Question 1

What is the Strawman fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A strawman fallacy occurs when an arguer misrepresents, exaggerates, or distorts an opponent's position to make it easier to attack, then proceeds to refute that distorted version rather than the actual argument presented. The fallacy substitutes the opponent's real claim with a weaker or more extreme version, defeats that substitute, and implies the original argument has thereby been refuted. A valid rebuttal must engage with the position as it was actually stated, not with a caricature of it.

Question 2

What is the Ad Hominem fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An ad hominem fallacy occurs when an arguer attacks the character, circumstances, or motives of the person making an argument rather than addressing the logical content of the argument itself. The attack may be abusive (insulting the person), circumstantial (claiming bias from the person's situation), or tu quoque (alleging hypocrisy). In all cases the personal criticism is presented as grounds for rejecting the argument, which is logically irrelevant unless the argument's validity actually depends on the claimant's credibility.

Question 3

What is the False Dichotomy fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A false dichotomy (also called false dilemma or either/or fallacy) occurs when an arguer presents a situation as having only two possible options or outcomes when in fact additional alternatives exist. By artificially limiting the logical space the arguer forces the audience into a binary choice, making one option appear inevitable once the other is rejected. The fallacy is committed only when the limitation of options is unjustified; genuine dilemmas with exactly two possibilities are not fallacious.

Question 4

What is the Slippery Slope fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A slippery slope fallacy occurs when an arguer claims that one event will inevitably lead to a chain of negative consequences culminating in an extreme outcome, without providing adequate evidence that each link in the causal chain will in fact occur. The fallacy lies not in the structure of sequential causation but in the unwarranted assumption of inevitability: if each step in the chain is independently plausible and the causal links are well-supported, the argument may be entirely legitimate.

Question 5

What is the Appeal to Authority fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An appeal to authority fallacy occurs when an arguer cites an authority figure as evidence for a claim, and either the cited party is not a genuine expert in the relevant domain, or the expert's opinion is being used as a substitute for argument rather than as supporting evidence. Expert testimony can constitute legitimate evidence within sound reasoning, but the fallacy arises when the authority's endorsement is treated as conclusive proof, especially in contested domains where qualified experts disagree.

Question 6

What is the Circular Reasoning fallacy?

Accepted Answer

Circular reasoning (also called begging the question or petitio principii) occurs when an arguer includes the conclusion of an argument as one of its premises, either explicitly or in disguised form. The argument assumes what it is trying to prove, making the reasoning logically valid in a trivial sense but epistemically useless: anyone who doubts the conclusion will equally doubt the premise. Identifying this fallacy requires demonstrating that the truth of the premise is not established independently of the conclusion.

Question 7

What is the Hasty Generalization fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A hasty generalization occurs when an arguer draws a broad general conclusion from an insufficient, unrepresentative, or cherry-picked sample. The fallacy involves moving from particular instances to universal or near-universal claims without adequate inductive grounds. The error may be quantitative (too few cases), qualitative (non-representative cases), or selective (cases chosen to confirm a predetermined conclusion). What constitutes a sufficient sample depends on the nature of the claim and the variability of the domain in question.

Question 8

What is the Red Herring fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A red herring fallacy occurs when an arguer introduces irrelevant information or a tangential issue into a debate in order to divert attention from the original question or argument. The introduced material may be interesting or emotionally compelling, but it does not bear on the logical merits of the matter under dispute. The fallacy is distinguished from legitimate topic expansion by the criterion of relevance: the introduced content must be genuinely irrelevant to the question at hand, not merely peripheral to it.

Question 9

What is the False Equivalence fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A false equivalence fallacy occurs when an arguer treats two things as logically equivalent when they are in fact meaningfully different in relevant ways. The arguer draws a comparison that superficially resembles analogy but ignores morally, empirically, or structurally significant disanalogies. The fallacy is committed when the differences that matter most to the conclusion are precisely the ones glossed over by the comparison.

Question 10

What is the Appeal to Ignorance fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) occurs when an arguer claims that a proposition is true because it has not been proven false, or false because it has not been proven true. Absence of evidence is treated as evidence of absence — or presence — without justification. The fallacy exploits gaps in knowledge rather than filling them. This is distinct from legitimate cases where the burden of proof is correctly assigned and the absence of evidence is itself meaningful.

Question 11

What is the No True Scotsman fallacy?

Accepted Answer

The no true Scotsman fallacy occurs when an arguer redefines or narrows a category in an ad hoc manner to exclude a counterexample that would otherwise refute a claim. When presented with evidence contradicting a universal generalization, the arguer retreats to a stipulative redefinition rather than acknowledging the refutation. The key indicator is that the revised criterion was not part of the original claim and is introduced solely to preserve the conclusion from falsification.

