An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense (Bad Arguments)

by Ali Almossawi

This fallacy plays on the fears of an audience by imagining a scary future that would be of their making if some proposition were accepted.

Rather than provide solid evidence that the proposition would lead to a certain conclusion (which might be a legitimate cause for fear), such arguments rely on rhetoric, threats, or outright lies.

when one is emotionally attached to an idea’s origins, it is not always easy to disregard those feelings when evaluating the argument’s merit

Guilt by association is used to discredit an argument for proposing an idea that is shared by some socially demonized individual or group.

by answering a charge with a charge, it diverts attention from the argument at hand to the person making it.

An ad hominem argument (from the Latin for “to the man”) is one that attacks a person rather than the argument he or she is making, with the intention of diverting the discussion and discrediting their argument.