What Is A Logical Fallacy?
What Is A Logical Fallacy?
Compare the following two disprovable arguments. Only one of them contains a logical fallacy:
- If you go outside without a coat, you’ll catch a cold.
- If you go outside without a coat, you’ll catch a cold and infect the rest of the family. Then
your sister will have to miss class and she’ll get a bad grade and fail her course.
1. Ad populum fallacy
ad Populum (an appeal to popularity, public opinion or to the majority) is an argument,
often emotively laden, for the acceptance of an unproved conclusion by adducing
irrelevant evidence based on the feelings, prejudices, or beliefs of a large group of
people.
Example:
- You have to do it that way because everybody does it that way”.
- “This law is no good because no other country in the world has anything like it”.
- “The majority of voters are in favor of this law, so it’s a good law”.
- “It must be a really good car because so many people have bought one”.
- “Brand X is the leader in Europe, therefore their products should be bought”.
- “Most people believe in life after death, therefore it must exist”.
- “If the majority says that COVID-19 is a government strategy, then it must be so”.
- “Most people consider the death penalty to have a significant deterrent effect. To
suggest otherwise is totally ridiculous”.
2. Hasty generalization
The hasty generalization fallacy is sometimes called the over-generalization fallacy. It is
basically making a claim based on evidence that it is just too small and too quickly.
Essentially, you can't make a claim and say that something is true if you have only an
example or two as evidence.
Example:
- My friend from Bali is very nice and polite, so let's have a vacation to Bali because the
people there are very nice and polite. (ini bisa jadi sebaliknya)
3. Slippery slope
a course of action is rejected because, with little or no evidence, one insists that it will
lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends. Series of events lead to
another until the final step, but the final outcome is unlikely to become a first step.
Example:
- An arguer might claim that building new cell phone towers will disorient birds, which will
lead to insect infestations due to a lack of predators for them.
- If you skip lessons on friday, you might miss important information from religious study, if
you do not join religious lessons, you will feel loss in life. So if you don't want to feel lost
in your life, don't skip friday.
4. Appeal to emotion
an effort to win an argument without facts, logic, or reason, but instead by manipulating
the emotions of the audience. (pathos)
Example:
- I got stuck in a traffic jam for 40 hours this morning, when I went to school.
- My son is ill and my poor mother does not have enough food to eat. Can I have a salary
price please?
5. False analogy
Comparing 2 things that are actually not the same as debates.
Example:
- Doctors can open the medical books when they are greeting patients, in the same way /
therefore medical type students can open a text book in the exam.
6. Appeal to authority
The logical fallacy of saying a claim is true simply because an authority figure made it,
but that is not the expert in the area. Use famous people to claim that the data is true but
it's not the same as the people that are experts at that.
Example:
- Grandma always told me that eating an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That’s why
I never go for checkups at the doctor, I always eat one apple a day.
- A media celebrity with no medical expertise who endorses an extreme diet, while
implying that their fame alone means that they're qualified to speak on the topic of
nutrition.
7. False dichotomy
Make the audience believe that there are only 2 choices.
Example:
- Either you are for the dam project, or you are in favor of prolonged drought conditions in
the western US.
- Either you must eat the food I'm serving for dinner or you will starve.
8. Post Hoc
Post: setelah, hoc is kejadian. This fallacy states that the first event necessarily caused
the second when one event happens after another.
Example:
- I ate spicy food, and the day after that I got diarrhea. So I got diarrhea from eating spicy
food the other day.
9. Ad Hominame
This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone’s argument or position, you
irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument.
Example:
- You’re way too nervous about driving at night, so of course, you don’t want to
drive.
Orang orang memilih data dan menyembunyikan untuk defense their arguments.