Taken with kind permission from the book Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense by J. Steve Miller and Cherie K. Miller
Logic and Logical Fallacies
The dull mind, once arriving at an inference that flatters the desire, is rarely able to retain
the impression that the notion from which the inference started was purely problematic.
― George Eliot, in Silas Marner
Brilliant People Believe Nonsense [because]They Fall for Common Fallacies
Even the brightest among us fall for logical fallacies. As a result, we should be ever vigilant to keep our critical guard up, looking for fallacious reasoning in lectures, reading, viewing, and especially in our own writing. None of us are immune to falling for fallacies.
Until doctors come up with an inoculation against fallacies, I suppose the next best thing is to thoroughly acquaint ourselves with the most common fallacies. I chose the following fallacies by comparing a dozen or so university sites that list what they consider the most common fallacies that trip up students.1
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Sorry, but this chapter and the next don't contain fascinating stories and intriguing intellectual puzzles. But please resist the temptation to skim to the following section. To think critically, we simply must familiarize ourselves with logical fallacies. Otherwise, we're fair game for all sorts of nonsense. Think of it like math. While the formulas themselves might be boring, we learn them in order to hopefully use them for something practical in the future. You'll assuredly find many of the below fallacies used in conversations and articles.
Think of logical fallacies as the grammar you must master to learn a foreign language. Before you can use a language practically (like writing a note to that ravishing foreign exchange student in her native language), you simply must learn the vocabulary and grammar. Similarly, logical fallacies are a part of the vocabulary of logical thinking. I'll try to make understanding them as painless as possible. |
So learn these well. Reflect upon them. Look for them in the media. Familiarizing yourself with errant reasoning goes a long way toward helping you to write, reason, speak, and listen with more critical precision.
Tip: If some of my definitions and examples don't sufficiently clarify, look up the fallacy in Wikipedia or other sources for alternate explanations.
Below this list of fallacies, I'll give you a bit of practice by asking you to connect a fallacy with an errant argument. Finally, I'll give a few tips on checking your own argumentation (particularly in writing and speeches) for fallacies.
