is said to be a non sequitur. However, we usually apply the term only
when we cannot think of how to label the argument with a more specific fallacy name. Any
deductively invalid inference is a non sequitur if it also very weak when assessed by inductive standards.
Example:
Nuclear disarmament is a risk, but everything in life involves a risk. Every time you drive in a car
you are taking a risk. If youre willing to drive in a car, you should be willing to have disarmament.
The following is not an example: If she committed the murder, then thered be his blood stains on
her hands. His blood stains are on her hands. So, she committed the murder. This deductively
invalid argument uses the fallacy of affirming the consequent, but it isnt a non sequitur because it has
significant inductive strength.
Obscurum per Obscurius
Explaining something obscure or mysterious by something that is even more obscure or more
mysterious.
Example:
Let me explain what a lucky result is. It is a fortuitous collapse of the quantum mechanical wave
packet that leads to a surprisingly pleasing result.
One-Sidedness
See Slanting and Suppressed Evidence.
Opposition
Being opposed to someones reasoning because of who they are, usually because of what group they
are associated with. See the Fallacy of Guilt by Association.
Overgeneralization
See Sweeping Generalization.
Oversimplification
You oversimplify when you cover up relevant complexities or make a complicated problem appear
to be too much simpler than it really is.
Example:

President Bush wants our country to trade with Fidel Castros Communist Cuba. I say there should
be a trade embargo against Cuba. The issue in our election is Cuban trade, and if you are against it,
then you should vote for me for president.
Whom to vote for should be decided by considering quite a number of issues in addition to Cuban
trade. When an oversimplification results in falsely implying that a minor causal factor is the major
one, then the reasoning also uses the false cause fallacy.
Past Practice
See Traditional Wisdom.
Pathetic
The pathetic fallacy is a mistaken belief due to attributing peculiarly human qualities to inanimate
objects (but not to animals). The fallacy is caused by anthropomorphism.
Example:
Aargh, it wont start again. This old car always breaks down on days when I have a job interview. It
must be afraid that if I get a new job, then Ill be able to afford a replacement, so it doesnt want me
to get to my interview on time.
Peer Pressure
See Appeal to the People.
Persuasive Definition
Some people try to win their arguments by getting you to accept their faulty definition. If you buy
into their definition, theyve practically persuaded you already. Same as the Definist Fallacy. Poisoning the Well
when presenting a definition would be an example of a using persuasive definition.
Example:
Lets define a Democrat as a leftist who desires to overtax the corporations and abolish freedom in
the economic sphere.
Perfectionist
If you remark that a proposal or claim should be rejected solely because it doesnt solve the
problem perfectly, in cases where perfection isnt really required, then youve used the perfectionist
fallacy.
Example:
You said hiring a house cleaner would solve our cleaning problems because we both have full-time
jobs. Now, look what happened. Every week she unplugs the toaster oven and leaves it that way. I
should never have listened to you about hiring a house cleaner.

Petitio Principii
See Begging the Question.
Poisoning the Well
Poisoning the well is a preemptive attack on a person in order to discredit their testimony or
argument in advance of their giving it. A person who thereby becomes unreceptive to the testimony
reasons fallaciously and has become a victim of the poisoner. This is a kind of ad hominem, circumstantial
fallacy.
Example:
[Prosecuting attorney in court] When is the defense attorney planning to call that twice-convicted
child molester, David Barnington, to the stand? OK, Ill rephrase that. When is the defense attorney
planning to call David Barnington to the stand?
Post Hoc
Suppose we notice that an event of kind A is followed in time by an event of kind B, and then
hastily leap to the conclusion that A caused B. If so, our reasoning contains the post hoc fallacy.
Correlations are often good evidence of causal connection, so the fallacy occurs only when the leap
to the causal conclusion is done hastily. The Latin term for the fallacy is post hoc, ergo propter
hoc (After this, therefore because of this). It is a kind of false cause fallacy.
Example:
I ate in that Ethiopian restaurant three days ago and now Ive just gotten food poisoning. The only
other time Ive eaten in an Ethiopian restaurant I also got food poisoning, but that time I got sick a
week later. My eating in those kinds of restaurants is causing my food poisoning.
Your background knowledge should tell you this is unlikely because the effects of food poisoning
are felt soon after the food is eaten. Before believing your illness was caused by eating in an
Ethiopian restaurant, youd need to rule out other possibilities, such as your illness being caused by
what you ate a few hours before the onset of the illness.
Prejudicial Language
See Loaded Language.
Proof Surrogate
Substituting a distracting comment for a real proof.
Example:
I dont need to tell a smart person like you that you should vote Republican.
This comment is trying to avoid a serious disagreement about whether one should vote Republican.

Prosecutors Fallacy
This is the mistake of over-emphasizing the strength of a piece of evidence while paying
insufficient attention to the context.
Example:
Suppose a prosecutor is trying to gain a conviction and points to the evidence that at the scene of
the burglary the police found a strand of the burglars hair. A forensic test showed that the burglars
hair matches the suspects own hair. The forensic scientist testified that the chance of a randomly
selected person producing such a match is only one in two thousand. The prosecutor concludes that
the suspect has only a one in two thousand chance of being innocent. On the basis of only this
evidence, the prosecutor asks the jury for a conviction.
That is fallacious reasoning, and if you are on the jury you should not be convinced. Heres why.
The prosecutor paid insufficient attention to the pool of potential suspects. Suppose that pool has six
million people who could have committed the crime, all other things being equal. If the forensic lab
had tested all those people, theyd find that about one in every two thousand of them would have a
hair match, but that is three thousand people. The suspect is just one of the 3000, so the suspect is
very probably innocent unless the prosecutor can provide more evidence. The prosecutor overemphasized the strength of a piece of evidence by focusing on one suspect while paying insufficient
attention to the context which suggests a pool of many more suspects.
Quantifier Shift
Confusing the phrase For all x there is some y with There is some (one) y such that for all x.
Example:
Everything has a cause, so theres one cause of everything.
The error is also made if you argue from Everybody loves someone to There is someone whom
everybody loves.
Questionable Begging
See Begging the Question
Questionable Analogy
See False Analogy.
Questionable Cause
See False Cause.
Questionable Premise

If you have sufficient background information to know that a premise is questionable or unlikely to
be acceptable, then you use this fallacy if you accept an argument based on that premise. This broad
category of fallacies of argumentation includes appeal to authority, false dilemma, inconsistency, lying, stacking the deck, straw man,
suppressed evidence, and many others.
Quibbling
We quibble when we complain about a minor point and falsely believe that this complaint somehow
undermines the main point. To avoid this error, the logical reasoner will not make a mountain out of
a mole hill nor take people too literally. Logic Chopping is a kind of quibbling.
Example:
Ive found typographical errors in your poem, so the poem is neither inspired nor perceptive.
Quoting out of Context
If you quote someone, but select the quotation so that essential context is not available and therefore
the persons views are distorted, then youve quoted out of context. Quoting out of context in an
argument creates a straw man fallacy.
Example:
Smith: Ive been reading about a peculiar game in this article about vegetarianism. When we play
this game, we lean out from a fourth-story window and drop down strings containing Free food
signs on the end in order to hook unsuspecting passers-by. Its really outrageous, isnt it? Yet isnt
that precisely what sports fishermen do for entertainment from their fishing boats? The article says
its time we put an end to sport fishing.
Jones: Let me quote Smith for you. He says Wehook unsuspecting passers-by. What sort of
moral monster is this man Smith?
Joness selective quotation is fallacious because it makes Smith appear to advocate this immoral
activity when the context makes it clear that he doesnt.
Rationalization
We rationalize when we inauthentically offer reasons to support our claim. We are rationalizing
when we give someone a reason to justify our action even though we know this reason is not really
our own reason for our action, usually because the offered reason will sound better to the audience
than our actual reason.
Example:
I bought the matzo bread from Krogers Supermarket because it is the cheapest brand and I wanted
to save money, says Alex [who knows he bought the bread from Kroger's Supermarket only
because his girlfriend works there].
Red Herring

