I've posted something like this before, but
The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies is a fascinating voyage into the thicket of errors in reasoning. It's actually quite helpful if you can learn to recognize the all-too-common ones. For example, the "Masked Man" fallacy is one that occurs frequently in jury trials. The formula is
where a = b, and C is believed to be a, C is also (and erroneously) believed to be b. The popular example is this:
- The masked man is Mr. Hyde.
- The witness believes that the masked man committed the crime.
- Therefore, the witness believes that Mr. Hyde committed the crime.
For one trying to convince you (erroneously or not) that Mr. Hyde committed the crime, this inference is highly desirable. The opponent would need to expose the fallacy by proving that there could have been another masked man on the scene. Understanding this distinction can be crucial.
Other fallacies aren't necessarily logical per se. Another common one is the "Appeal to Nature" fallacy which plays on the (natural) supposition that anything natural is good and anything unnatural is bad. The best example is on food labels. Everything is "all-natural" these days, even though it is clear that the word natural has a very specific meaning when it appears on a label. It think it's safe to say that most of these fallacies appear in or on advertisements every day of our lives. Read the list, get hip. Or better yet, buy a book:
