The 76 logical fallacies
Logic
Is the second step in the problem-solving three-part syntax called Trivium. It is part of the syntax of actual thinking. If thinking is to take place, you have to work out your general grammar, which consists of asking what, who, where and when. Without asking these questions and finding an answer, logic is irrelevant or poorly timed. Logic can only be called in when all grammatical and basic material has been obtained and aims to clarify and resolve internal contradictions. Logic is the question why?
One could also say: how is the material connected ? but then conceptual confusion arises, because in doing so we have used the word how, which should be reserved for the third part of the syntax of thinking: rhetoric. So how can this logical structure based on grammatical material be used and communicated?
The three-part syntax for thinking, forms the prerequisite for the whole scientific method. And for the argumentation and questioning of the accused and the witnesses in a court case and the whole detective work, that went before.
Logic, however, is a minefield with many pitfalls. Especially if people are not trained to think logically. Here, on the other hand, authentic and solid logic can be a Swiss knife of ways to see through and reveal the pitfalls. Logical competence is self-empowerment. The pitfalls are called logical fallacies or false logic.
We experience them all the time in both public and private spaces.
Especially opinion makers and politicians use them constantly. When they want to – and pardon my French – want to fuck with you mind, they fuck with logic. It may be they are incompetent, it mayby they are corrupt. In either case you will be able to catch them abusing arguments to manipulate people.
Two things often happen:
- the rhetoric is being pulled down into the logical field because someone is in the process of applying and conveying something, that does not have a consistent logic and therefore is full of contradictions.
- the grammar is simply skipped because someone allows themselves to answer the why question, without having made the effort to complete the grammar.
If you answer why before what-who-where-when, the syntax breaks. You are heading backwards in the syntax and look for all the signs and evidence for your finished answer, after which you even allow yourself to blue-stamp the masterpiece and convey it. It is also called demagoguery or sophistication (ref. the Greek false philosophers, the Sophists). Or deception / self-deception. This can be due to panic because you have fallen short or is been pushed into a corner. This may be because you have a bad case. In either case, one has not thought. It can also be due to the fact that one is a skilled and cynical manipulator with a sinister agenda. In this case, one has thought and often quite thoroughly, but one has a moral flaw.
Let’s have a look at the catalog of logical fallacies. Logic is certainly not an easy subject, and we can quickly fall far into mathematics or computer science. We therefore omit some of the very abstract proportional fallacies, quantification fallacies and formal syllogistic fallacies – there you go, they went right past the radar 🙂 We do not have to go into abstractions, but constantly link to the concrete, because we know all these pitfalls, but often do not discover them until it is too late. W may smell a rat, but we can’t put our fingers at it.
It is especially the so-called informal logical fallacies that we as ordinary thinking (hopefully) humans may need to study. We can actually sharpen our thinking ability by just studying them. They require one to examine the content of the argument, and not just its form.
Let it be said at once: logic does not stand in opposition to intuition, logic complements and completes intuition. These seemingly different brain functions ultimately have a common meeting point. The best scientists of the world have a brilliant intuition. They have glimpses of insights, inspiration as an artist would call it, and afterwards they spend years of logical thinking and experiments to figure out, whether this insight was a way forward.
NB! The word true and false is used here in precisely the philosophical use that springs from logic, and not as true in the religious sense, ie. a higher revelation brought to us from prophets and priests who claim to have corresponded with God. But if something is true in a philosophical sense, it must be intuitively true.
Logical fallacies are often attempts to make up a bad argument and trick people into believing it to be true. It’s distance blinding, it’s manipulative. In the hand and mouth of driven demagogues, they can appear extremely captivating, and if you are not trained to see through them in a split second, you can fall short of the trick.
In a famous play by Danish satirical playwright, Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754), a play called Erasmus Montanus, there is a son of a wealthy peasant family, that could afford to send their son to the University. The son comes home for holiday to visit his parents in the village of whom they are very proud. But unfortunately he has grown a snob and tries to show off by applying false logic. With the power of words you can prove anything, he says. Take old grandma. Let me ask, he says: A stone cannot fly, isn’t that so? They all aggree, a stone cannot fly. Old Grandma cannot fly, isn’t that so? Yes-yes, they all aggree. ERGO: Old Grandma is … a stone! Whereafter Old Grandma starts to weep, for she doesn’t want to be a stone. So Holberg, that like his French equivalent Mollière always has a moral angle in his plays, gives a brilliant example of logical fallacies for the purpose of twisting peoples minds.
Disclaimer and friendly warning
This is a mouthfull. Don’t try to eat it in one piece.
You may want to use it a training ground for understanding the potent and often dangerous trickery of false arguments.
There is a reason why the socalled Elite have send their sons and daughters to Elite Colleges and Universities to become the rulers of the world. They are taught THIS STUFF.
Formal fallacies _______________________
1. Appeal to probability
You take something for granted because it is probably true or could be thought or imagined to be true. From being a simple more or less qualified guess, it becomes elevated to a truth.
2. Argument by erroneous conclusion
It is assumed that if an argument for a conclusion is erroneous, the whole conclusion is false. One finds an error in an argument, and instead of improving it, one discards the whole argument and its conclusion.
In law, it is called procedural error.
3. Conjunction fallacy
It is assumed that something is probable because several conditions are met than just a single one. It is judged from the fact that someone has thrown a lot of glossy material on the table, even though this material is thin. As the person that called himself Shakespeare wrote in a sonnett: All that glissens is not gold.
