AP Lang - Logical Fallacies Examples

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: Dogs are the BEST gifts , in the world. They´re fun and playful. Cats are not , because they are always sleep and do not know how to have fun.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority This is showing how dogs are better than cats in many ways , and this statement is true , simply because people believe it.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: The superior pet is either a cat or a dog.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma The person arguing is ignoring the other options of animals people keep for pets and instead stresses that there are only two options.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: The day I got a dog , I got engaged.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc What this means , is that dogs are the key to HAPPINESS. They bring nothing but joy and love into this world.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: People say that dogs are the greatest pets in the world , right? But are they really? Because I heard that cats are TOO.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring This is explaining how dogs are so called the "GREATEST"animals, but your misleading the reader into thinking that cats are also.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Not raising the drinking age is like letting kids drive.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy It's comparing them by saying they're both young and immature. However, drinking at 18 where most people are mature is not the same thing as letting very little kids drive.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Laws outlawing lassos are illegal because they kill, so plastic should be illegal too.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring This is comparing lassos being illegal, so should plastic because if wanna be technical both kills sea animals. This is a red herring because the topic of lassos is irrelevant for our argument.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Drinking for teenagers is better than social media.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring This quote is distracting from the claim that, "social media is bad." When you bring in another topic that may be worse or better than what someone is trying to prove, it can allow the audience to go away from the problem at hand, and think about the other. This example may start making you think about drinking for teenagers than social media.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Person 1: "Social media is bad for teens" Person 2: "So you think we should get rid of all social media and make every teenager talk face-to-face?"

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man Person 1 made a claim by saying social media is bad for teenagers. So you can gather he thinks it has a negative effects on teenagers. But what you can't assume from that is they want to get rid of social media completely and force all teenagers to interact without phones. So person 2 mischaracterized what person 1 was arguing.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: Person A: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Person B: SO you're saying that cats are horrible?

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man Person B is misrepresenting Person A's position of dogs. Person A said that dogs are superior not that cats are horrible.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Because you use plastics, you are supporting the deaths of thousands of innocent sea creatures.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem Instead of attacking the message, we are attacking the person and their character instead.`

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Your mom says social media is bad for teenagers and you respond with "how would you even know you never graduated from high school."

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem Questioning your opponents credibility by in this case their lack of education to back up your own opinion.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Person 1: People should be able to buy alcohol easily. Person 2: Well you sexually assaulted someone so you're not trustworthy.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem Takes the audience's attention away from the argument by attacking the person making the argument.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: You may think cats are superior to dogs but you also stole a car last summer.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem The fact that the person stole a car has nothing to do with their opinion on whether dogs or cats are superior. The person arguing is only attacking the other to try and validate their argument.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: Anyone who doesn't believe that school should start later are stupid because it should obviously start later.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem This is an Ad Hominem because it is attacking the intellectual level of the person who doesn't agree with your argument and not just their argument.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Children shouldn't watch horror movies because parents who disagree are immoral and don't know how to properly raise their children.

Logical Fallacy: Ad Hominem This is an example of an ad hominem fallacy because it fails to actually address and provide evidence for the claim, instead attacking the character of an opposing speaker, calling them "immoral" without really talking about why children shouldn't watch horror movies.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Listening to teenagers who talk about "Save the Turtles" instead of listening to organizations who are experts on the topic.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority Teenagers have no right to talk about this topic because they aren't educated in that subject. We should be listening to organizations who study the effect of plastic on sea animals.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: Dentists recommend that students perform better on test when it is past 10:00 am.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority The fact that the statement comes from a dentist and not a sleep specialist would make the statement invalid as it is not their field of expertise.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: My little cousin said raising the drinking age will reduce DUI's, so therefore it is true.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority The speaker is assuming and arguing that the statement is true because someone they knew said it.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Children shouldn't watch horror movies because Angela, a mother of 3, says that it harms their innocence and mental well-being.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority This is an appeal to false authority fallacy because it presents a mother as an expert on the subject of horror movies simply because she had children, when in fact she has no expertise on the effects the horror movies have on children.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Parents all over America say that children should not be exposed to social media at a young age.

Logical Fallacy: Appeal to False Authority This is an example of false authority because parents are an authority to children but they are not an authority on whether or not children should be allowed to use social media.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: All of my friends and family believe that dogs are superior to cats.

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum Even though the majority of people in this person's life believes this, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily the right answer. Their opinions don't determine everyone else's.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: "The thing that we are trying to do at Facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently." - Mark Zuckerberg

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum If Mark Zuckerberg (the creator of Facebook), is saying how good facebook is, this could allow users of social media to agree with Zuckerberg because he created it and is a big influence people look up too. In this case, he is the majority and the audience would assume the opinion of his, is valid.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: There are much more students that faculty members and most students want school to start later.