A red herring is a smelly fish that would distract even a bloodhound. It is also a digression that leads
the reasoner off the track of considering only relevant information.
Example:
Will the new tax in Senate Bill 47 unfairly hurt business? I notice that the main provision of the bill
is that the tax is higher for large employers (fifty or more employees) as opposed to small
employers (six to forty-nine employees). To decide on the fairness of the bill, we must first
determine whether employees who work for large employers have better working conditions than
employees who work for small employers. I am ready to volunteer for a new committee to study
this question. How do you suppose we should go about collecting the data we need?
Bringing up the issue of working conditions is the red herring.
Refutation by Caricature
See Ad Hominem.
Regression
This fallacy occurs when regression to the mean is mistaken for a sign of a causal connection. Also
called the Regressive Fallacy. It is a kind of false cause fallacy.
Example:
You are investigating the average heights of groups of people living in the United States. You
sample some people living in Columbus, Ohio and determine their average height. You have the
numerical figure for the mean height of people living in the U.S., and you notice that members of
your sample from Columbus have an average height that differs from this mean. Your second
sample of the same size is from people living in Dayton, Ohio. When you find that this groups
average height is closer to the U.S. mean height [as it is very likely to be due to common statistical
regression to the mean], you falsely conclude that there must be something causing people living in
Dayton to be more like the average U.S. resident than people living in Columbus.
There is most probably nothing causing people from Dayton to be more like the average resident of
the U.S.; but rather what is happening is that averages are regressing to the mean.
Reification
Considering an abstract noun to be a term referring to an abstract object, when the meaning of the
noun can be accounted for more mundanely without assuming the object exists.
Example:
I succumbed to nostalgia, so there is an object called nostalgia that I succumbed to.
It would be less extravagant to interpret the sentence I succumbed to nostalgia this way: My
mental state caused actions that would best be described as my reflecting an unusual desire to return
to some past period of my life. Another common way the fallacy is used is when someone says that

if you understand what Sherlock Holmes means, then Sherlock Holmes exists in your
understanding. The larger point here is that nouns can be meaningful without them referring to an
object, yet those who use the Fallacy of Reification do not understand this point.
Reversing Causation
Drawing an improper conclusion about causation due to a causal assumption that reverses cause and
effect. A kind of false cause fallacy.
Example:
All the corporate officers of Miami Electronics and Power have big boats. If youre ever going to
become an officer of MEP, youd better get a bigger boat.
The false assumption here is that having a big boat helps cause you to be an officer in MEP,
whereas the reverse is true. Being an officer causes you to have the high income that enables you to
purchase a big boat.
Scapegoating
If you unfairly blame an unpopular person or group of people for a problem, then you are
scapegoating. This is a kind of fallacy of appeal to emotions.
Example:
Augurs were official diviners of ancient Rome. During the pre-Christian period, when Christians
were unpopular, an augur would make a prediction for the emperor about, say, whether a military
attack would have a successful outcome. If the prediction failed to come true, the augur would not
admit failure but instead would blame nearby Christians for their evil influence on his divining
powers. The elimination of these Christians, the augur would claim, could restore his divining
powers and help the emperor. By using this reasoning tactic, the augur was scapegoating the
Christians.
Scare Tactic
If you suppose that terrorizing your opponent is giving him a reason for believing that you are
correct, then you are using a scare tactic and reasoning fallaciously.
Example:
David: My father owns the department store that gives your newspaper fifteen percent of all its
advertising revenue, so Im sure you wont want to publish any story of my arrest for spray painting
the college.
Newspaper editor: Yes, David, I see your point. The story really isnt newsworthy.
David has given the editor a financial reason not to publish, but he has not given a relevant reason
why the story is not newsworthy. Davids tactics are scaring the editor, but its the editor who uses
the scare tactic fallacy, not David. David has merely used a scare tactic. This fallacys name

emphasizes the cause of the fallacy rather than the error itself. See also the related fallacy of
emotions.