One could also call it argument by quantity. A lot of arguments thown in your face may stun you and make you shut up.
4. The masked man
Lois Lane believes Superman can fly. However, she does not believe that Clark Kent can fly. Therefore, these two can not be the same person.
One finds deviant characteristics and argues for basic identities.
One overlooks or abuses the fact that something can morph and behave differently under different conditions to claim that these forms are essentially different.
You judge the dog by its fur. The man is wearing a beard and blue glasses and is therefore suddenly someone else.
Informal fallacies _____________________
5. Argument by ignorance
One assumes that something is either true or false because it cannot be proven that it is any of the parts.
We do not know, so therefore we must assume and believe that …
In the religions that otherwise do not care too much about logic (what else do you have dogma for?), these arguments are common.
We can not know God. God is a mystery. In return, we have just talked to God, and can tell that he thinks so-and-so. Believe us, we know what we’re talking about.
6. Argument by disbelief
I simply can not believe that everything you say about the WTC and 9/11 can be true, so therefore it must be false ‘. Or vice versa: ‘I simply can not believe that what you are saying about George Bush’s official conspiracy theory may be false, so therefore it must be true. And I do not care that he lied about WMD in Iraq.
Note the element of faith in the statement. Faith is based on a voluntary renunciation of thinking and one puts all decision and authority in the hands of a postulated external authority with absolute / divine insight.
Common sense is a good thing, but if you appeal to ‘we all know that … everyone can understand that …’ then it is a fallacy.
7. Argument ved repetition
[argumentum ad nauseam]
Ad nauseam means until the point of nausea.
Man-made global warming, CO2 is toxic’ Man-made global warming, CO2 is toxic, Man-made global warming, CO2 is toxic. Are you tender now? pay-pay-pay – while you are otherwise guilty-ashamed and close your business so that the big ones can take over.
You can exchange the scare words with Covid-19 is deadly, you are going to die, submit and repeat i 10.000 times in the media. When the media runs campaigns, they repeat everything until people vomit over it. It’s Goebbels branding.
8. Argument by silence
One argues on the basis of the absence of evidence rather than the presence of evidence.
A person has never mentioned anything about such and such, ergo it does not exist.
A person is accused of having known about a subject, but since he haven’t mentioned it, he must have committed a sin of omission.
Something is absent and the brain immediately fills the gap. After which it is concluded from what is filled in the hole. They didn’t say anything about that in the telly, so it didn’t happen, otherwise they would have said it, right?
9. Argument by moderation
Also called a false compromise.
One makes a compromise between something that is terribly wrong and something that is more reasonable, and claims that the truth is in the middle. But one breaks the logic, as one element is corrupt.
I some politicians make a law, that is a compromise to please everyone, the result is worse that bad. If a company hires is a charming charismatic person that can make people engage in activities turns out to be a raving psychopath, the board members made a false compromise.
10. Argument ad hominem
The personal attack is one of the most primitive and most widely used forms of false logic. Instead of discussing substance and content, one goes after the man, and not after the ball.
What you say there is typical of someone like you. You were to be thrown into prison as traitors. You probably also eat children and abuse animals.
The personal attack avoids taking responsibility for and taking a position on facts. Never in World History has so many ad hominems been spit out in the media space as against former president of USA, Donald Trump – you may like the man or not.
11. Answer while asking
[petitio principii]
Also called a circular argument
[circulus in demonstrando]
It is related to a guiding question, where the answer has already been given in the wording of the question. In circular argumentation, the conclusion is already stated in the premise, so that it bites its own tail.
When the World Trade Center was subjected to an Islamic terrorist attack, it was al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s worldwide network.
12. Shifting the burden of proof
You are charged and therefore accused of complicity in terrorism. And now it’s up to you to prove your innocence.
In a state governed by the rule of law without corruption, one should be protected from that kind of thing. In a totalitarian society, that will be the norm. One could almost add: And since we know you can not prove it, you are already convicted.
13. Cirkular cause and consequense
Consequences are replaced with cause, so that the consequences appear as the cause.
CO2 is to blame for climate change, humans are to blame for CO2, ergo pay-pay-pay!
Al Gore and a group in the IPCC (UN’s Climate Panel) and a corrupt group of scientist from the University of East Anglia swindled bigtime with data, and in his glamorous Roadshow with fancy PowerPoint slides, a curve was seen that stretched over 100,000s of years in which global warming and CO2 followed each other. He just ‘forgot’ to tell that the C02 content of the atmosphere was 600 years later that the average temperature and therefor was the effect and not the cause. 30.000 scientist signed a protest from the scientific world over his abuse of a colleagues research for political propaganda, which the corrupt media refused to rapport on. Al Gore became a billionaire for helping the globalists with their scientific coup. The World Economic Forum recently admitted, that the climate agenda nothing had to do with climate but everything had to do with the socalled Global Reset of World Economy.
14. Continuum fallacy
One refuses a claim by stating that it is not distinct enough. But not everything can be equally distinct, for something requires a build-up or a series of continuous states to take place.
You usually use the example with the pile:
Does one grain make a pile? No. Does two grains? No. Does three? – Nope. There you go, no matter how many times you add a grain, it never becomes a pile.
It is also a seductive questioning technique where one is lifted farther and farther out. The respondent should have stopped it by saying:
Yes, three grains are already a pile, it’s just a pretty small pile.
15. Correlation fallacy
When two factors have a connection and one claims that one is the cause of the other.
