
A List Of Fallacious Arguments - jwilliams
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html
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mynameishere
_Psychogenetic Fallacy: if you learn the psychological reason why your
opponent likes an argument, then he's biased, so his argument must be wrong._

A good example of one of those sort-of fallacies. In reality, everyone is
biased, and understanding those biases is part of politics. Politics is not a
truth-seeking endeavor, and so fallacies are very much acceptable
strategically. Someone who surrenders his own biases, and also surrenders
examining his opponents' biases losses every time.

 _over-simplifying. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as
possible, but no simpler. Political slogans such as "Taxation is theft" fall
in this category._

Right, exactly. Actually, all taxation is in fact theft. The nuance that is
missed by people who say that, is that some theft is positive-sum, even to the
victim.

 _Similarly, a common justification for bribery is that "Everybody does it".
And in the past, this was a justification for slavery._

"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those
words.

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jrockway
_"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those
words._

I am sure someone rationalized slavery to themselves like that. "All my
neighbors have slaves, so I guess it's OK for me to have one too."

This is how I convinced myself not to go to class in college. "Nobody else is
going."

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mynameishere
Uh, again, no. At least in the United States, there was the _status quo_ which
is not a matter of truth or falsehood, and then there were arguments. Slavery
was always a matter of debate, and the South had lots of "good" reasons for
the practice, and it was never "because everybody's doing it." That's a straw
man, not that it matters.

~~~
sorbits
And your argumentation falls under the Amazing Familiarity :)

Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th
centuries (according to Wikipedia), I doubt any of us know how every single
person involved justified this enterprise.

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idlewords
You know who else made lists? Hitler.

~~~
tlrobinson
The list is missing <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum>

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DanielBMarkham
I hate these fallacious argument articles, mainly because I think they miss
the point.

Sure, if you're on a collegiate debate team it's great to be able to
categorize the faults in your opponent's argument. But in the real world, we
have discussions -- sometimes heated ones -- in order to advance some common
cause. That means we should be working on each other's teams here. When
somebody uses one of these, they're not "cheating" -- it's more like they
slipped up into a simple response when a more well-thought out response was
called for. Lists like this lead us to think we just point our finger and
shout "ad hominem!" instead of actually engaging somebody.

Somebody can commit every logical fallacy there is and still have valuable and
important information that you need to have. Heck -- they can actually have a
better case than you do. If somebody runs in the room and shouts "you're such
an idiot you probably don't even realize the building is on fire", the proper
response is not to critique their argumentation skills.

I have the same problem with these lists as I do with design pattern books.
The purpose shouldn't be to memorize the label and pattern, the purpose should
be to develop enough critical thinking skills that you don't need the list,
don't need the patterns book. Then the labels are just nice after-thoughts.

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tlrobinson
I'd like to know what the fallacious argument is called when someone cites an
obscure logical fallacy in order to sound more intelligent, while ignoring the
otherwise valid portions of the original argument.

~~~
Confusion
It's a version of the Argument by Generalization: you show that one of the
arguments is fallacious and generalize that everything the other has said must
be fallacious. The generalization might be merely implied, by not responding
to other arguments.

BTW, you are aware that 'cites an obscure logical fallacy in order to sound
more intelligent' is something between an ad hominem and a red herring,
because you draw attention to the supposed, morally questionable, intentions
of the other, rather than face the fallacy head on?

