[eeeeaaii]

I have to say this.

I was getting annoyed at the oversimplified, vague, and/or unclear explanations on the poster. It's great to have a poster cataloging logical fallacies, but it's not so great if it doesn't actually explain them very well.

So I go to the home page of the site, where the first sentence reads:

"A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something."

FACEPALM.

The validity of a logical argument has NOTHING to do with the actual veracity (rightness or wrongness) of the propositions. This is basic stuff. Logic is the process of figure out what other things we know based on what we already know. If what we think we know is wrong, then we can make all the logically correct arguments we want and we'll still be drawing wrong conclusions.

[bunderbunder]

And, on the other side of the coin, I fear it encourages folks to fall victim to the 'fallacy fallacy': Thinking that the presence of a logical fallacy in an argument implies that its thesis is incorrect.

On a completely different coin, nobody ever won an argument by treating it as a game of Spot the Logical Fallacy. All you'll win playing that game is a reputation for being insufferable.

[repsilat]

> the 'fallacy fallacy': Thinking that the presence of a logical fallacy in an argument implies that its thesis is incorrect.

It's worse than that. Paying too much attention to rigour and the mathematical validity of arguments unduly privileges strict logical argumentation over "traditional" informal argumentation.

Outside of technical areas there are almost no arguments amenable to pure logical argumentation. Think about it - why would you be arguing over something that can be mechanically deduced with certainty? In most circumstances logical syllogisms and the like are used only as "glue" to hold the real argument together.

We should recognise that arguments using these "fallacies" don't have absolute persuasive power, but we shouldn't go so far as to say that they can have no persuasive power at all.

[jiggy2011]

That is true, but I think it is good to educate people to spot common mistakes that are made during arguments.

For example I often see people winning casual arguments by overusing emotive language , belittling the opinion of their opponent or by misrepresenting (or misunderstanding) what they are saying.

[JesseR]

Hello, I created this site. The qualifier of 'usually' means that there's not actually a fallacy being committed, rather a very generic statement about how fallacious reasoning is usually at play when people are wrong (which is certainly true).

You're right that the logical coherence of an argument doesn't have any intrinsic bearing upon the proposition that it supports being either true or false, but this does not invalidate the point that when people are wrong, they're more often than not guilty of committing fallacies in both their reasoning and their defence of their point.

Also, the idea of the site is to be very simple rather than comprehensive. Preaching to the choir is all good and well, but I'm more interested in spreading knowledge to children and people who haven't been exposed to or understood these concepts previously (however many uber nerds have emailed me saying that they've enjoyed it and hung the poster up).

From the FAQ section: The point of the site is to make common logical fallacies easily understood, so listing every single one isn't really what it's about. If you want to learn more about logical fallacies check out this comprehensive interactive list of all the formal and informal fallacies.

[Domenic_S]

> when people are wrong, they're more often than not guilty of committing fallacies in both their reasoning and their defence of their point.

Hasty generalization :)

I have found that when people are wrong, it's usually because they are incorrect about the facts that they're basing their argument on.

[eeeeaaii]

Sorry to harsh on the site, I realize it's your creation that you've put time and effort into, and I'm just some random guy killing time on the internet.

That said, I will say that the poster explanations were frustrating for me. I've studied formal logic via computer science, but not enough argumentation or philosophical logic -- so some of these fallacies were new to me. For example "no true scotsman" -- but the explanation did nothing to help me understand it. I'm type of person who learns by example, but your examples are so cutesy and weird that I can't actually relate them back to anything useful. Something about sugar in porridge? What I want is to be able to recognize these when I see them, but I'm just not getting it from your explanation. Real-world examples would be MUCH better.

Part of why I'm frustrated is I've been wishing for a resource like this for a long time -- someone who really understands argumentation, clearly and simply explaining logical fallacies, with real-world examples. I've read about "straw man" repeatedly, over and over -- definition after definition -- and I still am not confident that I could identify it if I saw it. Very frustrating. Feels like a lost opportunity. Maybe it's working for others, not me though. sorry

[rprospero]

The unclear explanation also disturbing considering that the abuse of logical fallacies has almost become an internet meme. The No True Scotsman fallacy seems particularly popular in this regard.

I've noticed a common trend in arguments of the following sort:

A: No Communist dictatorship has ever had long term economic prosperity. B: What about the United States? It's had incredible economic growth for over a hundred years. A: The United Sates isn't an communist dictatorship. B: That's the No True Scotsman fallacy.

[jiggy2011]

I think it's impossible to have a rational argument with many Americans if you use the word "communism" anywhere.

[mccoyst]

"The validity of a logical argument has NOTHING to do with the actual veracity (rightness or wrongness) of the propositions."

This is on the poster.

[Domenic_S]

Agree. It's like 40,000 freshmen took Intro to Logic classes lately on the internet. If I hear one more person throw out No True Scotsman...

On a more constructive note, it seems to me that discussions of fallacies are nearly useless without first talking about deductive/inductive logic, validity & soundness, strong/weak and cogency.