Question 12

What is the Equivocation fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An equivocation fallacy occurs when an arguer exploits the ambiguity of a term by using it with two different meanings in the same argument, as if both occurrences referred to the same thing. The argument appears valid only because the shift in meaning is hidden or unacknowledged. Identifying this fallacy requires isolating the ambiguous term and demonstrating that substituting a consistent meaning in all occurrences invalidates the reasoning. CONFIDENCE GUIDANCE: when the original argument uses a narrow technical sense of a term (e.g. 'dependence' meaning 'direct cash subsistence') and the response broadens that term to a maximally inclusive sense (e.g. 'use of any public good') without acknowledging the shift, this is a high-confidence equivocation (≥0.80). The unacknowledged shift itself is the fallacy — explicit naming of both senses by the arguer is not required.

Question 13

What is the Tu Quoque fallacy?

Accepted Answer

A tu quoque fallacy (also called the appeal to hypocrisy) occurs when an arguer deflects a criticism by pointing out that the critic behaves the same way or holds similar views. The response does not address the substance of the original criticism; it merely attempts to undermine the critic's standing to make it. Even if the charge of hypocrisy is accurate, it is logically irrelevant to the validity of the criticism itself.

Question 14

What is the Appeal to Emotion fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An appeal to emotion fallacy occurs when an arguer substitutes emotional manipulation for logical reasoning, using feelings such as fear, pity, pride, or outrage to persuade an audience in place of evidence and argument. Emotion is not inherently fallacious in rhetoric — narratives and emotional appeals can legitimately illustrate why a conclusion matters — but the fallacy is committed when emotional arousal is offered as a substitute for justification rather than as supplementary motivation.

Question 15

What is the Bandwagon fallacy?

Accepted Answer

The bandwagon fallacy (argumentum ad populum) occurs when an arguer concludes that a claim is true, good, or correct because it is widely believed, popular, or widely practiced. Popularity is logically irrelevant to the truth of a proposition: majorities have been wrong throughout history, and consensus shifts over time. The fallacy is distinct from citing expert consensus as evidence, because expert agreement in a relevant domain carries genuine epistemic weight that mere popularity does not.

Question 16

What is the Appeal to Nature fallacy?

Accepted Answer

An appeal to nature fallacy occurs when an arguer infers that something is good, correct, or superior because it is natural, or bad because it is unnatural, without providing a reasoned account of why naturalness confers value. The natural/unnatural distinction does not track moral or practical goodness: many natural phenomena (arsenic, smallpox, predation) are harmful, and many beneficial things (surgery, vaccines, cooked food) are artificial. The fallacy collapses the descriptive is/natural with the normative ought/good.

Question 17

What is the Anecdotal Evidence fallacy?

Accepted Answer

The anecdotal evidence fallacy occurs when an arguer treats a personal experience or isolated example as sufficient grounds for a general claim, while ignoring or downplaying systematic data, controlled studies, or statistical evidence that bears on the question. Anecdotes can legitimately motivate hypotheses and illustrate possibilities, but they cannot establish probability, causation, or prevalence for a population. The fallacy is especially common when the vivid anecdote conflicts with available aggregate data.

Question 18

What is the Post Hoc fallacy?

Accepted Answer

The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy ('after this, therefore because of this') occurs when an arguer concludes that because one event preceded another, the first caused the second. Temporal sequence is necessary but not sufficient for causation: correlation, including temporal correlation, can arise from coincidence, confounding variables, or reverse causation. Establishing causation requires ruling out alternative explanations, demonstrating a plausible causal mechanism, and ideally replicating the effect under controlled conditions.

Question 19

What is the Genetic Fallacy fallacy?

Accepted Answer

The genetic fallacy occurs when an arguer evaluates a claim, argument, or belief by appealing to its origin, history, or source rather than its logical merits. Whether an argument was motivated by self-interest, bias, or even malice is irrelevant to whether its conclusion is true or its premises sound. The fallacy treats the causal story of how a belief came to be held as a logical basis for accepting or rejecting it, when only the content and evidence matter.

Question 20

What is the Moving the Goalposts fallacy?

Accepted Answer

Moving the goalposts (also called the Nirvana fallacy or shifting criteria) occurs when an arguer arbitrarily changes the standards, conditions, or criteria required to prove a point after an opponent has satisfied the original criteria. Rather than acknowledging that the burden of proof has been met, the arguer imposes new and more demanding requirements. The fallacy is distinguishable from legitimate revision of criteria because the new demands appear specifically in response to the original burden having been discharged, not from principled reconsideration.