Download Formal fallacies and fallacies of language

Kimberly Wyatt – Critical Reasoning
 Flip-flop
 Waffle
 Flakey
 Consider
new
information
 Change your own
mind
 Is it simply
pandering?
 It
is consistent if it is at least possible for it
to be true

e.g. “Read my lips, no new taxes”
 If
it simply cannot be true, then the claim is
inconsistent.

e.g. It was raining on my window today, but not
raining raining.
 Remember
that because a person has been
inconsistent, it does not speak to their
position on matters.
 We
like to believe that if a person is
inconsistent, so are their positions on
important things. This is a fallacy. We must
judge on the merits of their position.
Otherwise it is the argumentum ad hominem.
Judging the argument “by the man” not the
actual argument.
 One
independent event cannot affect the
outcome of another.
 As
an example, since a die (dice) has 6 sides,
you would multiply 1/6 times 1/6 to get a 1
in 36 chance of getting 2 snake eye rolls. Not
2 in 6 as some assume.
A
fallacy wherein the speaker doesn’t realize
that independent events are truly
independent

e.g. Separate coin flips have nothing to do with
each other.
A
fallacy wherein we overlook something in a
probability that everything else being equal,
is it’s prior probability.

e.g. Not taking into account all the things that
can change our probabilities outcome.
 This
is a fallacy in calculating the probability
of something occurring.
 Taking
a seemingly large sample that in
reality isn’t that large and using bad math to
come to completely wrong conclusions.