Taken with kind permission from the book Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense by J. Steve Miller and Cherie K. Miller
Logic and Logical Fallacies
"Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted;
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider."
— Francis Bacon, Of Studies
Brilliant People Believe Nonsense [because]...They Either Fail To Recognize Fallacies, or Misapply The Ones They Know
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Learning fallacies can be fatal to your argumentation and detrimental to your relationships. For these reasons, I teach logical fallacies with a great deal of hesitation. It's a bit like selling firearms to a person with no training in how to use them. I'd hate to be known as one who arms Internet trolls.* |
So before I present a large list of fallacies, I'll acquaint you with a particularly pernicious type of fallacious reasoning that's running rampant on the Internet, but which is strangely absent from lists of fallacies. I call it "The Fallacy Fallacy."
The Fallacy Fallacy: Debunking Debunking
I often read comments on blog posts or articles or Facebook discussions which accuse the writer of committing a specific logical fallacy and thus declaring the argument thoroughly debunked, typically with an air of arrogant finality. While the debunker may feel quite smug, intelligent participants consider him quite sophomoric.* In reality, he's typically failed to even remotely understand the argument, much less apply the fallacy in a way that's relevant to the discussion.
Surely this fallacy deserves a proper name and should be listed with other fallacies. Thus I'll define "The Fallacy Fallacy" as "Improperly connecting a fallacy with an argument, so that the argument is errantly presumed to be debunked.1
Don't be a troll. Here are a few ways people misapply fallacies, thus committing "The Fallacy Fallacy":
1. They misunderstand the fallacy.
"YOU'RE ALWAYS ARGUING WITH JAMIE, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY AD HOMINEM." (Trolls delight in using all caps, confusing louder with smarter.) If the person was actually arguing against Jamie's arguments, rather than putting Jamie down as a person, then the arguments weren't ad hominem at all.
2. They fail to appreciate nuance. (They understand the fallacy, but apply it errantly.)
Someone quotes Albert Einstein to bolster his argument. "THAT'S AN APPEAL TO AUTHORITY!" shouts the troll. But citing authorities isn't always fallacious. If a person cites Einstein concerning a question of relativity theory, then Einstein is a legitimate authority. Thus, quoting him can be a legitimate part of an argument, although it's typically not a slam dunk in itself. While arguments concerning establishing facts should be argued on the basis of the evidence, in many cases citing authorities can help to substantiate the evidence.2
3. They assume a thorough debunking when there's typically more to the argument.
While trolls are celebrating their "brilliant" comments with a victory dance and a handful of Skittles, their opponents are often typing a clarification that makes the Trolls' comments irrelevant. We simply must take the time to thoroughly understand the arguments we're evaluating.
