RHET 102 Fall 2011 Fallacies

What is a Fallacy A False Appeal In Rhetoric the term fallacy is used to describe the *misuse* of an otherwise common and legitimate form of appeal.

False Appeals to Authority Citing an authority who represents a minority viewpoint without saying so. For example, a scientist who works for the Center for Disease Control who has a theory about how to prevent the spread of the flu, but whose research is not conclusive and whose theory is not supported by most scientists should not be cited without revealing this qualifying information.

False Appeals to Authority The Wrong Kind of Expertise: Citing someone who is a respectable expert but not in the area for which you are citing his opinion. Example: J.K Rowling is a very successful and well known author of a popular series of books about Harry Potter. Rowling says that Iran should be prevented from doing research on the development of nuclear power plants because they could be secretly working on developing weapons.

False Appeals to Authority Bias: John McDonald, president of the Association of Dairy Farmers and owner of McDonald’s Dairy the largest supplier of milk in the U. S. says that everyone should drink 6 glasses of milk each day to ensure good health.

Appeals to Anonymous Authority “Experts agree that…” “Scientists say Use of these generalities without ever identifying any real experts, scientists and without offering real examples of their perspectives is not sufficient, and constitutes a fallacy.

False/Inaccurate Appeals to facts Facts can be very useful in supporting an argument, but they can also be misused. Sometimes things are reported inaccurately or incorrectly. Even when gathering information from newspapers or other usually reliable sources, it is a good idea to double check some kinds of information. For example: One newspaper might report that there were about 2,000 people at a protest, another might say there were approximately 800. Another might say there were “hundreds.”

False/Inaccurate Appeals to facts Reporting as “fact” something that seems to you to be true. For example: Because of globalization, women in Cairo are dressing in less traditional dress and wearing much more revealing clothing now than they were in the previous century. Everyone has a cell phone “nowadays.”

Undermining with personal attack Sometimes rather than engage with a person’s real argument, personal attack is used to distract from the real issues. For example: opponents tried to discredit Obama by saying that he was not born in the US or that he was a Muslim— appealing to people’s uniformed fears.

Appealing to Common Opinion This type of fallacies plays off of ideas that circulate in the culture but which reduce complicated issues to simple truisms. For example: “Everyone knows that AIDS is spread by promiscuous homosexual activity.” This ignores the fact that AIDS is spread in a variety of ways: drug-users sharing needles, babies born to infected mothers, heterosexual sex, non-promiscuous sex, blood transfusions

Cause and effect fallacies These fallacies suggest such a relationship where none is provable. Ahmed plays video games every day. Now Ahmed needs glasses. Playing video games damaged Ahmed’s eyesight.

Generalizations This is the fallacy of the small sample or the stereotype. Mariam and Sara’s philosophy classes are both really hard, so all philosophy classes at AUC must be really hard. Everyone I know uses BBM, therefore all college students must use BBM.

Circular reasoning Supporting your opinion by restating it in other words: Facebook is really popular, because people like it a lot.

Fallacy fun Working in groups, choose four fallacies and try to come up with interesting examples that refer to digital culture.

Emotional Flashpoints Scare tactics play on people’s irrational fears For example: opponents tried to discredit Obama by saying that he was not born in the US or that he was a Muslim—appealing to people’s uniformed fears False dichotomies or either-or choices: “Either your with us or your against us.” Slippery slope—this seemingly minor thing it will inevitably lead to this much more serious thing. If your daughter wears those clothes, surely she will wind up pregnant and unmarried.

The Straw Man Restating the argument that you are arguing against in terms that make it unreasonably weak and fallible Evolutionists claim that evolution is all based on chance… Intelligent design advocates claim that life was created by a guy with a beard who lives in the sky…