Skip to main content

ONE OF SEVEN WAYS OF SEEING

Logical Fallacies

Spot the gaps between a persuasive argument and a sound one.

344 ideas to exploreArranged from A to Z
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Spotlight Fallacy

Assuming that media coverage of a particular class or category is representative of the whole class, ignoring that media selectively highlights rare or dramatic events.

psychology · sociology↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Spotting Empty Language and Science Abuse

Scientific terms can make a vague claim sound precise. Ask what the terms mean in context, what evidence connects them to the conclusion, and what observation could show the claim is wrong. Jargon or metaphor alone does not establish scientific support.

education · science↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Stereotyping

Treating a general belief about a group as certain knowledge about an individual member. Group-level evidence may inform a probability without establishing an individual’s traits.

education · politics↗
Logical Fallaciesadvanced

Stolen Concept

The stolen concept fallacy, associated with Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden, is using a concept while denying a concept on which it depends. Applying the label requires establishing that dependency; Branden’s example is the claim that all property is theft, because theft presupposes ownership.

logic · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Stolen Concept Fallacy

The Stolen Concept Fallacy occurs when an argument implicitly relies on a concept or assumption that it is attempting to deny or disprove, leading to a self-defeating contradiction.

logic · science↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Straw Man

The straw man fallacy involves misrepresenting an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack, often by distorting, cherry-picking extreme examples, or inventing a ridiculous version of the opposing view. It depends on audience ignorance and contributes to polarization.

politics · education↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Straw Man Argument

A straw man argument replaces someone’s position with a distorted version that is easier to attack. Eugenia Cheng illustrates the problem with debates about STEM education and the response of 'All lives matter' to 'Black lives matter'.

politics · sociology↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Straw Man Fallacy

The straw man fallacy involves misrepresenting an opponent's position to make it easier to attack or refute, creating a distorted version of the argument rather than engaging with the actual stance.

politics · rhetoric↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Strawman Fallacy

A strawman fallacy occurs when someone distorts, exaggerates, or misrepresents an opponent's argument to make it easier to attack.

politics · law↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Style Over Substance

The fallacy of accepting an argument because it is presented with compelling language, rhetoric, or aesthetics, rather than because of its logical validity or evidence.

politics · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Subjectivist Fallacy

The subjectivist fallacy treats disagreement about an objective claim as if each person’s belief made a different version true. The error is dismissing a factual issue through personal perspective alone. It does not follow that every difference in taste, context, or interpretation is fallacious.

education · critical thinking↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Subverted Support

A fallacy where one attempts to explain a phenomenon that does not actually occur or lacks evidence, often presupposing its existence and thus begging the question.

logic · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Sunk Cost

The sunk cost fallacy occurs when people allow unrecoverable investments (money, time, effort) to influence their current decisions, leading them to continue with failing endeavors to justify past costs, rather than making rational choices based on future prospects.

politics · economics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Sunk Cost Fallacy

The sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to continue a course of action because of past investments (time, money, effort) that cannot be recovered, even when abandoning it would be more rational. It leads to irrational decision-making where individuals throw good money after bad to justify prior losses.

business · economics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Sunk-Cost Fallacy

The sunk-cost fallacy is continuing because of resources already spent and unrecoverable, rather than comparing the future costs and benefits of continuing with those of stopping.

economics · business↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Suppressed Correlative

The Suppressed Correlative fallacy occurs when one redefines a correlative term so that one of the mutually exclusive options becomes impossible, rendering the term meaningless.

logic · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Suppressed Evidence

The fallacy of suppressed evidence occurs when relevant evidence that would weaken or disprove a conclusion is intentionally omitted, often used in advertising, political rhetoric, and conspiracy theories to mislead.

politics · logic↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

The Texas sharpshooter fallacy selects a pattern after seeing the data and then treats the selected matches as unusually strong evidence. Ignored misses and alternative patterns can make the apparent fit misleading.

science · statistics↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

The Devil Fallacy

The Devil Fallacy is the cognitive error of attributing negative outcomes or behaviors to malicious intent, when they are more likely the result of stupidity, laziness, or error. Hanlon's Razor offers a correction: explanations requiring less energy (like ignorance) are more probable than those requiring active malice.

