Imagine that you come across someone posting the following on social media: “I’m an atheist. Distinguishing Worldview Disagreements from Logically Fallacious Red Herrings But first, a critical distinction must be understood.
RED HERRING FALLACY MEMES HOW TO
That said, I’ve noticed that many people’s responses are missing the key point of the debate as much as the memes themselves are.Īs such, I wanted to write this article to respond to several viral pro-choice memes and show how to maintain focus on the core issue without getting pulled into irrelevant other subjects. While it’s not necessary to respond to every post you come across (there aren’t enough hours in the day!), I’m heartened to see so many Christians wanting to address what they’re seeing. In response, many Christians have taken to private social media groups to share examples of pro-choice memes and discuss how best to respond. Wade being overturned, social media is on fire with pro-choice advocates sharing memes intended to portray abortion “rights” as necessary, important, and even morally good.įor those of us who believe intentionally killing preborn human beings is murder (the unjustified taking of innocent human life), it’s absolutely heartbreaking to see so many people passionately advocating for the right to commit such an act. I don’t mind writing another page or two on logical fallacies.With the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion potentially pointing to Roe v. If you think I need to add another fallacy to this list, please do not hesitate to drop a comment. I’ve noticed that the science-denying crowd, especially our favorite anti-vaccine activists, love to try to accuse us of using a logical fallacy, which is always amusing. Once I notice a logical fallacy, I know the science denier doesn’t have one femtogram (that’s 0.000000000000001 grams) of evidence. I think that there’s one basic point about a logical fallacy - they are always employed to shift the discussion away from the lack of evidence supporting their claim. However, for reference purposes, I include it because it forms the basis of logical fallacies like “cherry-picking.”įor example, confirmation bias, the gambler’s fallacy, and bandwagon fallacies are fallacious not because they violate logic, but because they represent ways in which our natural view of the world may lead us to fallacious conclusions. For example, confirmation bias is really a cognitive bias, not a logical fallacy. Not all of this list are technically logical fallacies. Fundamental Attribution Error (or Correspondence Bias).Argument from False or Misleading Authority.The net effect of either type of logical fallacy is the same – the arguments can be dismissed because of lack of evidence.īelow is a list of the most common fallacies that are used by those who push pseudoscience or deny science – it’s not all-inclusive, so I’m missing a bunch, although I’ll add them if I notice that it is becoming popular with the science-denying crowd: Informal fallacies are often characterized by the fact that there is a disconnect of some kind between their premises and conclusions.ĭeciding between formal and informal logical fallacies is interesting for logic geeks, but I didn’t want to spend time separating between the two. Informal– arguments that, while not violating logic rules, are invalid because of the content of their argument.They almost always include non-sequitur logic, that is, the conclusion is not connected to the argument. Formal–These logical fallacies are those fallacies that violate a particular rule of logic.Of course, it generally doesn’t stop people, specifically those pushing pseudoscience or an anti-science point of view, from using them or being swayed by them. This means that an argument that uses a logical fallacy shouldn’t hold up to those using logic and reason as the source of decision-making. When logically fallacious arguments are used, usually based on bad reasoning to support a position (or to try to convince someone to adopt the same position), it is considered a fallacy. Photo by George Becker on What is a logical fallacy?Ī logical fallacy is essentially an error of reasoning in making an argument. I will add additional logical fallacies as I notice them in future discussions. That’s why I created this list of the top logical fallacies that I see used frequently in discussions with any science denier, from anti-vaxxers to creationists. It’s frustrating because you want to discuss the evidence, but the denier tries to do anything but discuss that evidence.
If you have discussions with any type of science denier, you will begin to notice that they will shift the argument away from evidence to using a logical fallacy.
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