Greek economy is bad. The Greeks are a relaxed people. The Greeks are therefore lazy and are to blame for their own bankruptcy and now deserve to be placed under the administration of the ECB. And the same goes for the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the Cypriots, the Irish and the Icelanders and all the other unshaved scoundrels.
In some way similar to circular cause and consequence
16. Surpressed correlation
It is related to the above, but in reverse. A causal connection is denied in favor of a simple equal connection or no connection at all.
We knew nothing about the fact that the financial crisis in 2008 would occur, as it is without historical parallel, and as large financial movements are as unpredictable as the weather. Said the politicians and the bankers, who were complicit in the crisis by either looking in the other direction or profitting from the adventure.
17. Ecological fallacy
Conclusion about a person’s characteristics based on the group to which he or she belongs. You jump from something general to something specific.
The man is suspected of stealing as we have found out he has gypsy blood in his veins.
18. Etymological fallacy
Without further ado assuming that a word means the same thing today as in the past.
Words can have a very large constancy. A mouse was also called mouse in proto-Indo-European 5,000 years ago. Other words have changed. Decimation meant dividing by 10, now it means annihilation. Certain words are intentionally changed – for the occasion. We call that New Speak or weaponized language or political correcthess.
19. Compositional fallacy
To assume that the presence of a true sub-element also applies to the whole. It’s the opposite of procedural error, where one false conclusion destroys the whole case.
The Brexit movement is against the EU. They have damn well understood what it’s all about.
Well, they have damn well understood, that the EU is a fascist project, that is absolutely no good for the British people. Nor for the ordinary people of continental Europe for that matter. What they may not have understood is the interest behind pulling England out of the EU and being the first to step into the coming Great Global Reset economy, where China was promised the take-over of the World economy. Which turned out to be another scam, since it turns out to be the usual suspects, that have manipulated China and now is willing to let them go to hell. The Queen of England loved the thought of Brexit – that’s already suspicious. The Crown = The City of London = the Rothschild Syndicate … well they didn’t mind it, let’s put it that way.
And now start 2021 their own government have locked down the whole country and slaughtering all small businesses – just like the globalist fascists down i Brussels! So did the British people understand, what it was all about?
20. Division fallacy
Det modsatte af ovenstående. At gå ud fra, at de egenskaber, der gælder for helheden, også gælder for dets enkeltdele.
‘Det kan ikke være Frede, der har gjort det, for han kommer fra en meget fin familie, hvor man ikke gør sådan noget’.
Frede kunne være undtagelsen eller familiens sorte får. Eller det er ikke kommet for en dag, at Fredes fine familie er nogle slyngler med rådne lig i lasten.
21. False dilemma
Setting up a limited set of options that are each other’s alternatives, and postulating that the choice exists between them, while leaving out other alternatives that might have been the best way forward.
The whole party political system is, so far, one huge false dilemma. You have the choice of being cooked, fried or smoked. You have the choice between the right wing who sell Denmark to the financial syndicates, lead the country into new wars, pass countless other life-threatening laws and deprive the citizens of their civil rights – or the pink socialists and cafe-latte radicals (or like in USA with raving-mad neo-marxist radicals) who sell the country to financial syndicates, leading the country into new wars, enacting yet another myriad of life-threatening laws and depriving citizens of civil rights.
Abuse of law as a weapon against people like political opponents has achieved a new name: Lawfare. Example: The Democrats wasting time and money on the Mueller-hearing (heering) for the sake of chakanery against the president.
22. The many questions fallacy
It is also called governing issues. For example, one assumes something in one’s question that is not accepted by everyone in an assembly. The question is especially addressed to those who are already won for the case. One anticipates the answer.
Can we afford not to intervene and send weapons to the benevolent rebels in Syria when their president has gassed his own citizens? No, we have to act now. It so happened, that the president did not gas his own people, and why would he? It’s called a stand-down operation false flag.
Guilt, shame, and emotional political correctness added to a splash of fear and indignation are very effective as part of a series of logical fallacies designed to seduce the citizens of one country so that they agree to use violence against citizens of other countries. If you even have built-in vertical lie served and made playable in a delicious way, it becomes really toxic.
23. The single cause fallacy
Straight oversimplification. Often used by politicians who have to knock an opinion through on a complex issue. Populism when it’s worst. Maybe they have not even understood it themselves, such as global warming or the financial crisis og the covid-scam – not to mention geopolitics at all.
One omits a pile of grammar = basic information in order to be able to popularize a topic. One obscures reality by omitting important factors, simply to make one’s agenda salable.
This person died and had covid-19. Thus he died from covid-19, and therefore we must lock down the whole society, the economy and take away the civil rights of people in order to prevent that from happening.
No mention of the person being 82 years old with neumonia and lung cancer + a whole bunch of co-morbidities.
My old uncle Emil had an abscess in the ass when hed died in an old age. I don’t think his death certificate claims that he died from his abscess in the ass
24. False attribute
One argues for irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or directly fabricated sources in an argument.
We have from our reliable source, whom we of course are not allowed to reveal, that the president colluded with the Russians.
25. Quote out of context
When you pull a statement out of context, and put it in your own context, it can mean anything. The media does so constantly in relation to the statements of politicians and professionals. They have written their story in advance, and now they are simply seeking out some so-called authority to legitimize themselves.
