Fallacies
Appeals to Ignorance
"Because social scientist disagree about the effectiveness of teaching students to drink more responsibly, these scholars should not bother to investigate this strategy any longer, but simply focus on promoting abstinence"
False Authority
"Dr. Jones, winner of the prestigious Smith Award in Physics, has stated that the Civil War had little to do with slavery"
False Generalizations
"I can't take a course in Chinese-American history because I am not Chinese"
False Analogy
"A computer is like a brain, only faster and more accurate."
Appeals to Spite and Ridicule
"A self-respecting engineer knows..."
Guilt by Association
"Because Professor Abbot has served as an influential advisor to the Reagan administration, his advocacy of free market economics is suspect."
Bandwagon
"Because all colleges with any claim to keeping up with contemporary technology are requiring students to purchase laptops and PDAs, our university should follow this lead."
False Cause
"I got an an A on a paper because I turned it in"
Slippery Slope
"If teachers start to distinguish between buying term papers and faulty citation, eventually everything students hand in will be plagiarized."
Appeals to Tradition
"It is a mistake to allow women into the higher-earning professions, since men have always been the primary breadwinners in a family."
False Absolutes
"Successful students never depend on the pressure of a deadline to get their work done"
False Dichotomy
"You are either in favor of having special classes for students whose first language is English, or you are against this practice"
False Analogy
A comparison cannot be defended or has not been sufficiently defended
Slippery Slope
A fallacy that assumes that taking a first step will lead to the best or worst conceivable results or to subsequent steps that cannot be prevented
False Cause
A fallacy that occurs when the alleged cause fails to be related to, or to produce, the effect
Guilt by Association
A person's affiliation with a certain group does not necessarily mean that his conclusions are biased or untrue; likewise, an affiliation does not necessarily mean that his conclusions are accurate or fair
False Absolutes
Absolute claims should rarely-if ever-be asserted (even if you believe strongly in them) because one exception is all that is necessary to falsify an absolute claim
False Generalizations
Assumes that an exceptional case is typical, or assumes erroneous relations between individuals and classes of things
Appeals to Tradition
Because something has been done a certain way in the past thats how it should be done in the future
Appeals to Spite and Ridicule
Name-calling...emotional appeals that set up false dichotomy in a particularly nasty way
Appeals to Ignorance
Not knowing something is a good reason for investigating it, but ignorance is not good evidence for supporting a reason
Bandwagon
When most people believe in an idea or practice, even though it is customary, or even though it may be rapidly gaining in popularity
False Authority
When using authority to support claim, be sure that he or she has actual authority in that particular field
False Dichotomy
When you claim that things fall into two or three categories, you should be positive that can be no other