Homework: Monty Python and the Quest for the Perfect Fallacy Practice below. Complete #2,4,5,7,8,9,10,13,14 by identifying the logical fallacy and explaining why you identified it that way. See documents below. Also, watch the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3jt5ibfRzw
Here is the info we covered in class:
Monty Python and the Quest for the Perfect Fallacy
Student Handout #1: Common Fallacies and Booby traps
Terms
• Argument: a conclusion together with the premises that support it
• Premise: a reason offered as support for another claim
• Conclusion: the claim, supported by a premise or premises
• Valid: an argument whose premises genuinely support its conclusion
• Unsound: an argument that has at least one false premise
• Fallacy: an argument that relies upon faulty reasoning
• Booby trap: an argument that, while not a fallacy, might lead an inattentive reader to
commit a fallacy
Examples
Example 1: Whichever basketball team scores the most points will win the game. Virginia
scored more points than UNC. Therefore Virginia won the game.
In Example 1, the first two sentences are premises and the third is the conclusion. The
argument is valid, for the two premises provide genuine support for the conclusion.
Example 2: Whichever candidate receives the greatest share of the popular vote will be
elected president of the United States. Al Gore received more votes than George Bush.
Therefore, Al Gore was elected president of the United States.
Example 2 has exactly the same structure as Example 1. The first two sentences are
premises, and the third sentence is the argument’s conclusion. The difference, of
course, is that in Example 2, the first premise is false. Getting the most votes is not the
way one gets elected president. So Example 2 is unsound.
Fallacies
Genetic Fallacy: Rejecting an argument
based on its origins rather than on its own
merits. A related form accepts or rejects
arguments based on others who endorse
or reject those same arguments.
EXAMPLE: You think labor unions are
good? You know who else liked labor
unions? Karl Marx, that’s who.
ANALYSIS: The argument rejects labor
unions on the grounds that Marx liked
unions without making any reference to
any of the present arguments for or
against labor unions.
many things.
Red Herring: An argument that pretends
to establish a particular conclusion but that
really argues for something else entirely.
The origin of the term derives from fox-
hunting, where a smoked herring (which
the smoking process renders red) would
be dragged across the trail of the fox to
throw off the hounds.
EXAMPLE: You say that Coach Smith
pressured teachers to give his students
passing grades. But don’t you agree that
athletics are important to schools? Don’t
they build character?
ANALYSIS: The speaker shifts the subject
from Coach Smith’s actions to the
importance of athletics.
Straw Man: A subcategory of red herring
that involves misrepresenting an
opponent’s position to make it easier to
attack. The origin of the phrase derives
from soldiers who learn to use bladed
weapons by attacking straw-filled dummies
– a much easier target than live people
who are attempting to stab back.
EXAMPLE: Feminism is part of “a socialist,
anti-family political movement that
encourages women to leave their
husbands, kill their children, practice
witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become
lesbians.” (Statement from Pat Robertson)
ANALYSIS: Well certainly we’d have good
reason to oppose a political movement of
that sort; fortunately, though, feminism
does not hold any of those things.
False Cause: Labeling one thing as the
cause of another thing on insufficient or
unrepresentative evidence or using
evidence that conflicts with established
higher-level truths or theories.
EXAMPLE: Dan White ate a lot of Twinkies
and then killed the Mayor of San
Francisco. If I were a mayor, I’d ban
Twinkies so no one would kill me.
ANALYSIS: The argument assumes that
eating Twinkies somehow causes mayors
to be assassinated when no such causal
connection has been demonstrated. (Note
that White’s actual murder trial did invoke
Twinkies as part of a diminished capacity
argument, leading to what is now known
as “the Twinkie defense.” Contrary to
legend, however, the defense did not
really argue that Twinkies caused White to
commit murder. Details are available
here.)
Undistributed Middle: An argument in
which the middle term is undistributed,
meaning that not all the instances of things
that are C are also instances of things that
are A or of B. In other words, the first
premise tells us that everything that is an
A is also a C. It doesn’t tell us anything
about whether things that are C are also
things that are A. Similarly, in the second
premise, we are told that everything that is
a B is also a C. But again, we know
nothing about things that are C.
A is a C.
B is a C.
Therefore A is a B.
The argument is seductive because of its
surface similarity to a valid argument form:
A is a C.
C is a B.
Therefore A is a B.
In this argument, we know something
about A (namely, that every instance of A
is also an instance of C). And we also
know something about C (namely, every
instance of C is also an instance of B).
Since the C is distributed in the second
premise, we can correctly link A with B.
EXAMPLE: Most Arabs are Muslims and all
the 9/11 hijackers were also Muslims.
Therefore most Arabs are hijackers.
ANALYSIS: The conclusion doesn’t follow
from the premises. To show this, substitute
the following argument: My 5-year-old
enjoys watching television, and teenagers
also enjoy watching television. Therefore
my 5-year-old is a teenager.
MONTY PYTHON AND THE QUEST FOR THE PERFECT FALLACY PRACTICE
Directions: Read each statement and determine which fallacy or booby trap the writer is using.
1. Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking Glass: “ ‘You couldn’t have [jam] if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday — but never jam today.’ ‘It must sometimes come to jam today,’ Alice objected. ‘No it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day, you know.’ ”
2. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, look at the bloody clothes, the murder weapon. Imagine the helpless screams of the victim. Such a crime deserves no verdict except guilty, guilty!
3. I’m not a doctor, but I play a doctor on TV, and I wouldn’t dream of using anything but Tylenol for my toughest headaches.
4. According to Freud, your belief in God stems from your need for a strong father figure. So don’t you see that it’s silly to continue believing in God?
5. How can you possibly believe in evolution? That would mean that you believe that an elephant evolved from a mouse, and that’s just ridiculous.
6. The nuthatch was discovered by Tilly Turnow in the woods, while hopping from branch to branch of an elm tree, singing happily.
7. You can hardly blame President Clinton for having extramarital affairs. Many presidents, when faced with similar situations, have yielded to the same temptations.
8. There are more laws on the books than ever before, and more crimes are being committed than ever before. Therefore, to reduce crime, we must eliminate the laws.
9. We should pass a constitutional amendment making it illegal to burn the
American flag. Anyone who thinks otherwise just hates America.
10. Radio talk show host, on learning that an association of critical thinking professors had suggested his show as a source of fallacious reasoning: “Who are these people? They talk to maybe 30 people at a time. I talk to 5 million people every day. They could not begin to do what I do. They are just gnats flying around getting in the way.”
11. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn says that lesbianism is rampant in the Oklahoma schools. This must, indeed, be true, because surely the senator couldn't be mistaken about the schools in his own state.
12. Do most Americans believe in God? To find out, we asked over 10,000 scientists at colleges and universities throughout America. Less than 40 percent said they believed in God. The conclusion is obvious: Most Americans no longer believe in God.
13. Before he died, poet Allen Ginsberg argued in favor of legalizing pornography. But Ginsberg's arguments are nothing but trash. Ginsberg was a pot-smoking homosexual and a thoroughgoing advocate of the drug culture.
14. Many people criticize Thomas Jefferson for being an owner of slaves. But Jefferson was one of our greatest presidents, and his Declaration of Independence is one of the most eloquent pleas for freedom and democracy ever written. Clearly these criticisms are unwarranted.
15. Miller Lite is cheap beer, so the Guinness will be cheap, too.
16. Wife: “I see Mr. Smith is cooking out on his new barbecue grill.” Husband: “So his wife finally got fed up with his unfaithfulness!”