26. The gamblers fallacy
Attempt to claim a pattern in something that is genuinely random. For example, if something has happened before, it will happen again, sooner or later. Or because something has not happened for a long time, it will therefore happen in a little while (here it comes, her it comes …!)
Always remember to turn it around:
Because no catastrophic impact of a larger comet on the Earth’s surface has taken place in a long time, it probably will not happen in our time.
There are actually things we can’t know beforehand. But there will be people that live and profit from uncertanties of the unknown. Like the the insurrance industry. Or security policy.
27. Hedge planting
When you use words and phrases with ambiguous meaning, which you so conveniently change at a later time when you are confronted with them. It’s new speak and the demagogue’s fox den, with many back exits.
I never said that (snorts)!
You plant a hedge, a fence around you. If some vicious intelligence agency wants to commit a crime – which they do – they may do it in a way, that secures probable deniability. A person dies from suicide, they say. He shot himself with five bullitts in the back of his head from a distance of 3 meteres – but he committed suicide, they say. Harvey Lee Oswald killed Kennedy, we all know that – unfortunately he did not live long enough to be questioned.
28. The historian’s fallacy
History can certainly repeat itself, especially if one has not recognized its true dynamics and the causes of events, but allowed it to be described and bespoken by those who won the previous war.
But one can also be fooled by thinking that something is confusingly similar to a historical scenario and making decisions on that basis.
29. Contemporary projection
The reverse of the above. One takes the scenario of the present, and assumes that the ditto of the past is the same. Especially in relation to older and very old history, one often gets off on the wrong foot. The worldview of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries is projected onto people who lived under radically different conditions. Egyptology is a good example.
Our worldview is roughly an extension of the Roman Empire that shattered all the ancient cultures they could get away with.
But make no mistake: the best Roman thinkers knew their Trivium inside and out.
Make no mistake either: People who are able the think may not always be on a moral highground. There are some very clever corrupt people out there.
30. If-by-whiskey
It sounds quite cryptic and can only be understood from the history of the concept.
It describes being able to see a case from two sides. One could call it enlightened relativism. It is a recognition that the concept of good and evil may not always be unambiguous, but that it could depend on the context.
These people are terrorists! Oh, you mean the people that revolted, because your people have destroyed their land and properties and stolen their money.
In the ultra-short version, it refers to an American lawyer named Noah S. Sweat, Jr., who in the Prohibition-era United States was asked to take a stand on whiskey. His answer was (shortened version):
If by whiskey you mean drunkenness and poison that destroys families and creates violent people, then I am against. If, on the other hand, you mean modest stimulus in gentlemanly company or on festive occasions, then I am for .
31. Incomplete comparison
A common frase in the advertising industry: Benson’s shaving cream just shaves better. Uh … better than what? Better in what way? Better in terms of price? Or how?
For example, what are we supposed think about the concept of alternative media, which is currently either killing the mainstream media or causing them to change strategy and infiltrate them? The concept contains a condensed argument: We are an alternative to something. But one may ask, what does the alternative consist of and what is it an alternative to? Then we use the word independent media instead, and we sort of know, what is meant with that – but then it comes again: Independent of what?
Social media set out as independant platforms. Today they at the most highly dependant outlet and weaponized tool of global fascism.
32. Irrelevant conklusion
You’ve missed the point. You have actually just provided a finished argumentation for something that just hits next to the topic. Please try again.
33. Kettle logics
One of the more cheerful. That is, when one uses a streak of inconsistent arguments in one’s defense of a point. It comes from Sigmund Freud, who tells the story of a man who accuses his neighbor of delivering a borrowed kettle back in damaged condition, after which the man responds.
The kettle was returned in undamaged condition.
The kettle was already damaged when I borrowed it.
By the way, I never borrowed the boiler.
Self-contradictions like in fallacy 32 – that is, across the board. Everything contradicts everything. It is almost a parody of all logic with total denial.
34. The projective fallacy
We are stepping into psychology here. We are talking of self dilusion. We confuse the world as it is with the world as we experience it.
It may be that some are paranoid as individuals and experience that everyone is against them when they move around among other people. We all know the feeling. How many here have not experienced that one day we run into one cow’s head after another – up with our hands?
One might ask: how did we manage to sort them so that it took place? Projection is more than a view of the world, it is also an attraction of events that matches this view. Projection with a certain intensity can create situations and directly affect other people.
This can be scaled to all levels of the collective in both time and space.
35. Moral snobism
You make yourself better than others and better than you are.
Political correctness is invoked.
You are by definition rightious because you claim to be a victim.
You are doing virtue signalling.
An example. In ‘second wave feminism’, the assumption began to permeate society and discourse that women are of higher morals than men and other funny sexes, and therefore by definition are high above the creep who roam around down there in the valley of the shadows. Which then requires special status, the particular feminist argument disguised via the concept of ‘equality’.
36. Moving the finish line
Although it is a football term, it describes in philosophical-logical terminology when the opponent in an argumentation delivers an argument that meets one’s conditions, after which one then changes the conditions and makes other or higher demands.
It can be very convenient if the result is determined in advance by one party, who will thereby pull the rug away under the other party.
Incidentally, it is a tactic used in mafia and gang environments if one wants to knock people into place.
But-but I’ve paid what you demand … Sorry, now you have to pay double.
37. Moralistic and naturalistic fallacy
This leadst to discussions of man’s relationship to nature. All philosophy contains argumentation and thus logic, although it is not directly defined as logic. One example is war.