appeal to

Scope
The scope fallacy is caused by improperly changing or misrepresenting the scope of a phrase.
Example:
Every concerned citizen who believes that someone living in the US is a terrorist should make a
report to the authorities. But Shelley told me herself that she believes there are terrorists living in
the US, yet she hasnt made any reports. So, she must not be a concerned citizen.
The first sentence has ambiguous scope. It was probably originally meant in this sense: Every
concerned citizen who believes (of someone that this person is living in the US and is a terrorist)
should make a report to the authorities. But the speaker is clearly taking the sentence in its other,
less plausible sense: Every concerned citizen who believes (that there is someone or other living in
the US who is a terrorist) should make a report to the authorities. Scope fallacies usually are amphibolies.
Secundum Quid
See Accident and Converse Accident, two versions of the fallacy.
Selective Attention
Improperly focusing attention on certain things and ignoring others.
Example:
Father: Justine, how was your school day today? Another C on the history test like last time?
Justine: Dad, I got an A- on my history test today. Isnt that great? Only one student got an A.
Father: I see you werent the one with the A. And what about the math quiz?
Justine: I think I did OK, better than last time.
Father: If you really did well, youd be sure. What Im sure of is that today was a pretty bad day for
you.
The pessimist who pays attention to all the bad news and ignores the good news thereby use the
fallacy of selective attention. The remedy for this fallacy is to pay attention to all the relevant
evidence. The most common examples of selective attention are the fallacy of Suppressed Evidence and the
fallacy of Confirmation Bias. See also the Sharpshooters Fallacy.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The fallacy occurs when the act of prophesying will itself produce the effect that is prophesied, but
the reasoner doesnt recognize this and believes the prophesy is a significant insight.

Example:
A group of students are selected to be interviewed individually by the teacher. Each selected student
is told that the teacher has predicted they will do significantly better in their future school work.
Actually, though, the teacher has no special information about the students and has picked the group
at random. If the students believe this prediction about themselves, then, given human psychology,
it is likely that they will do better merely because of the teachers making the prediction.
The prediction will fulfill itself, so to speak, and the students reasoning contains the fallacy.
This fallacy can be dangerous in an atmosphere of potential war between nations when the leader of
a nation predicts that their nation will go to war against their enemy. This prediction could very well
precipitate an enemy attack because the enemy calculates that if war is inevitable then it is to their
military advantage not to get caught by surprise.
Self-Selection
A biased generalization in which the bias is due to self-selection for membership in the sample used to make
the generalization.
Example:
The radio announcer at a student radio station in New York asks listeners to call in and say whether
they favor Jones or Smith for president. 80% of the callers favor Jones, so the announcer declares
that Americans prefer Jones to Smith.
The problem here is that the callers selected themselves for membership in the sample, but clearly
the sample is unlikely to be representative of Americans.
Sharpshooters
The sharpshooters fallacy gets its name from someone shooting a rifle at the side of the barn and
then going over and drawing a target and bulls eye concentrically around the bullet hole. The fallacy
is caused by overemphasizing random results or making selective use of coincidence. See the
Fallacy of Selective Attention.
Example:
Psychic Sarah makes twenty-six predictions about what will happen next year. When one, but only
one, of the predictions comes true, she says, Aha! I can see into the future.
Slanting
This error occurs when the issue is not treated fairly because of misrepresenting the evidence by,
say, suppressing part of it, or misconstruing some of it, or simply lying. See the following fallacies:
Lying, Misrepresentation, Questionable Premise, Quoting out of Context, Straw Man, Suppressed Evidence.
Slippery Slope

Suppose someone claims that a first step (in a chain of causes and effects, or a chain of reasoning)
will probably lead to a second step that in turn will probably lead to another step and so on until a
final step ends in trouble. If the likelihood of the trouble occurring is exaggerated, the slippery slope
fallacy is present.
Example:
Mom: Those look like bags under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep?
Jeff: I had a test and stayed up late studying.
Mom: You didnt take any drugs, did you?
Jeff: Just caffeine in my coffee, like I always do.
Mom: Jeff! You know what happens when people take drugs! Pretty soon the caffeine wont be
strong enough. Then you will take something stronger, maybe someones diet pill. Then, something
even stronger. Eventually, you will be doing cocaine. Then you will be a crack addict! So, dont
drink that coffee.
The form of a slippery slope fallacy looks like this:
A leads to B.
B leads to C.
C leads to D.

