Fallacy

False Cause
(After This, So
Because of This / With
This, So Because of
This / Mistaken Cause)
(261)

Structure
Event B happened just after A.
> probably A caused B.
After this, so because of this
B-type events always just happen after A-type events
> So A-type events are probably the cause of B-type events
With this, so because of this
A-type events are correlated with B-type events
> A-type events probably cause B-type events

Fallacy of
Accident (or Sweeping
Generalisation) (287)

Mistaken cause
A-type events are correlated with B-type events
> B-type events probably cause A-type events
What is true of a thing generally is not necessarily true of it in
some accidental or peculiar circumstance. (i.e. general -> specific)
Arguer applies a general rule to an exception that the rule was not
intended to cover. eg. It is wrong to deliberately strike another person
and that is exactly what that boxer did to his opponent. So what he did
was wrong

Straw Man (240)

Person A: Premise 1 and 2 -> Argument 1

Person B: Based on Argument 1 -> Weaker/exaggerated
version of Argument 1 (strawman) AND attacks the weaker argument
To identify, note that ther are always 2 arguments in a strawman
fallacy. One of the arguments is presented by the author, and is a
misrepresentation of an earlier argument that was offered by someone
else.
(1) My opponents argument is X (but X is weaker than the opponents
actual argument)
(2) X is a bad argument
> So my opponents argument is bad

Red Herring

NOTE: There are no exceptions to the straw man. It is ALWAYS a

bad argument.
Premises leads to Conclusion X, yet Conclusion Y is drawn

(242)
In a red herring fallacy, the author commits herself to arguing for a
certain claim but fails to do so. This happens because the arguer
distracts the audience so that they do not notice that the argument for
the original conclusion has not been completed. The distraction may
happen in 2 different ways
Introduce an attention grabbing claim that may be superficially
similar to but easier to support than the original conclusion. The
arguer than switches to talk about that new subject and the
original conclusion to be supported is forgotten
Make the audience forget about the original claim by rambling

on. The point of the argument is loss as memoery fades.

Note: Do not confuse Straw Man with Red Herring. In Straw Man
there are always 2 arguments, one that attacks the other. The
attacking argument misrepresents the argument to be attacked
as a weaker argument and then attacks this weaker argument. In
RH, there is usually only one argument which tries to establish a
different conclusion from the one that is supposed to be
established.

Weak Analogy
(266)

X has properties A, B, C and Z

Y has properties A, B, C
> So Y probably has property Z
Analogies work by first pointing out that 2 or more things have several
properties in common, and the concluding based on that they probably
also share some other property.
Arguments by analogy are always inductive arguments since mere
similarity is never enough to 100% guarantee that any particular
property will be shared. In general, the strength of an argument
depends on the number of relevant similarities identified in the
premises of the argument
Shared characteristics MUST be relevant to conclusion

Slippery Slope
(Causal / Semantics)
(288)

Presence of disanalogies will make the analogy weak e.g. comparing

2 friends with vomiting and similar physical symptoms with one of
them being pregnant and it turns out that the other is a male.
In a sequence of events, at least some of the events are quite
unlikely, so the sequence of events is likely to break down at those
points.
Even if each individual step seems reasonable, the likelihood
that all of them will come true is still quite low.
We cannot pick out a specific point at which something
changes from C to D.
Semantic
An arguer claims that we cannot pick out a specific point at which a
thing changes from F to G. So it never becomes G
Causal
Arguer claims that a chain of events will occur, when the number or
weakness of the links makes it unlikely that the whole chain will
actually occur.

Appeal to
Authority (257)

Person A says X is true, and Person A is an expert

Therefore, X is true
Structure:
So-and-so says that such-and-such
> Therefore it is probably true that such-and-such
For this to be strong, the source or person cited must not only be a
reliable authority, but must be and authority on the topic referred to in
the conclusion.
The key to recognizing the fallacy lies in identifying the domain of
expertise of the expert and whether or not she is likely to be biased.
Besides asking if the authority is really qualified in a way relevant to
the conclusion, we should also ask whether the issue in question is

Appeal to
Ignorance (244)

the kind that can be settled by expert opinion at all. e,g, moral
arguments (more challenging to find a suitable authority on morality)
A not proven true
> A must be false.
Absence of evidence cannot, as a rule, be used as support for a
conclusion. In general, we can only draw a definite conclusion from
what we know, not from what we dont know.
Arguments usually take the following structure:
It has never been shown that such-and-such is not the case
> Therefore such-and-such is the case
OR
It has never been shown that such-and-such is the case
> Therefore such-and-such is not the case

Hasty
Generalisation

Notes: True conclusions dont make a good argument! Just

because you see that a conclusion is true, doesnt meant that the
reasons given really support it! Remember, fallacies are about
flaws in reasoning, not flaws in the conclusion.
Sample is too small / biased -> invalid inference to general rule
This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion
about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has
the following form:
Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.
Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S.
The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type
of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization,
Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:
X% of all observed A's are B''s.
Therefore X% of all A's are Bs.
The fallacy is committed when not enough A's are observed to warrant
the conclusion. If enough A's are observed then the reasoning is not
fallacious.