Det moralistiske argument:
War is destructive and tragic and therefore does not conform to human nature.
The naturalistic argument:
War should be allowed because violence conforms to human instincts.
Both are erroneous conclusions because they pose a false dilemma (see this). War is not our ‘nature’, but our culture. The argument presumes human nature, that may be wrong, but thn misses the point. For the same reason, it can not be allowed / approved as legitimate. Because we recognize (do we?) that if someone wants our participation in war, we have to reject it.
38. Nirvana fallacy
A solution to a problem is rejected simply because it is not perfect.
39. First this, then that
It’s about events in time. Something happend. Then something else happened. This second must therefore be due to the preceding something. But the passage of time is not in itself a causal link.
40. Proof by intimidation
An expert is called in who speaks with diligent use of professional lingo. It occupies the whole space as not many people understand what the man is saying. The subject is encrypted and people simply get of the train because the complexity overwhelms them. They may not have the courage or surplus to pull the emergency brake and force the expert to convey his expertise to them in simple terms.
But the expert has, if nothing else, established his exclusive expertise.
A variant of the type is called Shotgun Argumentation. So many arguments are fired at the opponent’s head that it is impossible for him to respond. Another resembling fallacy is Appeal to Authority, where the intimidation is to simple refer to someone, that is claimed to be an authority.
41. Prosecutor’s fallacy
Incorrect use of statistics in eg lawsuits.
An accused person has the same blood type as the perpetrator (DNA test) and as only 10% of the population. If, on that basis, one wants to claim that there is therefore a 90% probability that the man is guilty, one commits the prosecutor’s erroneous conclusion.
In cases where you use DNA tests, you run data up against very large databases, which only by chance increases the chance of a match.
To say that statistics are by definition a kind of lie is therefore not true. To say that statistics in case of misuse is a lie is more true.
42. Proving too much
A simple case is taken out and it is claimed that this is a general problem, which should then be addressed, for example.
An accident has taken place on a playground, and immediately the government must show action and ban roller coasters. This means by the way, that childrens playground today tend to be rather boring.
This is especially a problem in society, like the United States, where one can sue people for everything between heaven and earth, and where there is a laywer on every corner waiting to make money.
Arguments are currently being heard for introducing control and censorship of the Internet. They go i.a. on the existence of child pornography on the Internet. So that something exists and that we have become aware of this something through the internet (it has always existed but just hidden), is used as a starting point to paralyze the internet. Since then the BigTech companies have found all possible excuses for censoring people, whose political opinions they don’t like – and we know which political direction that goes.
An act of terrorism has taken place somewhere. It is used by governments to impose a state of emergency on all citizens and take the last remnants of their civil rights from them. In parentheses, it was the FBI that organized this terrorist act, because without terror, the agency could not exist. They only make money as long as they can claim they have something to tear into.
43. Psychologists fallacy
When a observer / observer believes that the person’s own personal and subjective perception of another person – eg psychologist in relation to client – is true simply because the psychologist is the observer.
I don’t like this man. Therefore he must be evil.
or reverse:
I am told, this man is evil, therefore I decided to hate him.
To claim that documentaries are ‘a fly on the wall’ and describe the truth is the same fallacy. A choice has always been made and an angle taken. Even a surveillance camera or a hidden camera is angled. And if a documentary filmmaker is present, the presence itself will affect the result. Documentary narrative is a better term, because it is precisely a narrative that simply does not use actors. In turn, reconstructing real-life events with actors can be extremely potent documentary.
Even in hardcore nuclear physics, this is known. It is complex and it has to do with reality and consciousness. When one examines particles, they turn into waves, as the experiment itself affects the result. Physicists don’t really like that, because they have tried to exclude consciousness
44. The red heering
Diversionary maneuver or irrelevant conclusion. To pull the red herring forward is to make a deviation from the subject and argue based on it as the main track seems blocked. In this way, one avoids taking a position that one’s argumentation is being refuted.
It is also the magician’s method. A sudden hand movement brings people out of focus and hocus pocus a red rubber herring comes up from the hat and it was the other hand but they did not see it.
When, against all odds, a completely undamaged passport was found from one of the alleged hijackers in the ruins of the World Trade Center, where everything was pulverized, a red herring was pulled. False evidence had been planted.
The red herring is, in fact, a whole group of false arguments. See below.
45. Regression fallacy
When attributing events to causation where the connection does not exist. It is a kind of Post hoc fallacy (First this, then that).
Medication can often be of this type. One feels lethargic and goes to the doctor who prescribes something toxic. The body, meanwhile, has decided to heal itself, which it is quite good at under normal conditions. But you attribute the improvement to the doctor’s prescription and the poison you have ingested.
They did that with vaccinations in the 19501’ies where they became common. The curve of childrens mortality was decreasing due to better nutrition and hygiene and other factors. Then vaccinations started, and the authorities and especially the medical industry that it was due to vaccines, that the curve continued to drop. 10-15 years later, when the curve turned and mortality started to increase again, they failed to suggest, that it might have something to do with damage done by … vaccines pumped in high doses into close to newborn babies.
When politicians need to be re-elected, they refer to all the signs of economic improvement they can find and claim that it is due to their power to act. That’s the seller’s trick.
46. Reification
Untimely concretization of an abstract model. For example, confusing a computer simulation with reality thus confusing the map with landscape.
