Logical fallacies

I do not feel people as a whole are aware of logical fallacies.  Let’s look at the three main kinds of fallacies; fallacies of faulty reasoning, fallacies of relevance, or fallacies of language.  People use a Hasty Generalization fallacy [a faulty reasoning] on a regular basis and probably don’t even know it. For example: I have Harleys and they have all leaked oil.  All Harleys must leak oil.  Another common one is the False Cause fallacy which reminds me of superstitions especially when athletes don’t change a piece of their ‘lucky’ clothing and when they do and lose it must be because they didn’t have that ‘lucky’ item.  It is assume that the lack of one thing caused the other.

Ad Hominem is an fallacy in which they attack the person instead of the argument trying to discredit the credibility of the person. Ad Populum is the ‘they say’ fallacy such as our teenagers tries to use…’everyone else is allowed’ argument. 

Fallacies of Language have many examples using ambiguous wording or phrases confuses an audience to what exact meaning is being conveyed and usually is done on purpose.  Advertisers use this means quite often…I went by a sign that said ‘now accepting new patients’, this implies that they had stop accepting patients and now have openings but in reality they are struggling and need more clients.  Especially when it is an appeal to an authority such as a sports figure although they are not an authority on what they are selling yet the public buys into it.

Some fallacies still work even though the argument has errors because of implied meaning or the spirit of what is said.   Most political debates have fallacies of logic but work on persuasive appeal; people hear what they want instead of questioning the logic of a statement. Becoming aware and noticing fallacies helps not to be persuaded to accept ideas or conclusions based on emotion or poor logic.