Fallacy Fallacy Socks

Description: When supporting your claims by comparing two things, it's important to be consistent in terms of what you're actually comparing. If you are not fair when setting up the parameters, and you end up comparing the two in different ways, you are engaging in the fallacy of Inconsistent Comparison.

Description: The Promised Proof Fallacy is committed when someone can't back up their claims with anything other than some currently non-existent proof that they claim will appear later.

Description: The Circular Reasoning fallacy is committed when someone makes at least two claims, each of which is offered as evidence for the other.

Description: The Silent Majority Fallacy is committed when someone assumes all or most of the people who aren't vocally disagreeing with them, in fact agree with them.

Description: The Amazing Familiarity Fallacy is committed when someone makes an argument based on information they couldn't possibly have, such as what someone else is thinking.

Description: The Fractal Wrongness Fallacy is committed when someone's argument is based on logic or premises so wrong that they are wrong at every level from detail to worldview.

Description: Tu Quoque literally means “You too.” It’s a particular type of Red Herring fallacy where the speaker avoids responding to a criticism by distracting the listener with claims that other people (ideally the one doing the criticizing) have also done similar bad things.

Description: Ad Hominem is Latin for 'to the man' and describes an argument where the focus of the attack is not on the views a person holds but on the person themselves. It is an attempt to distract from the matter at hand by introducing irrelevant details aimed at discrediting the individual.

Description: This fallacy, sometimes called ‘Missing the Point’, is committed when someone provides evidence refuting or proving a point which is irrelevant to the issue at hand. This can often be a quite effective distraction, but as it does not address the real question, it remains fallacious.

Description: Special Pleading describes a situation where you have a rule that you apply to everyone else, but make up an excuse to explain why the rule doesn’t apply to you. When you are inconsistent in applying the rules in this way without a valid logical reason, you are using fallacious reasoning.

Description: The Subverted Support Fallacy is committed when someone tries to describe or explain a phenomenon without first providing any evidence that the phenomenon exists at all. It is a form of Begging the Question in that the existence of the phenomenon is assumed.

Description: The False Consensus fallacy occurs when someone makes an argument based on their assumption that most other peoples behaviour, beliefs, thoughts and motivations are the same as their own.

Description: The Red Baiting Fallacy is committed when someone calls their opponent a communist or a socialist based on little or no evidence and in order to avoid engaging with their actual arguments.

Description: Truth Rejection occurs when someone addresses a question by specifically mentioning a particular response they won't accept - which happens to be the truth.

Description: Spin Doctoring occurs when people manipulate or frame information to control public perception.

Description: People often make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, so appealing to that emotion can be a very useful technique when you're trying to persuade someone. However, to be part of an effective logical argument emotion has to be used to back up the argument, rather than form the primary basis of the argument. When, instead, you simply try to scare them into agreeing with you, your argument is fallacious.

Description: The Argument by Slogan Fallacy is committed when someone uses a short snappy phrase to avoid making an argument that actually requires some nuance, explanation or evidence.

Description: The Appeal to Loyalty Fallacy is committed when someone suggests you should believe a truth claim due to the loyalty you feel to the person making the claim, or suggests that if you don't believe something you are being disloyal.

Description: The Ad Hominem Circumstantial Fallacy is committed when, instead of addressing someone's argument, you question the reason that they are making the argument, often suggesting that their circumstances mean that they benefit in some way from such an argument.

Description: The Argument by Rhyme Fallacy is committed when someone uses a rhyming slogan in place of an argument in an attempt to sway opinion or simplify a complex issue.

Description: The If By Whiskey Fallacy is committed when someone either takes such a non-committal stance on an issue that they could be supporting either side, or redefines the terms of the question to answer in the way they want to answer.

Description: The Appeal to Fame Fallacy occurs when someone equates fame with being trustworthy

Description: Appeal to Force, or Argumentum Ad Baculum, is a fallacy where someone tries to use pressure or threat to get their opponent to accept their position instead of using logical arguments and persuasion.

Description: The Failing Occam's Razor Fallacy is committed when someone ignores an obvious or simple explanation for something and chooses a far-fetched hypothesis instead.

Description: The Argument from Consequences occurs when someone makes a truth claim based on how good (or bad) things would be if the claim was in fact true.

Description: The Argumentum ad Lunam Fallacy is committed when someone compares putting a man on the moon (or another very hard thing that has been achieved) to a hard thing that has yet to be achieved.

Description: The Argument from Silence Fallacy is committed when someone assumes that no response from their opponent is proof that they are right.

Description: False Uniqueness occurs when someone overestimates how rare their positive traits, abilities, or experience are.

Description: The Ad Feminam Fallacy occurs when someone attacks their opponent using misogynistic or dismissive rhetoric because they're a woman, rather than engaging with their argument.

Description: The Association Fallacy occurs when a person or information source is dismissed because of their connection to, or their similarity to another person or source which is already viewed negatively for some established reason.

Description: The Appeal to Sincerity fallacy is committed when someone tries to convince you of just how sincerely they believe in their claims, rather than offering evidence to back them up.

Description: The Fallacy of Assuming a Tell is committed when someone convinces themselves that they've identified a way of spotting secret information and then uses that as evidence in their reasoning.

Description: The Appeal to Stupidity is committed when someone dismisses or devalues education, intellect or reason in order to make their uneducated, idiotic, unreasonable claim sound more plausible.

Description: The Prosecutor's Fallacy is committed when someone mixes up the conditionals when stating a probability or doesn't factor the conditionals in at all.