For example, when you transfer economic-theoretical models to reality, you can directly breed economic crises that always end with the rich getting richer and fewer, and the poor getting poorer and poorer. Theorists, such as people like Milton Friedman, are, in my opinion, aware of what they have been shooting at, but politicians and middle-class economists cannot fathom it. They have clung to the same flawed models for decades, Keynes for example. The Marxists made a similar giant error. Marxist social formation was not a pretty sight. In either cases one could claim, that it was not errors as such, since it was on purpose.
Abstract is, as the word also says, an extract from reality, not reality itself.
47. Retrospektive determinism
The claim that because an incident has occurred, it must have been unavoidable beforehand.
World War I is claimed by British historians to be a chain of coincidences and that one incident merely led to another. Therefore, the Great War could not have been avoided. A form of determinism of chance, in hindsight.
But studies of the British elite and their internal writings show that everything was planned and wanted. Therefore, everything could have been avoided. When the Germans offered peace, the elite refused, and continued for another two years, thus murdering another 10 million people. Which was part of the whole setup. The war was both a destruction of the declared enemies of the British, that is, a fierce envy of their competitors: the German and Russian empires, and at the same time a mass murder of people, as this elite were at the same time eugenics. When continental Europe lay in ruins, the British would be able to ‘shine in their isolation’.
Same thing with the Americans that were lured into the war. With the implemetation of the Army Flue (the Spanish) developed in US military labs, they were promised a victory and a destruction of Europe. Wilson was told, that after the destruction war, USA would be able to rebuild Europe in their image and to their benefit.
48. Reversed cause
When cause and effect change.
CO2 in the air creates global warming
Even without the political aftermath ‘and CO2 is man-made’, it was a scientific falsification. When Al Gore fired it, 30,000 scientists signed a protest denying falsification of a particular scientist’s findings. It was, in fact, the other way around. The protest letter was referenced quite a few times in the media, and then ‘disappeared’. Very few have heard of it.
Sorry for using the example twice – it’s that gross a reversal of cause and effect.
49. Special exception
Argument with a severe slant. One omits objections to his argument or ignores counter-evidence. Exceptions to the rules are requested, without justifying these exceptions.
If one has to further tighten the bow, one can introduce a victim role so that guilt and shame find their way in.
Women should be favored in positions of equality. It is a pity for them that they have been so heavily oppressed. They therefore do not have to be as qualified as men, and if a man and a woman are equally qualified, at least public companies should be forced to choose the woman.
The feminist argument is self-defeating. They admit, that women are less qualified than men and should be favored. Isn’t that what they are saying? And is that true. There may be room for yet another category of fallacy here: Appeal to victimhood.
False generalisations ______________________
50. Accident
This occurs when trying to apply a general rule to an irrelevant situation. No one has said it better than Holberg:
‘A rock can not fly, Morlille can not fly, ergo Morlille is a rock’.
And then Morlille got upset and didn’t think it was funny anymore.
It is interesting, moreover, that this theatrical satire illustrates that one actually studied the art of argumentation and logic in Latin schools and universities in the 16th-1700s. Incidentally, this was done way back in the medieval renaissance, when Trivium was considered a classical education. With the introduction of the Prussian school system, this gradually went awry. In the USA, for example, it took approx. 100 years downhill to make people as stupid as they are today. As the Communist, John Dewey said in a freudian slip: The purpose of school is to produce stupid people. The lefties that adored his theories don’t quote him for that one.
51. Cherry picking
Suppressed or incomplete evidence.
You only take the sweet cherries and leave the unripe ones. One chooses only the facts that support one’s point and fails to mention others that weaken it. Reality becomes like a mixer, where several channels can be turned down – or they can be completely muted.
The new drug Flaptoxil will eliminate symptoms of atherosclerosis
Excluded: it causes headaches, impotence, incontinence, sterility, cramps, baldness and memory loss and anxiety attacks may occur.
52. False analogi
A: So I think it’s fair to like the country, the heritage and the culture you come from. We have a country with an old tradition that we should cherish while we still have something left.
B! It’s just like Hitler!
The words ‘jus like’ forms the analogy, but it is false. Both because Hitler was a Pan-Aryan, according to his own mindset (whatever that is), and not exclusively German-minded, and because an aggressive glorification – as is claimed to be the case with national socialism – at the expense of others cannot and should not be compared to pure patriotism and the love for your own country.
Similar false analogies have flown in the air between politically correct people to the left of the center at the new wave of people in Europe who have had it with EU-fascism.
An expression called Reductio ad Hitlerium has been invented. Unfortunately, it has a somewhat bad taste to it as it was created by the philosopher Leo Strauss, the father of the American neocon group of political con men and -women. (See Misleading vividness)
53. Hasty conclusion / generalization
When concluding via generalization based on insufficient evidence. For example, a survey of a small group of citizens who are then claimed to be representative of an entire population.
A survey of Danes (500) has shown that the Danish population has full confidence in surveillance cameras.
A more general name is Inductive error termination.
54. Misleading vividness
A vivid and engaging description of an event, such as being there yourself, that creates an emotional stance.
A 15-year-old girl, known as Nayirah, was called as a witness in the US Congress before the first Iraq war in 1990. She told how she had seen Iraqi soldiers enter the Al-Addan Hospital in Kuwait City and into the living rooms where there were premature babies. They threw the children out of bed and stole the incubators.
The story was invented and the girl – who was the daughter of the Quwaiti ambassador – was hired by the PR firm Hill and Knowlton, who in turn was hired by the Quwaiti exile government.