Z leads to HELL.
We dont want to go to HELL.
So, dont take that first step A.
The key claim in the fallacy is that taking the first step will lead to the final, unacceptable step.
Arguments of this form may or may not be fallacious depending on the probabilities involved in
each step. The analyst asks how likely it is that taking the first step will lead to the final step. For
example, if A leads to B with a probability of 80 percent, and B leads to C with a probability of 80
percent, and C leads to D with a probability of 80 percent, is it likely that A will eventually lead to
D? No, not at all; there is about an even (50-50) chance. The proper analysis of a slippery slope
argument depends on sensitivity to such probabilistic calculations. Regarding terminology, if the
chain of reasoning A, B, C, D, , Z is about causes, then the fallacy is called the Domino Fallacy.
Small Sample
This is the fallacy of using too small a sample. If the sample is too small to provide a representative
sample of the population, and if we have the background information to know that there is this

problem with sample size, yet we still accept the generalization upon the sample results, then we
use the fallacy. This fallacy is the fallacy of hasty generalization, but it emphasizes statistical sampling
techniques.
Example:
Ive eaten in restaurants twice in my life, and both times Ive gotten sick. Ive learned one thing
from these experiences: restaurants make me sick.
How big a sample do you need to avoid the fallacy? Relying on background knowledge about a
populations lack of diversity can reduce the sample size needed for the generalization. With a
completely homogeneous population, a sample of one is large enough to be representative of the
population; if weve seen one electron, weve seen them all. However, eating in one restaurant is
not like eating in any restaurant, so far as getting sick is concerned. We cannot place a specific
number on sample size below which the fallacy is produced unless we know about homogeneity of
the population and the margin of error and the confidence level.
Smear Tactic
A smear tactic is an unfair characterization either of the opponent or the opponents position or
argument. Smearing the opponent causes an ad hominem fallacy. Smearing the opponents argument
causes a straw man fallacy.
Smokescreen
This fallacy occurs by offering too many details in order either to obscure the point or to cover-up
counter-evidence. In the latter case it would be an example of the fallacy of suppressed evidence. If you
produce a smokescreen by bringing up an irrelevant issue, then you produce a red herring fallacy.
Sometimes called clouding the issue.
Example:
Senator, wait before you vote on Senate Bill 88. Do you realize that Delaware passed a bill on the
same subject in 1932, but it was ruled unconstitutional for these twenty reasons. Let me list them
here. Also, before you vote on SB 88 you need to know that . And so on.
There is no recipe to follow in distinguishing smokescreens from reasonable appeals to caution and
care.
Sorites
See Line-Drawing.
Special Pleading
Special pleading is a form of inconsistency in which the reasoner doesnt apply his or her principles
consistently. It is the fallacy of applying a general principle to various situations but not applying it
to a special situation that interests the arguer even though the general principle properly applies to
that special situation, too.

Example:
Everyone has a duty to help the police do their job, no matter who the suspect is. That is why we
must support investigations into corruption in the police department. No person is above the law. Of
course, if the police come knocking on my door to ask about my neighbors and the robberies in our
building, I know nothing. Im not about to rat on anybody.
In our example, the principle of helping the police is applied to investigations of police officers but
not to ones neighbors.
Specificity
Drawing an overly specific conclusion from the evidence. A kind of jumping to conclusions.
Example:
The trigonometry calculation came out to 5,005.6833 feet, so thats how wide the cloud is up there.
Stacking the Deck
See Suppressed Evidence and Slanting.
Stereotyping
Using stereotypes as if they are accurate generalizations for the whole group is an error in
reasoning. Stereotypes are general beliefs we use to categorize people, objects, and events; but these
beliefs are overstatements that shouldnt be taken literally. For example, consider the stereotype
Shes Mexican, so shes going to be late. This conveys a mistaken impression of all Mexicans. On
the other hand, even though most Mexicans are punctual, a German is more apt to be punctual than
a Mexican, and this fact is said to be the kernel of truth in the stereotype. The danger in our using
stereotypes is that speakers or listeners will not realize that even the best stereotypes are accurate
only when taken probabilistically. As a consequence, the use of stereotypes can breed racism,
sexism, and other forms of bigotry.
Example:
German people arent good at dancing our sambas. Shes German. So, shes not going to be any
good at dancing our sambas.
This argument is deductively valid, but its unsound because it rests on a false, stereotypical premise.
The grain of truth in the stereotype is that the average German doesnt dance sambas as well as the
average South American, but to overgeneralize and presume that ALL Germans are poor samba
dancers compared to South Americans is a mistake called stereotyping.
Straw Man
Your reasoning contains the straw man fallacy whenever you attribute an easily refuted position to
your opponent, one that the opponent wouldnt endorse, and then proceed to attack the easily