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum The example invokes the majority as a source of evidence. It chooses to believe that the majority's opinion is always valid.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Teenagers on social media posting about how we should protect sea animals, but are only posting it because it is socially accepted.

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum The teenagers are supporting it to fit in with the crowd, but really aren't aware that not every sea animal is going to go extinct and not every single piece of plastic is going to end up killing sea animals.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Children should not watch horror movies because 54% of parents think that they shouldn't.

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum This is an example of a bandwagon fallacy because it relies on the audience to agree with the claim because a lot of other people do, without actually providing any real evidence or reasons to support the claim.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Four out of five households have voted to enforce better protective measures. Don't be the one.

Logical Fallacy: Bandwagon/Ad Populum This says that many people have voted and that they should also follow the crowd.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Social Media has negative effects because it is bad for teens.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning The argument just restated the claim. They gave a premise as reasoning, even though it's no different from the conclusion. The words "negative effects" and "bad" can be interchangeable. There was no actual reasoning.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: The law says we should raising the drinking age because the laws says so.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning The argument starts with "the law says" and ends with "the law says so." It is an example of circular reasoning because the argument starts with what it ends with as well.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: Dogs are better than cats because dogs are better than cats.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning The fictional person saying that dogs are better than cats just because dogs are better. This is not providing any evidence, because the person is trying to use the claim as a piece of evidence.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Children shouldn't be able to watch horror movies because they are young kids who shouldn't be exposed to that stuff.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning This is an example of a circular reasoning fallacy because it really doesn't provide any evidence to back the claim, and just re-words it without elaborating further.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Sea animals are dying from plastics because plastics are killing them.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning This is circular reasoning because it's stating your claim first and then rewording the claim as your reasoning.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: Students need more sleep that's why school should start later, so that students can get more sleep.

Logical Fallacy: Circular Reasoning This shows an example of circular reasoning since it how the claim reappears at the end as the arguments reasoning that does not provide any useful information to support the claim.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: People thinking that in order to save sea animals either you have to use a metal straw or a plastic straw, however you can use no straw at all or a biodegradable paper straws.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma People just assume you can use either a plastic straw or a metal straw to save sea animals however there are many additional options that will benefit cause in the same manner.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Social media can rot your brain.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma Social media can not actually rot your brain but the exaggeration on the belief that social media is not good is presented.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Either enforce protective measures for obtaining alcohol or children could buy alcohol.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma There could many different scenarios that could occur if there are not harsher protective measures. Children buying alcohol is not the only other possibility.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: Kids should start school at 10:00 or they should be able to start as late as they want.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma This is a "false dilemma" because this is showing a option of the argument in which there are two alternatives and they are both made from decisions/ opinion.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: You can either stop your children from watching horror movies or let them become psychologically damaged - your choice.

Logical Fallacy: Either/Or False Dilemma This is an either/or fallacy because it presents two extreme options as the only possible responses of the claim, presenting a false dilemma that if you let children watch horror movies, then they will become psychologically damaged, even though that is not automatically true.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Social media is bad for teenagers is like drinking is bad for driving.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy Comparing the downfalls of social media to drinking while to show to how bad it is in comparison to one another.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Using plastic that gets thrown into the ocean is like giving a human poison.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy Plastic can harm and can kill sea animals and poison can do the same for humans. However, giving a human poison is illegal and you could get into a lot of trouble for it unlike if you use a plastic straw, therefore they aren't really comparable.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: Dogs are better than cats because humans are better than cats. Dogs are human-like since they are obedient.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy The fictional person is stating that dogs are like humans since they can both learn to be obedient. Because dogs and humans have many differences, this is a false analogy.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: Having school start early is like having to go to work at 2am. You can't fully function at 8am or 2am.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy This is a faulty analogy because it is hard to wake up in the morning for school but 6 or 7 hours of sleep is much better than 3 or 4.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Letting kids watch horror movies is the same as letting them commit crimes.

Logical Fallacy: Faulty Analogy This is an example of Faulty Analogy because these two things aren't comparable. Watching horror movies as a child isn't connected to committing a crimes, because it is just a movie. There is no connection between the two subjects.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: *photo of dad holding child up or throwing child*

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization The fictional father and son in this picture/post could be taken in two different ways: the father is throwing the kid in the air, or the father is holding the kid up. On social media, you come across images like this and the caption may not tell you all that is happening and anyone can make a false conclusion about this image. Someone could say the child is about to be thrown, and people could believe it. When really, we don't know if he's holding the child, or about to throw him.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: If you let your children watch horror movies you aren't being a good parent.

