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The Fallacy List
May 20, 2017 at 5:29 pm
It has changed since I last viewed it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
Appeal to the stone (argumentum ad lapidem) – dismissing a claim as absurd without demonstrating proof for its absurdity.
Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio) – where the conclusion is based on the absence of evidence, rather than the existence of evidence.
Divine fallacy (argument from incredulity) – arguing that, because something is so incredible/amazing/ununderstandable, it must be the result of superior, divine, alien or paranormal agency.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 21, 2017 at 6:29 am
I'd like to add one: Appeal to Fallacy.
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 21, 2017 at 6:00 pm
I think this argumentum ex silentio is really a hidden question of semantics.
If you say God is everywhere, then everything in the universe is evidence. It just doesn't support the assertion that God exists.
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 21, 2017 at 8:40 pm
Thanks for sharing the name of 'Appealing to the stone', Lutrinae. I've been seeing that one a lot lately.
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 22, 2017 at 10:36 am
Another one I run into regularly seems to be a category of argument from consequences or force, and it's similar to Pascal's Wager (sometimes it IS Pascal's Wager): when the person cites the consequences of not believing their claim and also refers to how little the cost is to you to believe it in comparison to the cost of not believing it if you're wrong.
I've got 50 million dollars of werewolf insurance for you and it's just $5 a month...how can you afford NOT to buy that just in case?
I'm not anti-Christian. I'm anti-stupid.
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 22, 2017 at 10:47 am
Some other good ones I particularly like:
Argument to moderation (false compromise, middle ground, fallacy of the mean, argumentum ad temperantiam) – assuming that the compromise between two positions is always correct.
Etymological fallacy – which reasons that the original or historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day usage.
Historian's fallacy – occurs when one assumes that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and having the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision.[40] (Not to be confused with presentism, which is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas, such as moral standards, are projected into the past.)
Nirvana fallacy (perfect solution fallacy) – when solutions to problems are rejected because they are not perfect.
Psychologist's fallacy – an observer presupposes the objectivity of his own perspective when analyzing a behavioral event.
Referential fallacy[52] – assuming all words refer to existing things and that the meaning of words reside within the things they refer to, as opposed to words possibly referring to no real object or that the meaning of words often comes from how we use them.
Reification (concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something that is not a real thing, but merely an idea.
Retrospective determinism – the argument that because an event has occurred under some circumstance, the circumstance must have made its occurrence inevitable.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
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RE: The Fallacy List
May 22, 2017 at 10:56 am
(This post was last modified: May 22, 2017 at 10:56 am by Silver.)
I would like to use these fallacies at work.
Boss: You need to do this.
Me: I don't think so. I do not recognize your appeal to authority.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter