Seeing as how people liked the first part, I decided to continue and take a gander at going further into how to make a proper argument. This next bit goes into detail about logical fallacies, which I touched on non-specifically in the previous section. I'll go through a handful of some of the more common or deceptive logical fallacies, so that you can avoid using them yourself (Many folks use fallacies sometimes without knowing it) and so you can point them out yourself.

What is a 'logical fallacy'? Well, it's an argument or claim that sometimes on it's premise, seems reasonable or valid, but in fact is nothing of the sort. Whether or not the arguer made the fallacy intentionally or not is irrelevant, you portrayed information in a way that only seems to validate your argument. It appears logical, and sometimes reasons from logic, hence the name. So, without further ado, I'll start at the top

Note: These fallacies and their definitions were derived from a video I found, so the credit for these isn't mine

Note #2: BIG JOURNAL IS BIG. If you're going to comment, read the whole damn thing.

1) Foundational Bias
Easily the most common logical fallacy, and the one people are most likely to fall prey too even accidentally. A foundational bias, is when you admit bias towards a certain conclusion before making an argument. The bias is not based on any evidence or logic, but is instead based on personal preference or belief. This opens the door for virtually every other logical fallacy there is.

But you say, "Aren't we all guilty of this? Aren't we all biased towards a certain stance?" Yes, we are, but note, there's a key phrase in here which separates one group from the other. One group's bias is based on evidence and logic, the other is based on personal preference and belief. If you have the evidence to back up your stance, then your bias is logical, and valid.

 cigarskunk is a prime example of foundational bias, as well as a whole slew of other logical fallacies. Check out his journals for examples, or I'll point them out to you when necessary. In this case, he admits to being biased towards a political party based almost solely on personal preference. He uses "evidence", which is often faulty or misrepresentative. When this is defeated, he then argues almost strictly from personal belief and preference.

Also, before anyone gets the weird idea that I have a grudge against the guy, I don't. What I do not approve of, is his use of fallacious arguments to try and make statements of fact about the state of the US. Even in politics, you must back up your claims with evidence and reason, of which he does almost nothing of the sort. What's worse, is that some people seem to believe him. I don't like it when people misuse information like that, so I'll be using him as my most relevant example.

2) The Straw Man Argument
Another fairly common fallacy, this one is often used purposefully. A straw man is made when you misrepresent or oversimplify your opponent's position, and then easily refute the straw man, based on that oversimplification or misrepresentation. However, you have not responded to the substance of your opponent's argument. Of all the fallacies used intentionally, this is easily the most common.

3) Hasty Generalization
A hasty generalization attempts to draw a major conclusion from a minor set of data, reaching beyond what it's supposed to be able to touch. Because, when you're making a big claim, you need BIG evidence to make that claim. Hence, a minority viewpoint is seen as validating a conclusion that would affect the majority.

4) Argument From Authority
An argument from authority involves setting up an "expert" on the subject at hand. However, the fallacy does not come from the presence of the expert, but rather in using the expert's "authority" on the subject to try and make their claims immune to criticism and to validate any claims they make on a subject. Real experts are open to the idea of criticism or counter-arguments.

5) Ad Hominem Argument
Also known as a personal attack, an ad hominem argument is where you ignore the substance of your opponent's argument, and attempt to discredit your opponent's stance by attacking the character of your opponent. This is the direct opposite of an argument from authority. Basically, by making your opponent appear to be a bad person, you try to invalidate their claims by calling into question the quality of their character. This is another commonly used purposeful fallacy, used most especially in politics.

 cigarskunk pulls this one off in spades in just about every journal where he "criticizes" the Democrats. His most egregious instance is a few of the journals involving the death of Ted Kennedy. In these, Cigarskunk claims that, because the media is going to give the Senator "sainthood" (an obvious exaggeration) that its his civil duty to demonize the man by bringing up a 40-year old driving accident: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/913224/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/907754/ in order to make Mr. Kennedy out to be a monster, completely invalidating any of his political work (but because Cigarskunk is foundationally biased, Kennedy's political work is invalid from the start!) Now there are a huge number of logical fallacies in each of these journals, but since we got to Ad Hominem first, we'll use that one first.

5) Appeal to the Majority
Also known as an ad populum agument, an appeal to the majority is made when an argument is asserted to be true, simply because a large number of people believe it to be true, whether or not the evidence supports that claim or not. This is similar to the argument from authority, only replacing the "expert" with a large group of people. The fallacy here, is the assumption that people's belief in a proposition makes it valid.

Now, politics is all about an appeal to the majority, because in a democracy, we elect our government. However, the majority can NEVER "elect" the truth. Truth exists, whether we believe in it or not.

