Argument from Consequences
If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.
Straw Man
The essence of this technique is to caricature a position to make it easier to attack.
My opponent is trying to convince you that we evolved from chimpanzees who were swinging from trees, a truly ludicrous claim.
Environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people.
Appeal to Fear
You should give me all your valuables before the police get here. They will end up putting them in the storeroom, and things tend to get lost in the storeroom.
Genetic Fallacy
As men and women living in the twenty-first century, we cannot continue to hold these Bronze Age beliefs.
Ad Hominem
You don’t really care about lowering crime in the city; you just want people to vote for you.
Appeal to Hypocrisy
Although they protested against capitalism, they continued to use smartphones and buy coffee.
Argument from Authority
General form: A claims that X is true; A is an expert in the field concerning X; therefore, X should be believed.
Especially cited in scientific debates as a logical fallacy, because scientific knowledge is best established by evidence and experiment rather than argued by authority.
In some disciplines though, especially the soft sciences, it seems hard to find conclusive answers, e.g. difficult to perform/generalize experiments, difficult to tease out causality, etc. In such fields, it seems hard not confer some credence to an authority. On the other hand, the authority might be overly confident on their stance, and fail to mention strong opposing viewpoints.
It’s also helpful to recognize the biases that an authority is inclined to have. For example, WHO took two years to say that COVID is airborne. reports that WHO was reluctant to accept and communicate evidence (on claims of it not being definitive) for airborne transmission, and many of its experts haven’t studied airborne transmission. There are accusations of WHO being reluctant to tell people that it changed its mind due to being afraid of losing credibility.
Appeal to Irrelevant Authority
Example: astrology was practiced in ancient China, one of the most technologically advanced civilizations of the day .
Another related fallacy is an ad hominem argument that appeals to a perceived lack of authority.
Guilt by Association
My opponent is calling for a healthcare system that would resemble that of socialist countries.
Affirming the Consequent
People who go to college are successful. John is successful, hence he must have gone to college.
Appeal to the Bandwagon
All the cool kids use this hair gel; be one of them.
References
- An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments > Formal & Red Herring Fallacies. Ali Almossawi. bookofbadarguments.com . Dec 5, 2013. ISBN: 978-0989931205 .
- The Fine Art of Baloney Detection. Sagan, Carl. www.inf.fu-berlin.de . 1996.
- Argument From Authority. en.wikipedia.org . Accessed Oct 29, 2021.
- Why the WHO took two years to say COVID is airborne. Dyani Lewis. www.nature.com . Apr 6, 2022. Accessed Apr 6, 2022.
Should the resolution be, “Absent further information, X should probably be believed”? The further information can be: what is A’s justification for their claim, is A dishonest, etc.