Logical Fallacies

There's hardly a politician that speaks, hardly an argument or debate that wraps up, hardly a talking head that gives an opinion without some logical fallacy in the mix. These fallacies are usually honest attempts to prove a point, but can also be intentionally used to mislead. Here are a few:

Argument From Authority

This is quite common, and everybody uses the argument from authority at some point or another. Pointing to an esteemed professor or scientist can give weight to your position, but it does not make it any more or less true in and of itself. Someone living in Isaac Newton's time, for example, could have used that brilliant mathematician and physicist as a means to support their belief in alchemy given that Newton held that alchemy was possible, but that certainly wouldn't have made them any more correct.

Ad hominen

The easiest thing in the world to do when confronted with an opinion you find distasteful is to attack the person rather than undermine the opinion itself. I know that whenever I hear of someone like Pat Robertson spouting some inane bullshit I am all too eager to attack his person, thinking that once anyone sees how vile a person he is they will have to discount any argument he may bring to the table. But this is misguided; as much as it pains me to say, it is possible that Mr. Robertson could get something right. Attacking the person rather than the opinion is simply a fallacious way of arguing.

Strawman

Ever watch those Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron videos where they attempt to attack and disprove evolution? Here's a nice short one:

It's a gem for sure. There are probably several fallacies at play here, but the one that jumps out at me is the creation of a straw man. Evolutionists, Cameron says, are always on the lookout for transitional fossils, but are continually unable to find them. Where is the crocoduck? Huh? Look how silly that animal looks! Isn't clear that evolution is a lie? This is creating a straw man, or misrepresenting your opponents views in order to make them easier to mow down. Of course, according to evolution all species are, in a way, transitional forms and certainly no evolutionary biologist would expect to ever find the fossil of a crocoduck.

False Equivalence 

This argument takes the following form: if A contains c,d and B contains d,e, then because A and B share d they are both equal. This does not take into account the differences between A and B. One simple example I'll lift from Wikipedia: "We're all born naked; we're all no different from each other."

Argument From Ignorance

Ad ignorantiam. Basically, the belief that because we do not know if something is not true, it therefore must be true. This might be seen amongst people who support a belief in psychic abilities; it might be argued that since we do not know just what the brain is capable of (the old myth about 10%) these abilities must therefore be possible. Perhaps a better example would be UFOs. Because we cannot explain the origin of bizarre or oddly moving lights in the night sky these lights must therefore be extraterrestrial. 

The Fallacy Fallacy

One thing to keep in mind no matter what invalid logic you are confronted with is that just because false premises or invalid logic have been used does not necessarily mean the conclusion is wrong. 
 
Anyway, there are many more such fallacies. Here is a pretty cool website:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/