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

by Ali Almossawi

Arguing from consequences is speaking for or against the truth of a statement by appealing to the consequences it would have if true (or if false).

“It does not follow that a quality which attaches to an effect is transferable to the cause”

good consequences, such an argument may appeal to an audience’s hopes, which at times take the form of wishful thinking.

bad consequences, the argument may instead play on an...

“If God does not exist, then everything ...

a politician may logically oppose raising taxes for fear that it would adversely impact the lives of his constituents. This fallacy is one of many in this book that can be termed a red herring, because it subtly redirects the discussion away from the original proposition—in this case, to the proposition’s result.

red herring, because it subtly redirects the discussion away from the original proposition—in

To “put up a straw man” is to intentionally caricature a person’s argument with the aim of attacking the caricature rather than the actual argument.

Misrepresenting, misquoting, misconstruing, and oversimplifying an opponent’s position are all means by which one can commit this fallacy.

Misrepresenting the idea is much easier than refuting the evidence for it.

An appeal to authority is an appeal to one’s sense of modesty, which is to say, an appeal to the feeling that others are more knowledgeable [Engel], which may often—but of course not always—be true.

pertinent authority, as scientists and academics typically do.

to paraphrase C. S. Lewis. An argument is more likely to be fallacious when the appeal is made to an irrelevant authority, one who is not an expert on the issue at hand.

appeal to vague authority, where an idea is attributed to a faceless collective. For example, “Professors in Germany showed such and such to be true.”

appeal to ancient wisdom, in whic...

assumed to be true just because it originated...

Equivocation exploits the ambiguity of language by changing the meaning of a word during the course of an argument and using the different meanings to support an ill-founded conclusion.2

“How can you be against faith when you take leaps of faith all the time: making investments, trusting friends, and even getting engaged?” Here, the meaning of the word “faith” is shifted from a spiritual belief in a creator to a willingness to undertake risks.

A false dilemma is an argument that presents a limited set of two possible categories and assumes that everything in the scope of the discussion must be an element of that set.

This fallacy assumes a cause for an event where there is no evidence that one exists.When two events occur one after the other

confusing correlation with causation

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.

rhetoric, threats, or outright lies. For example, “I ask all employees to vote for my chosen candidate in the upcoming election. If the other candidate wins, he will raise taxes and many of you will lose your jobs.”

This fallacy is committed when one forms a conclusion from a sample that is either too small or too special to be representative.

Although convenient, hasty generalizations can lead to costly and catastrophic results.

This kind of argument assumes a proposition to be true simply because there is no evidence proving that it is false.5

But in fact, the “burden of proof” always lies with the person making a claim.

argument from personal incredulity, where a person’s inability to imagine something leads them to believe that it is false.

This argument comes up after someone has made a general claim about a group of things, and then been presented with evidence challenging that claim. Rather than revising their position, or contesting the evidence, they dodge the challenge by arbitrarily redefining the criteria for membership in that group.6

This fallacy was coined by Antony Flew in his book Thinking about Thinking. There, he gives the following example: Hamish is reading the newspaper and comes across a story about an Englishman who has committed a heinous crime, to which he reacts by saying, “No Scotsman would do such a thing.”

A genetic fallacy is committed when an argument is either devalued or defended solely because of its origins.

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

Whether or not the proposed healthcare system resembles that of socialist countries has no bearing whatsoever on whether it is good or bad; it is a complete non sequitur.

modus ponens (the mode of affirming)

If A then C, A; hence C.

Affirming the consequent is a formal fallacy that takes this form: If A then C, C; hence A. The error lies in assuming that because the consequent is true, the antecedent must also be true, which in reality need not be the case.

this fallacy involves countering someone’s argument by pointing out that it conflicts with his or her own past actions or statements

This characteristic makes the fallacy a particular type of ad hominem attack.

a particular type of ad hominem attack.

A slippery slope argument attempts to discredit a proposition by arguing that its acceptance will undoubtedly lead to a sequence of events, one or more of which are undesirable.

probability—this type of argument assumes that every transition is inevitable—while providing no evidence in support of that.

plays on the fears of an audience and is related to a number of other fallacies, such as the appeal to fear, the false dilemma, and the argument from consequences.

related to a number of other fallacies, such as the appeal to fear, the false dilemma, and the...

Also known as the appeal to the people, this argument uses the fact that many people (or even a majority) believe in something as evidence that it must be true. This type of argument has often impeded the widespread acceptance of a pioneering idea.

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.

Circular reasoning is one of four types of arguments known as begging the question, [Damer] where one implicitly or explicitly assumes the conclusion in one or more of the premisses.

begging the question, [Damer] where one implicitly or explicitly assumes the conclusion in one or more of the premisses.

conclusion is either blatantly used as a premiss, or more often, it is reworded to appear as though it is a different p...

The argument is simply stating “Because of x therefore x,” which is meaningless.

“Because of x therefore x,” which is meaningless.