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2nd QRTR Week Lesson Fallacies
2nd QRTR Week Lesson Fallacies
• Inappropriate Authority:
• According to my dad …
• Einstein said … [something about
evolution]
• Unidentified Authority:
• Studies show …
• Experts agree …
• Scientifically proven!
• Appeal to the Masses:
• Everybody knows …
Red Herring
• A red herring fallacy occurs when someone uses
irrelevant information to distract from the
argument.
• raising a side issue that distracts the audience from
the actual argument
Ex. How is talking about vaccinations going to
help us find a cure for cancer?
There are starving children in Africa. Eat
your carrots.
Appeal to Ignorance
• An appeal to ignorance is made when one argues that
something is the case since no one has shown that it is not
the case. Because there is no conclusive evidence, we
should therefore accept the arguer’s conclusions on the
subject.
• Smoking is ok, since no one has proven that it is bad for your
health.
• Our factory output shouldn’t be restricted for environmental
reasons, since no one has shown that the green house effect
really exists.
APPEAL TO EMOTIONS
Appeal to Pity
• An appeal to pity is a specific type of emotional appeal.
• An appeal to pity manipulates someone's feelings of pity
or guilt in order to get them to support a point of view. –
One's emotions have nothing to do with the correctness of
an idea or the value of a product, but argumentative
writing and speaking often appeals to our emotions, such
as pity.
Appeal to Pity
Falsely assuming that one thing will inevitably lead to another, and
another, and another, until we have reached some unavoidable dire
consequence!
Example:
(1) If you buy a Green Day album, then you will buy The Avengers.
(2) Before you know it, you’ll be a punk with green hair and tats.
(3) If you don’t want to have green hair, then you can’t buy a Green Day album.
Begging the Question
The arguer asks the audience to simply accept the conclusion without providing any
real evidence, either through the use of circular reasoning or by simply ignoring an
important (but questionable) assumption that the argument rests on.
• Circular reasoning occurs when the premise states the same thing as the
conclusion.
• Harder to detect than many other fallacies
Example 1:
Adam: God must exist.
Josh: How do you know?
Adam: Because the Bible says so.
Josh: Why should I believe the Bible?
Adam: Because the Bible was written by God.
C. Bandwagon/Ad Populum
• Bandwagon fallacies occur when a proposition is
claimed to be true or good solely because many
people believe it to be so/everyone does it so.
Ex. Everyone on campus is wearing Air Jordans. I
In this fallacy, the arguer points out that the opponent has actually
done the thing he or she is arguing against, and concluding that we
do not have to listen to the argument.
Example:
Mother: Smoking is bad for your health and expensive! I hope
to never see you do it.
Daughter: But you did it when you were my age! Therefore, I
can do it too!
Identify the fallacy applied from the given
situations.
1. When your mom gets your phone bill and you have gone over the limit, you
begin talking to her about how hard your math class is and how well you did on
a test today.
2. Congressman Darell Issa calls Whitehouse Spokesperson Jay Carney a "paid
liar.“
3. When you are late getting home-past curfew-you distract your parents by
talking to them about the weather-how cold it is, or how rainy it is.
4. Three out of four school teachers prefer Bright Marks Markers, but I only asked
four teachers in total.
5. Saying that you support a specific candidate for class president, only because
he has recently been diagnosed with cancer.
6. Commercials that show starving children in Africa before asking for donations to feed them.
7. Kevin's grandparents do not know how to use a computer. Kevin thinks that all older people must
be computer illiterate.
8. You believe that those who receive welfare should submit to a drug test, but your friends tell you
that idea is crazy and they don't accept it. You decide to change your position based on their beliefs.
9. The mother of a young child tells him to go to bed, and he begins to ask questions, say that he is
hungry, or say that he needs to go to the bathroom-all to avoid bed and distract mom.
10. You visit a new country and the first person you meet in the airport is rude. You send a message
to a friend back home that everyone in this new country is rude.
Groupings for Performance Task 2: Each member must have
an assigned Fallacy to present
and do a written explanation. Then he/she must pass it to
the respective leaders of the group who would collect the
works ( complete or incomplete) and submit to the teacher.
Expalanation: 10pts.
b.___________________ 20pts
Expalanation: 10pts.
Note: This will be graded individually so you need to submit to your leader.
SHORT BONDPAPER TNR 12 1inch margin both sides SHORT FOLDER (LEADERS)
• https://www.softschools.com/examples/grammar/red_herring_examples/23
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• https://www.softschools.com/examples/fallacies/bandwagon_examples/488
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• https://softschools.com/examples/fallacies/appeal_to_pity_examples/438/
• https://softschools.com/examples/fallacies/hasty_generalization_examples/
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• https://www.softschools.com/examples/grammar/ad_hominem_examples/2
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