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 CreateDebate Creates: Logical Fallacy Competition (17)

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CreateDebate Creates: Logical Fallacy Competition

Think of a logical fallacy, and if someone else hasn't beat you to it, post it as a new argument to this debate. In response to each named fallacy, type up the clearest explanation of this fallacy that you can. Not too brief, not too wordy.

Upvote individual fallacies based on how often they are committed, or which ones you think it's most important for more people to understand.

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The fallacy of Relative Privation.

Cascading examples, group one:

Mens Rights Activists have no business pushing their platform at all, because women in general suffer far greater injustices.

-Feminists in the United States should not be fighting for their rights, because women living under Islam have it so much worse.

--Women living in Islam should not be complaining, because their lot is so much better than that of the 'infidels' who are executed outright.

---'Infidels' executed outright under Islam have no room to complain, because they get a quick, relatively painless death as compared to those who suffer torture for an extended period of time prior to being put to death.

Cascading examples, group two:

Women who are date-raped should count themselves fortunate, because at least they were unconscious for the experience and spared the trauma of being forcibly taken while conscious, as experienced by many rape victims.

-Survivors of forcible rape got off easy, because at least they survived the experience, as compared to the many rape victims who are also murdered.

SecuritronX(106) Clarified
4 points

Equivocation is the misleading use of a word or phrase that can have multiple meanings. Very often it involves using the same word or phrase multiple times in an argument with different meanings each time, but treating each usage as if they were the same.

A popular example of equivocation is the saying "Evolution is just a theory." This argument equivocates the word "theory," which can have different meanings in different contexts, in an attempt to reduce the Theory of Evolution's credibility to that of a layman's hypothesis so that it may be discarded more easily.

"Theory" in a scientific context:

A coherent group of tested general propositions, commonly regarded as correct, that can be used as principles of explanation and prediction for a class of phenomena. Synonyms: principle, law, doctrine.

"Theory" in a layman's context:

A proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact. Synonyms: idea, notion, hypothesis, postulate.

Equivocating the word "Faith" is also very common in religious discourse.

1 point

Those who commit this fallacy, either intentionally or accidentally, confuse two different usage definitions of a single term

Example: evolution is a theory and so is intelligent design.

Intelligent design IS a theory in certain senses of the word, (like in definition 6a, here) but it is not falsifiable, and therefore not "scientifically acceptable" like what definition 5a describes.

2 points

Affirming a Disjunct.

Example.

Do you like chocolate or vanilla?

I like chocolate.

Therefore you do not like vanilla.

This is an err in deductive logic that assumes an exclusionary relationship in the choices when in fact the choices may be inclusive.

Example

You criticize Israel? You must love Palestine.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming adisjunct

Coldfire(1014) Clarified
2 points

Determining the truth value of a claim using ignorance as evidence.

Examples:

1. Any “I don’t know… therefore God” claims. i.e. “I don’t know how the tides work, it must be God.”

2. We have no evidence that God doesn’t exist, therefore, he does exist. Likewise,

We have no evidence that God does exist, therefore, he doesn’t exist.

If you're on a vegan diet you are bound to be a pain in the ass animal rights fighter.

DevinSeay(1120) Clarified
1 point

I knew a few that just did it because of religion... but in a lot of cases yes.

There are only two types of people, christians and atheists .

AveSatanas(4443) Disputed
2 points

This fallacy is known as a false dichotomy or "black and white" fallacy. Basically its when a person states that there are only two sides to a multisided debate question.

1 point

The initial post should be something like:

False Dichotomy or "Black and White" Fallacy

then you would respond with an "argument" in support of that initial post like:

when a person states that there are only two sides to a multisided debate question.

This way alternative explanations of the fallacy can compete for the top spot under the initial post.

Actually, there are 10 types, those who understand binary and those that don't ;)

Actually, there are two types, those who can extrapolate. ;)

i hate you . xD

You can not have a neutral opinion conserning religion .

1 point

Is this another way of saying that "neutral opinion" is an oxymoron, or are you saying it is fallacious to think it is an oxymoron?

shoutoutloud(4303) Clarified
1 point

No, just saying I find it odd how people insist that you can not be agnostic.

1 point

Those who commit this fallacy expect you to assume that there are only some few options to choose from, when in fact there are more possible choices.

Example: From CS Lewis

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”