refuted position (the straw man) believing you have undermined the opponents actual position. If
the misrepresentation is on purpose, then the straw man fallacy is caused by lying.
Example (a debate before the city council):
Opponent: Because of the killing and suffering of Indians that followed Columbuss discovery of
America, the City of Berkeley should declare that Columbus Day will no longer be observed in our
city.
Speaker: This is ridiculous, fellow members of the city council. Its not true that everybody who
ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the Indians. I say we should
continue to observe Columbus Day, and vote down this resolution that will make the City of
Berkeley the laughing stock of the nation.
The speaker has twisted what his opponent said; the opponent never said, nor even indirectly
suggested, that everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the
Indians. The critical thinker will respond to the fallacy by saying, Lets get back to the original
issue of whether we have a good reason to discontinue observing Columbus Day.
Style Over Substance
Unfortunately the style with which an argument is presented is sometimes taken as adding to the
substance or strength of the argument.
Example:
Youve just been told by the salesperson that the new Maytag is an excellent washing machine
because it has a double washing cycle. If you notice that the salesperson smiled at you and was well
dressed, this does not add to the quality of the salespersons argument, but unfortunately it does for
those who are influenced by style over substance, as most of us are.
Subjectivist
The subjectivist fallacy occurs when it is mistakenly supposed that a good reason to reject a claim is
that truth on the matter is relative to the person or group.
Example:
Justine has just given Jake her reasons for believing that the Devil is an imaginary evil person. Jake,
not wanting to accept her conclusion, responds with, Thats perhaps true for you, but its not true
for me.
Superstitious Thinking
Reasoning deserves to be called superstitious if it is based on reasons that are well known to be
unacceptable, usually due to unreasonable fear of the unknown, trust in magic, or an obviously false
idea of what can cause what. A belief produced by superstitious reasoning is called a superstition.
The fallacy is an instance of the False Cause Fallacy.

Example:
I never walk under ladders; its bad luck.
It may be a good idea not to walk under ladders, but a proper reason to believe this is that workers
on ladders occasionally drop things, and that ladders might have dripping wet paint that could
damage your clothes. An improper reason for not walking under ladders is that it is bad luck to do
so.
Suppressed Evidence
Intentionally failing to use information suspected of being relevant and significant is committing the
fallacy of suppressed evidence. This fallacy usually occurs when the information counts against
ones own conclusion. Perhaps the arguer is not mentioning that experts have recently objected to
one of his premises. The fallacy is a kind of fallacy of Selective Attention.
Example:
Buying the Cray Mac 11 computer for our company was the right thing to do. It meets our
companys needs; it runs the programs we want it to run; it will be delivered quickly; and it costs
much less than what we had budgeted.
This appears to be a good argument, but youd change your assessment of the argument if you
learned the speaker has intentionally suppressed the relevant evidence that the companys Cray Mac
11 was purchased from his brother-in-law at a 30 percent higher price than it could have been
purchased elsewhere, and if you learned that a recent unbiased analysis of ten comparable
computers placed the Cray Mac 11 near the bottom of the list.
If the relevant information is not intentionally suppressed but rather inadvertently overlooked, the
fallacy of suppressed evidence also is said to occur, although the fallacys name is misleading in this
case. The fallacy is also called the Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence and Cherry-Picking the Evidence. See also Slanting.
Sweeping Generalization
See Fallacy of Accident.
Syllogistic
Syllogistic fallacies are kinds of invalid categorical syllogisms. This list contains the fallacy of undistributed middle
and the fallacy of four terms, and a few others though there are a great many such formal fallacies.
Tokenism
If you interpret a merely token gesture as an adequate substitute for the real thing, youve been
taken in by tokenism.
Example:
How can you call our organization racist? After all, our receptionist is African American.

