110 Fallacies (book)

✒️ Note-Making

Connect

🔼Topic:: Communication (MOC)

🔍 Clarify

💭 Simply, the main message is... a good collection of fallacies when making arguments

Critique

✅ I agree with... the advantages are...

This book has very good demonstrations and explanations for all the common fallacies and even more

❌ I disagree with... the disadvantages are...

It sometimes looks like he just really wanted to get to 110 so he "invented" or presented variations of other fallacies as new fallacies, repeating himself and making the book unnecessarily long

📒 Notes

Intro

arguments have two components:

1. conclusion - the main message/advice of the argument
2. premises - supporting claims that entail the conclusion
3. Logical structure - the link between the premises and the conclusions

a valid argument is one that if the premises are true, then the conclusion should be true as well. an invalid argument is such that even if the premises are true, the conclusion is false. premises and logic is like doing math, while the conclusion is the result of the calculation. A calculation can be bad either by using the wrong numbers (premises), or by having a mistake in the calculation steps (logical structure). mistakes in the logical structure is what we call a fallacy.

Informal Fallacies

Accent:

not interpreting the right conclusion based on different linguistic emphasis. example: "I don't want to see another Adam Sandler movie after watching this one" "okay, so we'll watch the same one again!"

Accident:

not understanding that there are exceptions to the rule. example: "everyone has a right for privacy." "so that means that even if someone beats his wife in privacy, he shouldn't be arrested".

Ad Hominem:

an attack against the personality of the speaker, without addressing his arguments. While there might be a connection between the credibility of the speaker and the truthfulness of his argument, there is no reason to deny his arguments without checking them first. Example: "don't listen to him, he only says that because he is religious".

Amphiboly

when a sentence can have double meaning, so that the wrong conclusion is inferred. Example: "Sarah told Jane that she had made a mistake" - so who did a mistake here?

Anecdotal

Using an anecdote (or lack there of) to prove or disprove a point. Example: "smoking is bad for your health" "but my grandfather smokes every day and he is 90 years old!" "Covid is dangerous" "do you personally know someone who died of covid? if not then its not that dangerous"

Appeal to Authority

when we give too much credit to a claim based on the authoritative figure which said it. While expertise is relevant for the truthfulness of a claim, it is only true when:

1. The person is an expert in the relevant field
2. The person's opinions are considered part of the "common knowledge" of that field
3. The person is not biased in this topic

example: "Dr Janis said that its okay to eat a pizza in every meal" "but isn't she a doctor of psychics?"

Appeal to Commonality

the "everyone is doing/believing it so you should do it to" fallacy". example: "everybody here thinks that the world is flat, so you should too"

Appeal to Results

aka Wishful thinking. when we think a claim is true because it has good results. Wishing something to be true, or the usefulness of a claim doesn't make it true. Pragmatism example: "if everyone believed in god, our world would be a much better place - so god must exist!".

Appeal to Emotions

trying to convince someone by causing him to feel a certain emotion, rather than with presenting evidence to support his claim. Emotions can be either positive or negative, such as:

1. hate
2. envy
3. pity
4. fear
5. Excitement (shiny new thing)
6. pride

Appeal to Purity

also known as "no true Scotsman", denying counterexamples that hurt your claim by saying that a true case of your statement doesn't fall for those issues. for example: "Christianity is a religion of peace" "what about all the wars and murdering that Christians' do?" "a true Christian would never commit murder"

Fire Hose of Falsehood

thinking that quantity beats quality. For example, when a person makes 10 false claims quickly, and his opponent only succeeds in rebutting 5 of those in his allotted time, and since there are 5 claims "left on the table", they must be right.

Appeal to Tradition

thinking that something is right only because it has been done for a long time. this shows how dangerous and stupid the Lindy Effect can be. For example: "Women shouldn't have a right to vote, since the dawn of mankind they were going by their husbands opinion, this is our tradition and we should stick with it"

Begging the Question

aka circular reasoning, using your conclusion as the premise for the argument. For example: "god exist because it says so in the bible, and you know the bible is true because it was written by god".

Biased Sampling

Sampling. Basing your argument on a not random and not representative sample. Like asking for opinions on gun control in a NRA convention.

Burden of Proof

mistakenly assuming that a lack of evidence is an evidence of lacking, or wrongfully shifting the burden to the other (more plausible) side. For example: "you can't prove that god doesn't exist, therefore its true".

