"All humans are members of the same body Created from one essence"

"Human beings are members of a whole in creation of one essence and soul. If one member is afflicted with pain, other members uneasy will remain."

Sunday 29 August 2010

The Top Ten Fallacies of All Time


  1. Ad Hominem / Genetic Fallacy: Disputing a position or argument by criticizing its source. Universally esteemed by talk radio hosts as the highest form of reasoning.
  2. Straw Man: Disputing a position by exaggerating it, misrepresenting it, or otherwise distorting it. Putting negative spin on an opponent's ideas.
  3. "Argument" from Outrage: Self-explanatory, Political talk shows are often reduced to shouting matches where guests compete for the loudest volume and sharpest insults.
  4. Scare Tactic: Try to prove a point by scaring the reader or listener.
  5. Hasty Generalizing: Having more confidence in a conclusion than you should, based on a small sample. For example, thinking that all baseball players use steriods simply because a few have developed bulging neck muscles.
  6. Groupthink: Allowing loyalty to one's group to cloud one's judgment.
  7. Red Herring: This attention-span fallacy works best on people who are unable to stay focused long enough to notice that the question answered was not the question asked.
  8. Wishful Thinking: A refusal to acknowledge the truth. You might call it the Ostrich Fallacy.
  9. Argument from Popularity: Believing that if "everybody" believes it, it must be true.
  10. Post Hoc, ergo Propter Hoc: Just because two things happened around the same time doesn't mean one caused the other.

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