So it was another example of a false flag intended to start a war. Before that, Saddam Hussein had been gamed using what Mr. neocon-godfather Leo Strauss ironically called reductio ad Hitlerium (see False analogy).
Zionist Leo Strauss did not like the Hitler analogy when it came to types he associated himself with, but did not mind it being used against others. He also supported what Carroll Quigley in The Tragedy and Hope called The Noble Lie. In Strauss’ case, even supported by the fact that Zionists / Jews are allowed to lie to ‘the others’, goyim, subhumans.
55. Overwhelming exception
A generalization that virtually eliminates the statement. This way you can say something and say the opposite at the same time.
The United States has always helped other countries in its foreign policy. Except, of course, when it is against our national interest …
You can almost hear in the statement what you want. Either the United States supports other countries, which is the teardropping claim government usually makes, especially directed to the Americans themselves.
Or it can be understood that the United States would very much like to help other countries, but since most of them are now in the way of their interests, so … sorry! ‘
56. Thought-stopping cliché
Totalitarian new speak. A greatly reduced language with very few words intended to paralyze all reason and unorthodox speech.
Those who are not with us, are against us.
George Bush after 9/11 before the attack on Iraq. A quote from the Bible (that they never read in his satanic freemasonry cult).
The red heerings _______________________________
57. Poisoning of the well
A variant of Ad hominem, personal attacks. Poison is poured into the well by referring to a person in a way that discredits the person, and thereby devalues the person’s statement, regardless of the substance of his arguments, since the person must be an unreliable person.
It can be simple slander.
Before the jury listens to this witness, you must know that he has been imprisoned before.
58. Argumentum ad baculum
Appeal to power. Or simply a threat. Translated, that argument means by the stick (which by the way is the bone that sits in the penis of certain animals), that is, a big-dick-threat …
Two american presidents have used the same phrase referring to countries that would not obey, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The phrase states: All possibilities are still on the table. It is code language for: We will bomb the shit out of you if necessary with strategic nukes, like we did with Iraq, Libya and Serbia.
59. Argumentum ad populum
Eller Argumentum ad numerum meaning Appeal to a widespread belief. Populism. Mass apple. Consensus argumentation. The authority of the crowd. Or even: democracy in the sense of dictatorship of the majority, a lynch mob.
Because many believe this, it must be true.
Well, I do not know anyone who thinks Gaddafi was a good man and didn’t deserve to die.
Well, that might then just be five million Libyans, a few hundred million Africans and a similar number of Arabs – well, that was probably an argumentum ad populum 🙂
60. Association fallacy
or:
Appeal to emotion
By creating a relationship between two people, events or objects, the properties of one spread to the other. It can be both in the form of the bad and the good company, and entails guilt by association or honor by association. When it rains on the bishop, it drips on the priest, as we say i Denmark.
If the relationship claimed is to person of bad reputation, it could be called Guilt by association.
61. Appeal to authority
[argumentum ab auctoritate]
In the heyday of the church and feudalism, one could refer to the will of God as the highest authority, or one could say that ‘the king has commanded that …’ which in that case was the argument of the stick (ad baculum).
If you are to appeal to authority today, you are pulling Professor Walter Egghead from the University of the Southern District of Baculum, an expert in flatuology (you usually do, and he loves to be on the screen) to make an expert opinion.
It may then actually be that his statement is sober and valuable. But the fallacy comes in the moment one claims that because he is a professor, has his face in the right wringles, wears horn-rimmed glasses, tie and fine title, sits on a nice blue background – then what comes out of his mouth is, by definition, true.
Science costs a lot of money, and those who have all that money may have certain conditions for science if they want the money. Should Walter Egghead decide to speak out against his own fundraisers in a direct way, he may well look around for a new job when the money is to be applied for next time. In addition, he may well consider retiring or finding another job, for his time in academia is over. Like a cab driver.
The authority is the archetype Big Daddy, the Freudian superego, and it affects most people.
A subdivision is called
Appeal to business
John McCain was a decorated Vietnam veteran who had served his country by smashing gooks out in the jungle, ergo he had to be the right one to lead his country. Beep! the man was filthy war monger and neocon, that hung out with fascists in Ukraine and terrorists of ISIS.
62. Appeal to consequenses
[argumentum ad consequentiam]
A possibly doubtful claim to be able to predict consequences in advance. It is often based on hypotheses, assumptions or beliefs. This is a subjective point of view disguised as a solid argument.
This is a slippery slope, and if we do not do this and that, then there are no limits to what can happen. You will not be guilty of that, will you ?!
Guilt, shame and debt are just an extension of the statement
(see below: Appeal to emotion).
Appeal to emotion____________________________
The emotional spectrum is rich and varied, and there are many opportunities to derail an argument via emotional side tracks:
63. Appeal to fear
All false flags, scare campaigns, and problem-response-solution setups include fear. Man is a mortal being who does not want to die. A threat that ‘someone’ is striving for our lives therefore pays off.
The Mongols are coming, the Germans are coming, the Russians are coming, the Chinese are coming, the Arabs / Muslims are coming, the hungry masses are coming, the Devil is coming, the crisis is coming, the climate is coming, the disaster is coming, asteroids from outer space is coming, the deadly pandemic is coming, the alien invasion is coming … there are simply no limits to the imagination.
But don’t worry, DADDY is here.
Fear porn, they call it. It is SO effective. Have we seen that lately?
64. Appeal to flattery
A wise man like you will no doubt see the sense in us acquiring a … turtle.
