I'm fond of
The closely related Cum hoc, ergo propter hoc - it's with it so it
must be caused by it.
Also -
Ad hominem - why attack the argument when you can attack the man?
Argumetum verbosium - drown the opposition in bullshit.
There's a pretty good list here - although a couple are misfiled
(informals under formal for instance).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
I'm hoping to find one that reflects the very common trend to
represent an opinion as a fact.
I got started as a Christmas avoidance strategy when I tripped over
this site -
http://theautonomist.com/aaphp/permanent/fallacies.php#posthoc
- a bunch of ratbag hyperindividualists who seem to worship Ayn Rand.
They've produced a decent alphabetical list but seem to have cribbed
it from somewhere and inserted their own dreadful examples, ones that
conform to their odd view of the world.
For example, for Ad antiquitam (appeal to age) they come up with -
Example: "The problem with America is that the older European sense
of community and cohesiveness has been destroyed by that divisive
independent spirit spawned by the capitalist mentality." - 'It is
true, Americans do not like communes.'
Delightfully, their crit. exhibits a nice fallacy of equivocation -
they deliberately confuse 'community' with 'commune' as one is a
positive term and the other (to them) a negative.
They manage to do this rather a lot to my great entertainment. My
favorite so far -
"Had Florence Nightingale not formed the Red Cross, millions of
disaster victims would not be taken care of today."
- 'Actually, they might be taken care of better and more efficiently,
and certainly less expensively. Who knows what good things might have
happened if there had never been a Red Cross?'
I think that example and comment manages to commit two other
fallacies (Bare Assertion, Contrary to Facts) and one major
inaccuracy (Whatever else, Flo did not found the Red Cross!)
And how about their critique of public education, which they seem to
hate -
"Language rules are not arbitrary. The primary purpose of language
rules are to insure clear, unambiguous, thought and communication of
ideas. (You must first think ideas before you can communicate them.)
The rules of grammar and syntax actually enforce the principles of
logic and much poor thinking is a result of a poor understanding of
those rules. In our day, the rules of language are greatly neglected,
educators are failing to teach them, and almost no one can think
clearly."
Apart from the fact that their whole document is riddled with errors
of style and syntax, there's just one small problem with that statement.
It kept me laughing all through the holiday, even when the cat threw up.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 28/12/2007, at 5:51 AM, Mike wrote:
>
>> (Sorry - I'm amassing a list of fallacies for students at present - I
>> think you actually committed the Ad Populum.
>
> I'd be interested in seeing this list. My favorite being the much
> abused
> _post hoc ergo propter hoc_
>
> Mike
>
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