#fallacy friday

Appeal to Tradition is when someone makes a claim solely based on referecing or emphasizing the value of tradition as signifigant and relevant without contextualizing it beyond the abstract concept & vagueness of traditon. For instance, simply arguing that latin women should have a quinceañera because it's traditional is fallacious by itself. To use tradition as a claim is like saying "it's true because it's always been true". Supportive evidence that explains more specifically why and how tradition is relevant would be more logical, and less likely to become fallacious.

Hasty Generalization is defined as inconclusive and or biased claims in an attempt to justify one's reasoning. This informal fallacy is basically 'rushing' or 'jumping' to a conclusion without sufficient evidence to back up one's claims.

Ad Hominim is an argumentative distraction that focuses on attacking the one's character in some way rather than the rebuting the argument itself. However, this may not always be seen as fallacious, as questioning one's credibility may be relevant to the topic at hand. The Ad Hominim fallacy can be tricky and circumstantial at times, but is generally viewed as an intentional attack of another person rather than focusing on the the argument.

The Nirvana Fallacy: is when a claim is made and attempts to justify that because a solution or policy is imperfect that it is not viable or good enough. This is considered a Fallacy due to the mutual understanding that no solution is perfect. If the other person were to make a counter policy or solution it would become evident that their solution would also possess imperfections. 

3. And that he had never borrowed it in the first place.

Etymology Fallacy: is defined by the misconception that the present meaning of a word such as “Queer” holds the same historical meaning. It is deemed a Fallacy if used in an argument that claims a word or phrase to be exclusively tied to its historical linguistic value, context, meaning, etc. 

Slippery-Slope Fallacy: is when a claim is made that states that because of situation/circumstance “A” and situation/circumstance “B”. its highly probably or inevitable that situation/circumstance “C” and or “D” will occur. This is a common claim, yet is considered a Fallacy due to the clear distinction between something that has a direct cause-and-effect, and something that is correctional (when two or more things happen simultaneously). Just because one thing happened, and something else unrelated happened at or around the same time. Does not imply that (insert personal assumption here) will happen as a result. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXX9koKOkTs (Richard Dawkins!)