philosophy · economics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Fallacy of Inconsistent Aggregate Judgments

This fallacy occurs when one assumes that majority opinions on two separate issues logically combine to yield a majority opinion on a third issue, ignoring that the groups forming each majority may be different. It often leads to misinterpretation of public opinion and aggregated data.

politics · law↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Green Lumber Fallacy

The green lumber fallacy confuses knowledge that looks essential to an outsider with the practical knowledge a task actually requires. Taleb’s trader anecdotes illustrate how someone can lack an apparently basic fact while possessing less visible skills that matter to performance.

economics · business↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Ludic Fallacy

Taleb calls it the ludic fallacy to treat real-world uncertainty as if it followed the known rules and odds of a game. The mistake is overlooking events or changing conditions that the model does not include.

economics · statistics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Modelers' Response

The Modelers' Response is a list of common justifications used by modelers to defend flawed statistical models, often ignoring the limits of their tools. Recognizing this pattern helps avoid the iatrogenics (harm) caused by overreliance on quantitative models.

science · statistics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Naturalistic Fallacy

Moore’s naturalistic fallacy concerns defining goodness in terms of a natural property, such as pleasure. His objection is related to, but distinct from, deriving an ought from an is or claiming that natural behavior is morally right.

logic · education↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Problem of Stationarity

Past data can mislead when the process that produced it changes. Taleb illustrates this with an urn whose contents change while someone samples from it, then applies the concern to economic forecasting and to people adapting their behavior to known patterns or policies.

economics · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Problem of the Single Study

The tendency to overvalue a single peer-reviewed study, ignoring the broader body of evidence, analogous to using an anecdotal counterexample to dismiss a well-established trend.

medicine · science↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

The Teleological Fallacy

The teleological fallacy is the illusion that you know exactly where you are going, that you knew in the past, and that others succeed by knowing where they are going. It leads to rigid planning and ignores the value of revising goals based on new information.

business · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Tokenism

The fallacy of interpreting a token gesture as an adequate substitute for meaningful action or change, thereby dismissing the need for substantive efforts.

politics · ethics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Tu Quoque (You Too)

Tu quoque is a type of ad hominem fallacy where a person responds to an accusation by accusing the accuser of the same or similar wrongdoing, attempting to divert attention. The fallacy occurs when the counter-accusation is irrelevant to the original argument.

politics · rhetoric↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Two Wrongs Make a Right

Another person’s wrongdoing does not, by itself, justify your own. The fallacy uses a prior wrong as sufficient reason to repeat it or commit another wrong. Whether a response is justified requires a further argument.

politics · ethics↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Undistributed Middle

The fallacy of undistributed middle occurs when the middle term in a categorical syllogism is not distributed in either premise, rendering the argument invalid because it fails to establish a necessary connection between the premises.

logic · education↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Unfalsifiability

Confidently asserting that a theory or hypothesis is true or false even though it cannot possibly be contradicted by observation or experiment, usually without strong evidence or good reasons.

logic · science↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Unwarranted Assumption

The fallacy of unwarranted assumption occurs when a claim or belief is made with little or no supporting evidence, often taking things for granted without justification. It manifests in stereotypes, loaded questions, and misapplied generalizations, undermining the validity of arguments.

education · philosophy↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Unwarranted Contrast

The fallacy of assuming that conversational implicature (what is suggested in everyday speech) is a logical implication (what must be true). For instance, saying 'some are' does not logically guarantee 'some are not', even though it is often implied.

critical thinking · linguistics↗
Logical Fallaciesbeginner

Vagueness

Vagueness is a common element of unclear communication where words or phrases lack precision or specific details, often used to evade direct answers.

logic · communication↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Weak Analogy

The weak analogy fallacy occurs when an argument relies on an analogy that is not strong enough to support the conclusion, due to insufficient or irrelevant similarities between the compared items.

politics · education↗
Logical Fallaciesintermediate

Willed Ignorance

A logical fallacy where one refuses to change their mind or consider conflicting information, often isolating themselves in echo chambers or refusing to engage in debate.

philosophy · psychology↗