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization This is hasty generalization because it is only basing it off the assumption that if parents let their kids watch horror movies then they would be a bad parent, without providing any evidence as to why.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: If school starts later then the students will most likely not attend the later school starts.

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization This is hasty generalization because it is showing how it's jumping to conclusion and concluding the phenomenon.

Claim: Dogs are superior in every way over cats. Argument: My dog is nice therefore all dogs are nice and are better than cats.

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization This person is jumping to conclusions claiming that all dogs are nice. They don't have enough evidence to prove that all dogs are nice considering they are only talking about their dog. The statement is biased as well.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Recently on the news, a convenience store was not checking to see if a person was eligible to buy alcohol. All convenience store workers are irresponsible and enforcing better protective measures will prevent this.

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization This sentence assumes that because one convenience store was doing something, all convenience stores participate in the same activity. Just because one store did something terrible does not mean that all stores are terrible.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: A turtle has been killed by a plastic straw in the ocean which means that all plastic straws kill turtles.

Logical Fallacy: Hasty Generalization This term helps create a fallacy for our argument because not every straw on Earth is going to end up in the ocean however if everyone thinks they will then they'll be more inclined to address the issue of plastics.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: No American has full responsibility of themselves until the age of 25.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter The argument is stating that a person turning 25 automatically gives them full responsibility of themselves. This is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc because it says how turning 25 causes responsibility.

Claim: Social media is bad for teenagers. Argument: Children are influenced by social media and unhealthy images, that's why so many children develop mental illness.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc People often blame social media directly for mental illness in teens but it is not the only reason. Many things can be blamed, but you cannot state that it is directly the cause.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: School started too early, so I failed my test.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc The speaker argued that the reason they failed their test was due to school starting too early without taking into account other factors that may have led to that result.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: Because we let plastics get into the ocean, sea animals are dying.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc This creates a fallacy because it shows how sea animals are dying as a direct result of us letting plastics into our waters and how one stems directly from the other.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Kids shouldn't be able to watch horror movies because recent mass shooters also watched horror movies as kids.

Logical Fallacy: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy because it is implying that watching horror movies as children is responsible for the acts of mass shooters, even though that is not true and that there are many other factors that contribute to mass shooters becoming the way that they are. The correlation to watching horror movies is completely irrelevant, and there is no real causation.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: The drinking age should be raised because then there will be less people getting DUI's. DUI's cost too much and you would have to go through the court process.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring It takes the audience's attention away from the argument about raising the drinking age to DUI's and court.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: School should start later because then you will have more free time. You can do anything with free time. You could watch tv or even read a book.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring This is a Red Herring because it goes into detail about the topic of free time and distracts from the main point which is school starting later.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Parents who let their children watch horror movies are bad parents, so any good parent should not let their kids watch horror movies.

Logical Fallacy: Red Herring This is an example of Red Herring because the parents aren't the topic of this argument. The main argument is how children should not watch horror movies, the parents are irrelevant to this topic and serve only to distract from the lack of evidence that is presented as to why horror movies are bad for kids.

Claim: Plastic kills sea animals. Argument: One person says, "Plastic is cheap and convenient to use." Other person says, "So you're saying killing sea animals is convenient."

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man Someone saying they think plastic straws are cheap and convenient doesn't mean they want to kill sea animals. The second person distorted the first person's claim and made it sound worse than it really was.

Claim: School Should Start Later Argument: School should start later so kids can stay up all night and not have to worry about school being so early in the morning.

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man This is a "straw man" example because this is illustrating how this is refuting the argument about how school should start later but also defending another argument that is not being countered.

Claim: Children should not watch horror movies. Argument: Children shouldn't be able to watch horror movies because parents who think otherwise are letting their children see inappropriate things that nobody in their right mind would let them see.

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man This is an example of straw man because they are not actually providing any evidence, only attacking the opposing speaker, in this case parents who disagree. They are not explaining why nobody in their right mind would stop kids from watching horror movies, they are just saying that to ridicule the parents who think otherwise.

Claim: The drinking age should be raised to twenty-five. Argument: Without better protective measures to obtain alcohol, somebody will get drunk and open fire in public.

Logical Fallacy: Straw Man This sentence implies that everybody who drinks will get drunk and open fire. Not everybody who drinks alcohol will get drunk and open fire. Some people are responsible.