1. Fallacies
*and how to avoid them

2. What is a Fallacy?
A fallacy is, very generally, an error in reasoning. This differs from a factual error, which is simply being wrong about the facts.

3. Ad Hominem
Personal Attack

4. Appeal to Emotion
Manipulate people’s emotions in order to get them to accept a claim as true

6. Guilt by Association
A person rejects a claim simply because it is pointed out that people she/he dislikes accept the claim.

7. Slippery Slope
A person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question

10. Hasty Generalization
When a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample size that is too small.

11. Testimonial
A well-known person supports a product or service

13. Post Hoc
it is concluded that one event causes another simply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposed effect

14. Post Hoc Examples
I had been doing pretty poorly this season. Then my girlfriend gave me these neon laces for my spikes and I won my next three races. Those laces must be good luck...if I keep on wearing them I can't help but win!
Joan is scratched by a cat while visiting her friend. Two days later she comes down with a fever. Joan concludes that the cat's scratch must be the cause of her illness.

15. Bandwagon
A threat of rejection by one's peers (or peer pressure) is substituted for evidence in an "argument."

16. The Onion video clip