65. Appel to pitty
When you create a victim role, you are by definition always right.
Thus Danish philosopher Frederik Stjernfeldt and distinguished poet Søren Ulrik Thomsen wrote aptly in their little gem of a book Critique of the Negative Constructivism.
A principle of fear, guilt and shame especially through left-wing political correctness, that claims or even creates and upholds the status of victimhood to gain moral superiority. Often accompanied by virtue signalling.
66. Appeal to ridicule
When people present the world to truly epoch-making innovation, they are first ridiculed, then put to hatred to finally be hailed. But as a first step, they can be conspiracy theorists, tin-foil-hats, quacks, fraudsters, heretics, pinballers …
67. Appeal to contempt
Instead of driving forward with their own emotions, the emotions, bitterness and anger of others are exploited and exhibited and these are portrayed as illegitimate. They can be called terrorists, mentally disturbed, traitors.
Another name for character assassination og Ad hominem.
68. Wishfull thinking
Heard after the Fincance Crisis staged by the globalists in 2008:
We are now well on our way out of the crisis, and 2014 looks set to bring exports, growth and falling unemployment. That is what we will be faced with if we ask those who have negotiated the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement in place.
Which was the most horrible fascist aggreement ever …
69. Appeal to inability
Rejection of criticism, because ‘You can not come up with something better yourself.
70. Appeal to motif
Suspicion of an opponent’s motives.
If one is able to demonstrate that a person has sinister motives, the argument is legitimate. But it often happens that the person’s motives are simply assumed to be present, and that the argument builds on this assumption.
We see this coming now – bigtime. They are now talking about ‘though crimes’. Algorithms are developed that is claimed to be able to predict, what people will think, say and do. Vaccine-injections are invented that is claimed to prevent people having ‘terrorist thoughts’ by jamming parts of the brain (frontal lobe). They used to call it lobotomy back them.
71. Appeal to novelty
Everything that is new is therefore good.
Everything that is old should be abolished.
One of the more embarrassing buzzwords in both private and public companies is the concept of innovation. We can not make the old shit work, so instead of finding out what does not work and why, we invent something new and magical. We invite a business guru coach to give a presentation, then we do a series of employee seminars, where we workshops, brainstorm and think-tank-think, then the guru comes back, and then we implement the unique new. Which is 9/10 times old wine on new bottles.
What is not clear is that the unique new thing is a reinvention of the fire, the wheel, the soup spoon and the hot water. But now it’s new, and then it’s really good. If someone should think of something else, they will be sent on a course in positive thinking.
72. Appeal to tradition
The opposite of the above. Because something has been around for a long time, it’s the best.
‘Well, here we usually …’
Just as destructive it is to change something that has a good routine and takes into account and works in reality, just as destructive is it to cling to routines that are decidedly outdated. In a business context, there is at least a limit to how long it lasts, because the business simply goes down. In a governmental and organizational context, a dysfunctional structure can unfortunately live far beyond its legitimacy.
Just one minor example: Countries forced to live under socialist regimes. Just a couple of billion people on planet Earth, no big deal.
73. Straw man
A misrepresentation of the opponent’s point of view. This is one of the most widely used techniques for derailing discussions in public spaces. First, one creates a parody of the views expressed by the opponent – or once expressed or is supposed to have expressed. Next, grab the basket of soft tomatoes and shoot on the doll of straw that you have knitted together for the occasion.
Yes, and then you of course are of the the oppinion that …
(eeh, did I say that?)
‘Then you’re probably the kind of person who …’
(I was not aware of that)
You put words in people’s mouths, you attribute qualities to them, you shoot them in the shoes, you misquote, you take statements out of context. The straw man can be a complex size that uses a chain of logical fallacies in the same bundle.
74. Psychogenetic fallacy
Also called Bulverism. It is assumed that an idea comes from a biased mindset, after which the focus shifts from substance and occupation with the content of the argument to psychoanalysis of the person with the postulated biased mindset – after which the argument is derailed. It’s a subject-motive shift.
The term is attributed to the author C.S. Lewis, who i.a. writes:
You have to prove that a person is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is, without discussion, to assume that the person is merely mistaken, and then divert attention from this (the only real issue) by eagerly explaining how the idiot has become so foolish.
75. Chronological snobbery
The assumption that people living in today / recent times are superior to people who have lived in older times, intellectually, morally, technologically and in every way possible.
The author C.S. Lewis saw how the British Empire had created a comprehensive set of ideologies that exalted the Empire in both space and time. Older cultures (time) and cultures outside the core geography (space) of the Empire, were inferior to the Empire in time and space. One of the Empire’s main ideologues was therefore Darwin, and Darwinism became the pseudo-scientific legitimization of the Empire’s atrocities against humans in both space and time.
The British Empire saw itself as the true heirs of the Roman Empire. It is noteworthy that the first heirs of the Roman Empire were the Catholic Church. In their optics there were heathens/gentiles – in English pagans. Gentiles are those who lived then (time). Pagans are those who live out there in the countryside (space). Both are condemned by both Christianity and the British Empire.
Chronological snobbery has drawn a large, misty curtain down to man’s real past.
76. Relative deprivation
Rejection of an argument on the grounds that there are more important problems in this world.
This obscures the fact that these so-called more important problems in the world may have nothing to do with the topic being discussed.
Any discussion of personal, local, national issues can be interrupted by someone shouting:
But, there are children dying in Africa!’
