Logical Socks

Description: The Base Rate Fallacy is committed when someone offers a statistic as evidence without considering (or including) the prior probability of one or more of the factors involved.

Description: The fallacy of Factoid Propagation is committed when someone uses a 'fact' they heard to support their position, without knowing (or caring) if the fact is true or not.

Description: The Just World Fallacy is committed when someone assumes that if something bad happens to you, it's probably because you're a bad person.

Description: The Gotcha Argument is used by people who are backing into a corner and unable to answer a tough question. So they accuse their opponent of asking a 'gotcha' question.

Description: The Survivorship Bias Fallacy is committed when someone makes an argument based on a biased sample that only includes items that have survived some kind of selection pressure.

Description: The Incomplete Comparison fallacy is committed when someone suggests a thing is better or worse, without specifying what it is better or worse than.

Description: The Conflating Views Fallacy is committed when someone conflates the opinions or actions of multiple people within a group and suggests if those views conflict that the group is hypocritical.

Description: The Complex Question Fallacy is committed when someone asks a question which includes the answer they are expecting or only allows people to answer in one way.

Description: The Morton's Fork Fallacy is committed when someone suggests two seemingly different choices actually lead to the same negative result.

Description: The Hot Hand Fallacy is committed when someone confuses dependent and independent events and claims that because particular outcome has been happening recently, it will continue to happen.

Description: The Insignificant Cause Fallacy occurs when someone claims an outcome is due to something which may be a minor factor, but is certainly not the main cause.

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: The Ad Hoc Fallacy is committed when someone makes stuff up in order to avoid accepting evidence against their belief.

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 Double Standard Fallacy is committed when someone treats two very similar situations differently (usually to their advantage) with no explanation why.

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: 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: 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 Golden Hammer Fallacy occurs when someone assumes it is sensible to rely on a single tool or method to solve every problem.

Description: The Zero Sum fallacy occurs when someone assumes gains and losses in a specific situation are directly balanced when in fact they are not.

Description: The Tautological Templar Fallacy involves a person claiming their actions are good or right because they are a good person who only does good things.

Description: The Broken Clock Fallacy occurs when someone suggests that because they were right once (even if it was for the wrong reason) they should be trusted generally.

Description: The Appeal to Outdated Data fallacy occurs when someone uses evidence to support their claim, but the evidence has already been debunked or superseded by contradictory data.

Description: The Appeal to Anonymous Authority is committed when someone cites an authority to back up a claim, but the authority is unnamed, vague or similarly uncheckable.

Description: The Appeal to Common Folk is committed when someone tries to get the listeners to believe him by showing them what a regular guy he is.

Description: The Argument to the Purse occurs when someone suggests rich people are smarter, better or more likely to be correct based on their wealth.

Description: The Just Because Fallacy occurs when someone refuses to give a reason or evidence for their assertion, instead expecting others to trust their authority just because.

Description: The Single Cause Fallacy is committed when the speaker assumes a complex outcome to have one cause, thereby making it easier to blame on somebody or propose a solution. The reality is that many real-world issues are caused by a combination of factors, some of which may even be too complex for us to be aware of. Oversimplifying issues does not help us to talk about them with reason and logic.

Description: The Traitorous Critic Fallacy, or Ergo Decedo, is a fallacy where someone dismisses a person with genuine complaints by telling them if they don't like it, they can leave. It's a way of avoiding dealing with the complaint itself and branding the complainer as unworthy of being part of 'our' group.

Description: The Magical Thinking Fallacy is committed when someone claims that a real world outcome is the result of a magical cause or process, such as a wish, jinx or curse.