Fallacious Reasoning Part 1

1. Appeal to authority: Accepting the word of alleged authorities when there is not sufficient reason to believe that they have the information we seek or that they can be trusted to provide it to us, or doing so when we ought to figure the matter out for ourselves. Example- "What makes me think abortion is murder? When my pediatrician refused to perform an abortion on me, she said she wouldn't be a party to murder. Babies and childbirth are her business, you know."

2. Inconsistency: Accepting the conclusion of an argument that the self-contradictory statement or statements that contradict each other. Example- President Lyndon Johnson: "I believe in the right to dissent, but I do not believe it should be exercised."

3. Straw man: Misrepresenting an opponent's position or a competitor's product to make it easier to attack them or to tout one's own product as superior, or attacking a weaker opponent while ignoring a stronger one. Example- In attacking a proposed equal rights amendment to the state's constitution of Iowa, Pat Robertson argued that the proposal was part of a "feminist agenda...a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

4. False dilemma: A dilemma that can be shown to be false either by "going between the horns" of the dilemma or by "grasping its horns". Example- It is reported that when Socrates was condemned to death his wife cried out, "Those wretched judges have condemned him to an unjustly death!" To which Socrates is said to have replied, "Would you really prefer that I were justly condemned?"

5. Begging the question: Assuming without proof the question, or a significant part of the question, that is at issue, or answering a question by rephrasing it as a statement. Example- When Calvin Klein was asked what the secret of his success was, he answered, "I make clothes women want to wear."

6. Questionable premise - questionable statement: Accepting a less than believable premise or other statement. Example- George W. Bush in a televised interview with Diane Sawyer (12/16/03), explaining why he doesn't read the newspapers: "I get my news from people [in his administration] who don't editorialize... . They give me the actual news, and it makes it easier to digest, on a daily basis, the facts."

7. Suppressed (overlooked) evidence: Failing to bring relevant evidence to bear on an argument. Example- "Prostitution should not be legalized because it encourages the breakdown of the family. Nevada, where prostitution is legal in ten counties, has the highest divorce rate in the nation, almost twice as high as the national average."

8. Tokenism: Accepting a token gesture in lieu of the real thing. Example- In June 1997, President Clinton was praised in some circles for using his line item veto to slash $38 military construction projects, costing $289 million, that Congress had added to the Pentagon's military construction proposal. He allowed 207 projects to stand totaling more than $500 million - increasing the overall construction budget to nearly $9 billion.

*From Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life by Howard Kahane and Nancy Cavender

Have you seen any of these fallacious reasonings lately?