Fallacy of Composition

assuming something about the whole based on the attributes of its components, in situations where it might not be the case. For example: "1 and 3 are odd numbers, so their sum must be an odd number as well".

Confusing Cause and Effect

Correlation is not causation. Assuming that two things that appear together are causally linked.

Fallacy of Division

similar to fallacy of composition, it is when we assume a property of the whole is true to all of its components. For example: "4 is an even number, so 1 and 3 must be as well".

False Analogy

when an example uses several attributes to link between two issues, but the premise that x is true to one, therefore the other doesn't hold. for example: "electricity and water both travel in pipes, therefore since water travels faster downhill, so does electricity."

False Dilemma

presenting two options as a "black and white" options, meaning only one of them is true, and if one is false then the other must be true. for example: "either we cut back on security or social support" - "but what about increasing tax collection?" "either we do it perfectly or not at all. since we can't do it perfectly, its better to do nothing".

Gamblers Fallacy

using probability in a predictional way in cases where the outcomes are independent of one another. For example: "the last 10 coin tosses where heads, so the next one must be tails!" - "no, there's still a 50% chance the next one will be heads".

Historians Fallacy

aka hindsight bias, judging past cases when present perspective and specifically present knowledge. For example: "looking back, the evidence for Pearl Harbor were right there, FDR should have known."

Illicit Fallacy

a illogical conversion between groups. For example: "all dogs are mammals != all mammals are dogs". a more modern example can be: "if the test accuracy is 90%, then if I'm tested positive that means that its 90% that I actually have the disease". when in fact it can be much much lower depending on how common it is, when considering false positives.

Middle Ground

thinking that the middle point between two opposing viewpoints is right solely because its in the middle. For example: "I want to sell my car for 2000 dollar", "ill buy it for 1 dollar", "so i guess 1000 dollars is only fair". a version of that is when both sides hate the compromise. Of course there are cases where the compromise is neither helpful nor useful for either sides.

Moving the Goal post

Never accepting anything as evidence against a claim. for example: "the moon landing was fake" - "but NASA released photos" - "but they can be fake as well" - "but other nations would have verified it and expose us" - "but this could be a world wide conspiracy!"

Oversimplified Cause

When a premise is given as a reason for a phenomenon, while it might be true, it is wrong to present it as the sole cause for it. For example: "The raising prices is because the government has razed taxes" "yes, but it's hardly noticeable, the real cause is the disruption to the global supply chain "

Proving X, Concluding Y.

When evidence is given to prove a point, but the conclusion doesn't derive from it, but rather something else, usually similar. For example: "a lot of students are binge drinking, since drinking is related to stress, we should make the courses easier!"

Red Herring

when someone shifts to a different topic without addressing the arguments against his claim. For example: "yes, the cost of living is a difficult topic, be we shouldn't forget about life itself."

Slippery Slope

when a premise is taken to the extreme such that an extreme outcome would follow from it. "if we let these immigrants into our country, what next? we would have to accept all of them and then we would have so much crime and unemployment."

Straw Man

when the opponent treats the argument as a worse version of it and attacks it instead "I think we should accept educated immigrants to improve our economy" - "so know you're going to let everybody in?!"

Sunk Cost

treating investment already made as a justified reason for continuing with the action, although sunk cost cannot be retrieved, but future cost can be avoided. Sunk Cost "we have already spent 100m on this road, we should invest 20m more" "but its no longer necessary, we have a better cheaper alternative"

💬 Highlights

• Creating an argument thus requires making a point (conclusion) and backing it up with evidence or reasons (premises). (Location 168)
• a fallacy is such that the premises fail to provide adequate support for the conclusion. (Location 179)
• A valid argument is such that if the premises were true, then the conclusion must be true. An invalid argument is such that all the premises could be true while the conclusion is false. (Location 196)
• it is reasonable to accept a premise as plausible if it meets three conditions. First, the premise is consistent with your own observations. Second, the premise is consistent with your background beliefs and experience. Third, the premise is consistent with credible sources, such as experts, standard references, and textbooks. (Location 217)
• winning matters but winning must be earned through an honest path to victory. Just having the trophy does not make one the best athlete. “Winning” the argument does not make one right. (Location 394)