A logical fallacy refers to deviated reasoning which undermines the logical validity of an argument by persuading someone to adopt a position which he or she doesn’t want. In most cases, fallacious reasoning deters people from knowing facts, and failure to apply critical thinking skills in life predisposes them to manipulation by individuals with mastery in the art of rhetoric ( Battersby & Bailin, 2018) . There are many types of logical fallacies, but this essay seeks to highlight and elaborate on the three most common: the ad hominem , the straw man, and the appeal to authority fallacies.
Argumentum ad hominin , shortened as ad hominem, is an argument strategy whereby a person ignores a genuine discussion of a subject of interest and focuses on attacking the character of the individual involved in the debate rather than their substance of the discussion ( Battersby & Bailin , 2018). The phrase argumentum ad hominem is derived from Latin, which refers to ‘oppose the man.’ Therefore, this type of fallacy involves fallacious arguments meant to oppose a discussion participant to undermine him/her instead of their claims and scope of reasoning. There are various types of false ad hominem arguments, which include, but not limited to abusive, Tu quoque, guilt by association, circumstantial, and ad feminam. In 2015, Donald Trump put forth a good example of the ad hominem fallacy when he was asked to comment on Megyn Kelly’s inquiries during a debate. He responded by saying, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever” ( Tedesco and Dunn, 2018). From the response, he seems to generate personal comments about Megyn Kelly rather than responding directly to Megyn Kelly’s questions.
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The straw man fallacy, popularly known as Aunty Sally in the U.K., describes a fallacious argument technique which an opponent uses to overstate or misrepresent the arguments of the other person involved in the argument to make them disputable ( Macri, 2019) . With this technique, people often paraphrase, summarize, or take an opponent’s arguments out of context to “defeat” their position. In a nutshell, this fallacy misrepresents the opinions of an opponent to disregard their entire argument. An excellent example of the delusion when senator John said that the country should not increase the budgetary allocation for defense. Senator Smith then comes out to say that he is surprised that his colleague wants to weaken the nation’s defense machinery. It is quite clear that the Senator did not intend to leave the country vulnerable, but Senator Smith paraphrased Senator John’s argument to denigrate the argument .
According to Macri (2019), the appeal to authority fallacy, argumentum ad verecudiam, refers to emphasizing that a claim is true just because an expert or valid authority said it was true without any evidence to back up the claim. In contemporary society, people are so reluctant to critically think that they become easily deluded by subject matter experts and persons in authority. An example of the appeal to authority fallacy when Richard Dawkins (an evolutionary biologist) claimed that evolution is true. That means it is true. Dawkins claim does not make it accurate simply because he is an expert in evolution. Instead, he should come out to provide valid evidence for the theory of evolution, which will support his claim. However, in the modern-day world, it is difficult to ascertain the validity of all the claims the authority provides. For example, the government may provide a statistical claim that one person in every ten is allergic to peanuts. Such a claim cannot be ascertained since only the government has access to such statistical data.
References
Battersby, M., & Bailin, S. (2018). Inquiry: A New Paradigm for Critical Thinking (Vol. 7). The University of Windsor.
Macri, J. V. (2019). Logically fallacious. American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics , 155 (2), 155-156.
Tedesco, J. C., & Dunn, S. W. (2018). Political Advertising in the 2016 US Presidential Election: Ad Hominem Ad Nauseam. American Behavioral Scientist , 0002764218756919.