If you accept this line of reasoning, you have been taken in by tokenism.
Traditional Wisdom
If you say or imply that a practice must be OK today simply because it has been the apparently wise
practice in the past, then your reasoning contains the fallacy of traditional wisdom. Procedures that
are being practiced and that have a tradition of being practiced might or might not be able to be
given a good justification, but merely saying that they have been practiced in the past is not always
good enough, in which case the fallacy is present. Also called argumentum consensus gentium when
the traditional wisdom is that of nations.
Example:
Of course we should buy IBMs computer whenever we need new computers. We have been buying
IBM as far back as anyone can remember.
The of course is the problem. The traditional wisdom of IBM being the right buy is some reason
to buy IBM next time, but its not a good enough reason in a climate of changing products, so the
of course indicates that the fallacy of traditional wisdom has occurred. The fallacy is essentially
the same as the fallacies of appeal to the common practice, gallery, masses, mob, past practice,
people, peers, and popularity.
Tu Quoque
The fallacy of tu quoque occurs in our reasoning if we conclude that someones argument not to
perform some act must be faulty because the arguer himself or herself has performed it. Similarly,
when we point out that the arguer doesnt practice what he preaches, we may be therefore suppose
that there must be an error in the preaching, but we are reasoning fallaciously and creating a tu
quoque. This is a kind of ad hominem circumstantial fallacy.
Example:
Look whos talking. You say I shouldnt become an alcoholic because it will hurt me and my family,
yet you yourself are an alcoholic, so your argument cant be worth listening to.
Discovering that a speaker is a hypocrite is a reason to be suspicious of the speakers reasoning, but
it is not a sufficient reason to discount it.
Two Wrongs Make a Right
When you defend your wrong action as being right because someone previously has acted wrongly,
you are using the fallacy called two wrongs make a right. This is a special kind of ad hominem fallacy.
Example:
Oops, no paper this morning. Somebody in our apartment building probably stole my newspaper.
So, that makes it OK for me to steal one from my neighbors doormat while nobody else is out here
in the hallway.

Undistributed Middle
In syllogistic logic, failing to distribute the middle term over at least one of the other terms is the fallacy of
undistributed middle. Also called the fallacy of maldistributed middle.
Example:
All collies are animals.
All dogs are animals.
Therefore, all collies are dogs.
The middle term (animals) is in the predicate of both universal affirmative premises and therefore
is undistributed. This formal fallacy has the logical form: All C are A. All D are A. Therefore, all C
are D.
Unfalsifiability
This error in explanation occurs when the explanation contains a claim that is not falsifiable,
because there is no way to check on the claim. That is, there would be no way to show the claim to
be false if it were false.
Example:
He lied because hes possessed by demons.
This could be the correct explanation of his lying, but theres no way to check on whether its
correct. You can check whether hes twitching and moaning, but this wont be evidence about
whether a supernatural force is controlling his body. The claim that hes possessed cant be verified
if its true, and it cant be falsified if its false. So, the claim is too odd to be relied upon for an
explanation of his lying. Relying on the claim is an instance of fallacious reasoning.
Unrepresentative Generalization
If the plants on my plate are not representative of all plants, then the following generalization
should not be trusted.
Example:
Each plant on my plate is edible.
So, all plants are edible.
The set of plants on my plate is called the sample in the technical vocabulary of statistics, and the
set of all plants is called the target population. If you are going to generalize on a sample, then
you want your sample to be representative of the target population, that is, to be like it in the
relevant respects. This fallacy is the same as the Fallacy of Unrepresentative Sample.