6) Quote Mining
This is one that particularly nasty. I referenced it back in my prior journal, as partial quoting, and quoting out of context. Used in academics, this fallacy is know as 'academic dishonesty'. Essentially quote mining is the rather atrocious practice of using quotes taken from relevant sources to support your claim and then using said quote(s) inappropriately or taking them out of context, often used deliberately to sow misinformation. This is right next to plagarism in the 'things-you-do-NOT-do-in-school' list.

 cigarskunk pulls this one off quite flagrantly in http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/907754/ here. In this, he takes an article relating to Mr. Kennedy's dog, named splash, and uses it to support his ad hominem attack! Only Skunk takes it one step further. Instead of using a single passage, he uses the ENTIRE ARTICLE out of context. He claims that the dog's name "Splash" somehow impeaches Kennedy's character. What he fails to mention, and what is even in the article, is that the Dog didn't belong to Kennedy originally (the original owner named the dog 'Splash because of it's breed), and that Kennedy just failed to change the name. Even when this fact was pointed out, Skunk refused to acknowledge the mistake, and ignored it.

7) Man-on-the-Street Interview
This fallacy is a combination of 'appeal to the majority' and 'quote mining', but often times a large number of other fallacies can be thrown in. The name is self-explainatory, a random person from the sidewalk is asked for their opinion, and it is used to try to prove a claim, even if the person has no idea what they're being asked about or whether their opinions are even relevant. The knowledge or opinion of a random person met on the street has no bearing in rational debate.

8) Non-Sequitur
Literally means 'does not follow', a non-sequitur is formally defined as a conclusion that does not follow from the premise(s) that are being argued. Non-sequiturs often specifically refer to arguments that do not follow from ANY logical thought. No connections can be made from these arguments to ANY form of reality.

9) Red Herring
Ah yes, the infamous Red Herring. Not so much a fallacy, the red herring is more of a distraction technique. In response to an opponent's argument, an irrelevant point is made. It can even be valid, but if it does nothing to address the issue, than it's one of these.

Cigarskunk's use of the Ted Kennedy's dog is an example of one of these. The dog in NO way related to the issue of the driving accident, nor is the accident referenced in the linked article. But Skunk tries to lead us to believe that it IS relevant. However, careful scrutiny reveals the truth.

10) Argument from Personal Incredulity
This fallacy is similar to foundational bias, because it stems not from evidence, but from personal belief. In this fallacy, someone argues that they do not personally find a premise to be likely or believable, therefore it cannot be true, regardless of any of the evidence presented. The fallacy here lies in presenting your own beliefs as evidence that a premise is true or untrue.

Once again, our favorite tobacco-smoking mammal pulls this one off in spades. Whenever he makes a claim about the faults and mistakes of the Democrats, and someone uses logical reasoning to add doubt to that claim, he doesn't even bother using evidence to counter the argument. He merely uses his personal beliefs to validate his reasoning.

11) Argument from Ignorance
To quote Dilbert: "Since when did ignorance become a point of view?" In this fallacy, the appeal to ignorance is made as an argument that a premise is true because it has not been prove false, or that a premise is false, only because it has not been proven true. To sum it up: absence of evidence, is NOT evidence of absence.

This particular fallacy is perhaps one of the biggest ones used in religion versus science arguments, primarily when dealing with God. The religion side tends to argue that because it hasn't been proven that God doesn't exist that he must exist.

12) Equivocation
An equivocation, is the misleading use of a word that has more than one meaning. Often, in the same science versus religion debates, the word "theory" is often used inappropriately. In science, a theory is "a logically coherent model well-supported by evidence". However, in popular culture, the definition of theory is more closer to opinion, conjecture, or an educated guess. Please don't confuse the two. ;)

This is sometimes a fallacy used accidentally. As we're not walking dictionaries, not every is aware of the multiple meanings of a word, and thus an equivocation can occur due to ignorance, rather than a willful attempt at misinformation.

13) False Dichotomy
Also known as "Either/Or", a false dichotomy occurs when you are given two mutually exclusive options, where if one is chosen, the other is false or irrelevant. You don't have any other choices. The fallacy is that the two options may not necessarily be mutually exclusive (or even related at all!) or there may be other, alternative options available.

Another accidental fallacy, people sometimes simply fail to recognize alternative options or do not recognize the problem with the options they give. A popular TV Trope based on this, is Failure Is The Only Option, or But Thou Must, where you are limited to only making certain choices, even if you know those choices are bad. The subversion of this fallacy ALSO has a trope! It is known as: Chose A Third Option.



Alright folks, that's a fair number of them, there's 25 in total, and I just did just over half. So we'll take a break for now! I'll do the remaining 12 in the next Journal! :3