1. C/Maj Nicholas Schroder
Logical Fallacies
C/Maj Nicholas Schroder

2. What is a Logical Fallacy?
A mistake in logic; bad reasoning that corrupts a line of thought.
Weak, twisted, fallacious thinking keeps us from knowing the truth
These mistakes are so common (even among the brightest of people) that experts have identified 10 types of fallacies:

3. Ad Hominem Latin, literally “to the man”
Essentially, instead of focusing on the logic of an opposing argument, an ad hominem attacks the other person.

4. Appeal to Authority
Definitely among the weakest of arguments, an appeal to authority tries to prove a claim by asserting that some smart person believes the claim to be true and therefore it must be true.

5. Post Hoc Fallacy
The full name of this argument is: Post hoc ergo propter hoc (or Latin for After this, therefore because of this)
It consists of 2 parts
A occurs before B.
Therefore A is the cause of B.

6. Appeal to Tradition “We’ve always done it that way”
One of quickest ways to lose the ability to think for yourself is to always use this excuse.
This fallacy makes the assumption that older ideas are better, and that the leader’s job is to prevent change which goes against the very point of being a leader.

7. Red Herring
is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue
It distracts from the main point and there the opponent “wins” because he has gotten you off topic

8. Weak Analogy People make comparisons all the time, however:
The problem arises because no matter how similar two things are, they are never exactly alike, and therefore, the argument breaks down.

9. Straw Man Fallacy
This fallacy attacks the opponent at their strongest point.
The point of this attack is to demonstrate that the opponent could never compete with their argument on their strongest day.

10. Begging the Question / Circular Reasoning
If your argument’s conclusion is the same as one of your premises, you’re begging the question.
The only people likely to be persuaded by circular reasoning are those who already agree with the original premise.

11. False Dilemma
This dilemma occurs when we are faced with two, but only two choices, and both are not very good creating an “either / or” situation
It is the mark of a good leader to find a third option even when faced with this problem.

12. An Example of the False Dilemma

13. Slippery Slope
 Occurs when a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question.

14. How to beat these pitfalls
THINK!!!
Examine your argument from every angle possible (if time permitted)
Remember that every action has a consequences and no argument can be bulletproof.

15. Questions?

16. Biblography
L2L Chapter 5