2.  Logos/logic is situated (bound/defined by a cultural space).  In Philosophy, there are “traditions” of logic, and a study of various forms of logic including logics that don’t use language at all.  P (theorem), Q (consequence) P & Q  We are covering “Argument” here—a claim followed by evidence appropriate for a given audience.

3.  Logical fallacies are misaligned or flawed associations between a claim and its evidence/reasoning.  IMPORTANT: arguments are situated, so some logical “errors” might not be errors to the intended audience. Check your assumptions at the door and get into the mind of the reader.

4.  Hasty Generalization  False Analogy  Circular Reasoning  Irrelevant Argument  False Cause  Self-contradiction  Red Herring  Argument to the Person  Guilt by Association  Jumping on the Bandwagon  Misplaced Authority  Card-stacking  Either-or fallacy  Taking something out of context  Appeal to Ignorance  Ambiguity

5.  Hasty Generalization – Conclusion without enough evidence  “After playing Mass Effect, I can say that Bioware is the greatest game developer ever.”  False Analogy – comparison in which differences between the objects are greater than similarities.  “Gears of War is like Whack-a-mole; aliens jump up, and you smacked them down.”  Circular Reasoning – claim + claim; argument is confirmed by same claim, just differently worded.  “Grand Theft Auto III is a violent game because all you do is commit acts of violence.”

6.  Irrelevant Argument – non sequitor; conclusion of a premise doesn’t follow from claim+evidence.  “If you haven’t played Halo, you can’t call yourself a gamer.”  False Cause – two events connected by time/situation do not equal a cause.  “Jared plays Plants versus Zombies every morning, and he was the only one who got an A on that paper.”  Self-contradiction – two premises that cannot both be true.  “No comment”

7.  Red Herring – purposefully distracting the audience with unrelated premise/conclusion.  “Before we worry about game violence, shouldn’t we worry about violence in sports?”  Argument to the Person – ad hominem; attacking the character or person rather than looking at conclusion/premises/argument.  “I don’t care what you say about Fable, Peter Molyneux is an idiot, so it can’t be good.”  Guilt by Association – argument isn’t valid because of unrelated associations.  “Microsoft donated $5 million dollars to Democrats, so they are more likely to approve liberal games for their Xbox 360.”

8.  Jumping on the Bandwagon – it’s correct because everybody does it.  “If you don’t have the money for that game, just BitTorrent it. Everybody does it.”  Misplaced Authority – pitch is from non-expert.  “Steve Ballmer said that the Kinect will revolutionize gaming.”  Card-stacking – ignoring both sides of an issue or contradictory evidence.  “Wii Sports is the most popular game of all time.”  Either-or fallacy – binary decision when there is more than one option  “you are either a gamer or not.”

9.  Taking something out of context – distorting an argument based on cherry-picked evidence  “According to IGN, Alan Wake is not revolutionary.”  Appeal to Ignorance – argument based on lack of opposing evidence.  “Because game violence has never been proven to not lead to real-life violence, it must actually lead to real-life violence.”  Ambiguity – purposefully open to two interpretations.  “Madden 11 sales were as expected.”

10.  Working with your team, draft a short review of the game that you were playing that uses as many logical fallacies as you can.  Hydro Thunder  Outlaw Volleyball  And Everything Started to Fall http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/and- everything-started-to-fall/1262/ http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/and- everything-started-to-fall/1262/  Zuma’s Revenge http://www.popcap.com/games/zumas- revenge/online http://www.popcap.com/games/zumas- revenge/online