Critical Thinking

Ch 6
Logical Fallacies II
Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence

McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

 False Alternatives

 Loaded Question

 Questionable Cause

 Hasty Generalizations

 Slippery Slope

 Weak Analogy

 Inconsistency
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 Inappropriate Appeal to
Authority
 …occurs when an arguer cites an authority who, there is
good reason to believe, is unreliable.
 Ways we can question reliability:
 Are they an authority/expert?
 Are they biased?
• Usually “someone having something to gain” is reason to doubt
their claim; however it can’t affect the soundness of their argument.
 Are their observations questionable? (on drugs?)
 Are they generally reliable? (Enquirer)
 Are they citing their source correctly? (mis-quote?)
 Does the authority disagree with expert consensus?
 Is it an issue that can be settled by an authority?
 It is highly improbable?
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 Appeal to Ignorance
 …occurs when someone claims that, the failure
to prove something false, entails that it is true
(or visa-versa).
 e.g., There must not be intelligent life on other
planets. We have never found any.
 Exceptions:
 Fruitless Searches: If a search is exhaustive (we
looked everywhere), or extensive (we tested for
years), then a lack of evidence can be sufficient
evidence.
 Special rules: e.g., innocent until proven guilty.
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 False Alternatives
 Insisting that there are less choices than there actually
are.
 e.g., You can either vote Republican or Democrat, but you
don’t want a Democrat, so you must vote Republican.
 Usually such arguments are in the form of “either/or” (like
the one above). But they can also present multiple options:
 e.g., when an argument says there are only three options
when there are actually four.
 They also can be in the form of an “if then.”
 e.g., If we don’t elect a Democrat the economy will go down
the tubes and we don’t want that! So we should elect a
Democrat.

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 Loaded Question
 A loaded question is a question that contains a presupposition such that,
either way you answer it, you will appear to endorse that assumption.
 Examples:
 Have you stopped cheating on your exams?
 Where did you hide the bodies?
 Are you still in favor of this fiscally irresponsible bill?
 Usually they are multiple questions “rolled up” into one.
 The last question really means:
• Do you think the bill is fiscally irresponsible?
• Did you support the bill?
• Will you support the bill?
 When someone asks you a loaded question the appropriate response is
—not to answer it but—have them clarify what question they want
answered (or clarify for them, and answer each individually).
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 Questionable Cause
 …occurs when one claims, without sufficient evidence, that
one thing is the cause of something else.
 The post hoc fallacy: suggesting that A causes B just
because A came before B.
• e.g., I drank the ginseng tea and I was better by the next day. The
tea must have made me better.
 Mere correlation fallacy: suggesting that the constant
conjunction of A and B entails that they are causally related.
• e.g., Every morning this week I ate eggs, and every day I failed an
exam. I should stop eating eggs so I can pass my exams.
 Oversimplified cause fallacy: suggesting that A is the cause
of B when clearly B has many causes.
• e.g., SAT scores have been dropping. Kids have been watching too
much TV.
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 Hasty Generalization
 …occurs when one draws a general conclusion from a sample that is
biased or too small.
 Biased sample: I polled 100 professors from 100 schools, only 25% of
them believed in God. I guess most Americans don’t believe in God
anymore.
 Too small of a sample: I asked my professors if they believed in God,
and only one did. I guess professors don’t believe in God anymore.
 If it doesn’t have a “general conclusion,” then it’s not a generalization .
 That biker with the swastika tattoo and brass knuckles will probably beat
me up if I talk to him.
 Since this argument draws a conclusion about one biker, and not all (or
most) of them, it is not a “generalization” at all.

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 The Slippery Slope
 …fallacy is committed when one claims, without sufficient
evidence, that a seemingly harmless action will lead to a
terrible one.
 e.g., Dr. Perry has proposed that we legalize physician-
assisted suicide. No sensible person should listen to such an
proposal. If we allow physician-assisted suicide eventually
there will be no respect for human life.
 Common form: A leads to B, and B leads to C, and C to do
D, and we really don’t want D. Thus, we shouldn’t do A.
 Exception:
 If one presents good evidence that “A” will lead to “D,” and if
D should be avoided, then the conclusion that A should be
avoided is justified.
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 Weak Analogy
 …occurs when an arguer compares two (or more) things that aren’t
really comparable in the relevant respect.
 e.g., Lettuce is leafy and green and good on burgers. Poison Ivy leafy
and green. It would be good on burgers too.
 Common forms:
 A has characteristics w, x, y and z. B has characteristics w, x and y.
Therefore, B probably has characteristic z too.
 A is x and y. B is x and y. C is x. So C is y.
 Many exceptions:
 Alice lives in a mansion and she is rich. Bruce lives in a mansion. Bruce
is probably rich too.
 The form is easy to spot, but—quite often—to know whether it is fallacy
or not, you just have to know whether the shared characteristics are
relevant to the concluded one.

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 Inconsistency
 …the fallacy of inconsistency is committed when an arguer
espouses two logically contradictory claims.
 e.g., Nobody goes there anymore; it’s too crowded.
 Common form
 A and not A.
 The only exceptions to this rule are equivocations:
 Bob is dead even though he isn’t.
• If you mean “he’s emotionally dead, even though he isn’t physically
dead” then you are not contradicting yourself… you are just being
unclear (by being ambiguous).
 But the exact same thing can never be both true and false
at the same time.
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