Unrepresentative Sample
If the means of collecting the sample from the population are likely to produce a sample that is
unrepresentative of the population, then a generalization upon the sample data is an inference using
the fallacy of unrepresentative sample. A kind of hasty generalization. When some of the statistical evidence
is expected to be relevant to the results but is hidden or overlooked, the fallacy is called suppressed
evidence. There are many ways to bias a sample. Knowingly selecting atypical members of the
population produces a biased sample.
Example:
The two men in the matching green suits that I met at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas had a
terrible fear of cats. I remember their saying they were from France. Ive never met anyone else
from France, so I suppose everyone there has a terrible fear of cats.
Most peoples background information is sufficient to tell them that people at this sort of
convention are unlikely to be representative, that is, are likely to be atypical members of the rest of
society. Having a small sample does not by itself cause the sample to be biased. Small samples are
OK if there is a corresponding large margin of error or low confidence level.
Large samples can be unrepresentative, too.
Example:
Weve polled over 400,000 Southern Baptists and asked them whether the best religion in the world
is Southern Baptist. We have over 99% agreement, which proves our point about which religion is
best.
Getting a larger sample size does not overcome sampling bias.
Untestability
See Unfalsifiability.
Vested Interest
The vested interest fallacy occurs when a person argues that someones claim or recommended
action is incorrect because the person is motivated by their interest in gaining something by it, with
the implication that were it not for this vested interest then the person wouldnt make the claim or
recommend the action. Because this reasoning attacks the reasoner rather than the reasoning itself, it
is a kind of Ad Hominem fallacy.
Example:
According to Samantha we all should all vote for Anderson for Congress, but shes a lobbyist in the
pay of Anderson and will get a nice job in the capitol if hes elected, so that convinces me to vote
against Anderson.

This is fallacious reasoning by the speaker because whether the speaker should vote for Anderson
ought to depend on Andersons qualifications, not on whether Samantha will or wont get a nice job
if hes elected.
Weak Analogy
See False Analogy.
Willed ignorance
Ive got my mind made up, so dont confuse me with the facts. This is usually a case of the Traditional
Wisdom Fallacy.
Example:
Of course shes made a mistake. Weve always had meat and potatoes for dinner, and our ancestors
have always had meat and potatoes for dinner, and so nobody knows what theyre talking about
when they start saying meat and potatoes are bad for us.
Wishful Thinking
A reasoner who suggests that a claim is true, or false, merely because he or she strongly hopes it is,
is using the fallacy of wishful thinking. Wishing something is true is not a relevant reason for
claiming that it is actually true.
Example:
Theres got to be an error here in the history book. It says Thomas Jefferson had slaves. I dont
believe it. He was our best president, and a good president would never do such a thing. That would
be awful.

7. References and Further Reading

Eemeren, Frans H. van, R. F. Grootendorst, F. S. Henkemans, J. A. Blair, R. H. Johnson, E.

C. W. Krabbe, C. W. Plantin, D. N. Walton, C. A. Willard, J. A. Woods, and D. F. Zarefsky,
1996. Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory: A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and
Contemporary Developments. Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,
Publishers.

Fearnside, W. Ward and William B. Holther, 1959. Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument.
Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Fischer, David Hackett., 1970. Historians Fallacies: Toward Logic of Historical Thought.
New York, Harper & Row, New York, N.Y.
o

This book contains additional fallacies to those in this article, but they are much
less common, and many have obscure names.

Groarke, Leo and C. Tindale, 2003. Good Reasoning Matters! 3rd edition, Toronto, Oxford
University Press.

Hamblin, Charles L., 1970. Fallacies. London, Methuen.

Hansen, Has V. and R. C. Pinto., 1995. Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings.
University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.

Huff, Darrell, 1954. How to Lie with Statistics. New York, W. W. Norton.

Levi, D. S., 1994. Begging What is at Issue in the Argument, Argumentation, 8, 265-282.

Schwartz, Thomas, 1981. Logic as a Liberal Art, Teaching Philosophy 4, 231-247.

Walton, Douglas N., 1989. Informal Logic: A Handbook for Critical Argumentation.
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Walton, Douglas N., 1995. A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy. Tuscaloosa, University of

Alabama Press.

Walton, Douglas N., 1997. Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority.
University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press.

Whately, Richard, 1836. Elements of Logic. New York, Jackson.

Woods, John and D. N. Walton, 1989. Fallacies: Selected Papers 1972-1982. Dordrecht,
Holland, Foris.

Research on the fallacies of informal logic is regularly published in the following journals:
Argumentation, Argumentation and Advocacy, Informal Logic, Philosophy and Rhetoric, and
Teaching Philosophy.
Author Information
Bradley Dowden
Email: [email protected]
California State University, Sacramento
U. S. A.
Last updated: December 31, 2010 | Originally published: March 27, 2003