Logical fallacies that are the bane of your existence.

When having a debate with someone, your opposition might commit a logical fallacy that is so infuriating, so overused, and so hair-ripped-out-of-your-skull fallacious, that seeing it used by an individual who considers himself intelligent one more time might actually make you go fucking insane.

I can think of two loathsome cunts at the top of my head, but there'll certainly be more as I remember them.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

In order to understand how much I hate this fallacy, consider this website. As of posting this, there are 700,000 posts in 35,000 topics in this entire forum. Each post can contain a maximum of 10,000 characters. If I were to replace the text of each and every one of these posts with the word "HATE", I would be able to fit 2500 repeated instances of it in each and every post (if I did not include spaces). So if each post is worth 2500 "hate", and there are 700,000 posts, that would equal 1,750,000,000 "hate".

This does not equal one one billionth of the hate that I have for this logical fallacy.

People who treat nature like it's the arbiter of reason are no better than religious fanatics. I'm convinced that there are no real atheists, because 99% of atheists (damn near), as soon as they figure out the obvious truth that there is no god, the next thing they do is convert to "Gaiaism". Yeah, that's right--Gaia is their new god. Nature is infallible. Evolution is perfect. Darwinism is intelligent. Everything about nature is perfect and sublime and flawless and we should all strive not to transcend our humanity, but maintain our humanity. Keep being the stupid fucking animal that Gaia "wants" you to be.

"Having children is okay, Verb! It's completely natural!"
"Eating meat is okay, Verb! It's completely natural!"

Murder, anger, rape, torture, pain, suffering. Sadness. Depression. Humanity.
You know what these all have in common? They're all NATURAL!

And they all fucking suck. Especially that last one.

I'm extremely anti-nature, in the sense that I think nature is absolutely fucked. I have no respect for nature's design of sentient life. No intelligent force could ever create life the way it is, and it's the #1 reason why I think the perpetuation of the species is wrong. Everything about us is a fucking burden. We're essentially trapped in a big bubble in space with limited oxygen, limited resources, and limited intelligence. Very limited intelligence. To the extent that so many "intellectuals" who consider themselves "enlightened" can't get over the simple truth that life fucking sucks. Not that life sucks, like, "Oh, wow, life is really unenjoyable." No, not that kind of suck. Life sucks as a function. It functionally... sucks. It's something that it does. It SUCKS. Get it? And we shouldn't fucking embrace it. Everything about the human condition is shit, and we ought to change it. Because luckily, we have enough intelligence to rationally deduct that 90% of the shit we're doing on this rock is for the birds.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

I don't hate this one as much, but it is a pretty big pet peeve of mine, simply because nobody knows how to fucking use it.

Here's how it happens:

I'm having an argument with you, and I notice that you made an appeal to nature fallacy. So I go to yourlogicalfallacyis.com to link you to their page on that particular fallacy. It's a good go-to website to politely notify your opposition of their argumentative ineptitude.

And then you respond by posting the link to this page: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy

Sigh.

No. That's not how the fallacy works. You don't get to tell me that I'm wrong simply for pointing out that a logical fallacy has been made. If you could do that, it would nullify the entire website, wouldn't it? No one would ever be able to point out any logical fallacies, ever, because you can just call fallacy fallacy.

The way you're supposed to apply the fallacy is if I say, "You made an appeal to nature; therefore, your argument is false." That would be a fallacy fallacy. Simply pointing out that you made a fallacious argument, however, isn't fallacious in itself. How could it be? All it means is that you argued for your cause poorly. Even if your case happened to be the correct one, do you honestly think the appeal to nature is going to be a good way to convince people? It shouldn't.


Your turn.

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I dislike people saying they're right because they have a degree thus their opinions are more correct than mine.

um

I dislike people saying they're right because they have a degree thus their opinions are more correct than mine.

Argument from authority. That's a good one.

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I dislike people saying they're right because they have a degree thus their opinions are more correct than mine.

I had to deal with that one at the end of my last semester, because one of my professors thought I had plagiarized my research paper. He had no evidence, but he's a Ph.D, and it was my word against his.

Luckily, when I fought him, I came out on top, but it was definitely the most obnoxious three days I've had in a long time. Plagiarism is a big accusation.

Arguments from authority, argument from personal incredulity and appeal to moderation are all fucking terrible.

The thing about people who make appeals to moderation is that I think most of them know that they're talking out of their ass. They're the type of person who claim to "hate politics", which is a tacit admission to their own willful ignorance in all things politics, I think...

Appeal to emotion is a big one, especially in US politics.

Appeal to emotion is a big one, especially in US politics.

I have a love/hate relationship with that one. Because sometimes, I think it's a necessary argument to make.  If someone doesn't respond with empathy, it's necessary to say stuff like, "How would you feel if it happened to you?"

But yeah, never in politics. Fuck that.

I come across the tu quoque quite a lot.

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One that I find is particularly pervasive is Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, or an argument from ignorance, which leads to the unquenchable skepticism that you see a lot of people expound these days.

And conversely, you can also see a vapid, shameless reliance on anything qualified by a 'scientist'. e.g., 'Science proves x' or  'Scientists claim y'.

Ad hominem and tu quoque are my two least favorite ones I can think of at the moment. Though ad hominem can be quite funny when you're clearly winning an argument, and then the other person resorts to using that.

No one knows what ad hominem is, either. A lot of people just think it's a generic insult, but it's not.

appeal to authority/appeal to religion

No one knows what ad hominem is, either. A lot of people just think it's a generic insult, but it's not.

I basically view any insult as ad hominem, even when it's coupled with a fleshed out argument. It's still a cheap attempt to smear your opponent, blight their argument before they make it, and prop your own up on a pedestal.

The whole point of an ad hominem is to manipulate people who are susceptible to ad hominems. It may not strictly be fallacious, but it's always an intellectually dishonest move.

appeal to authority/appeal to religion

I like the appeal to religion. It lets me know when to never discuss anything of substance with a particular individual, ever.

But verbatim, evolution is perfect because Jesus Christ made it that way. Besides, I hate logical fallacies.

I dont find anything wrong with appealing to nature.

Having children is natural and its morally okay
Rape is natural but its not morally okay

Yeah i know theres subjectiveness in there but thats another point.

Rape is natural but its not morally okay

That's not an appeal to nature.

This is an appeal to nature:
Rape is okay, because it's natural.

There is no "natural, therefore bad." Appeals to nature are either "natural, therefore good" or "unnatural, therefore bad".
Nothing else.

As soon as you are able to recognize that natural doesn't automatically mean good, you're no longer appealing to nature. So yes, though rape may be natural, that doesn't make it okay to do it.

And yes, having children is natural, but it also happens to be one of the worst crimes ever.

Yeah i know theres subjectiveness in there but thats another point.

No, there isn't.

>2015
>thinking morality is subjective

>2015
>using words like "morality"

We should change the name of morality to Eudaimonics so people stop getting fucking confused.

Ad hominem and Strawman.

My favorite is when whoever I'm arguing with can't make a point without relying on either of these but still believes that they are correct. I know I need to stop posting on youtube comments but I can't.

Strawman
Ad hominem
Appeal to authority

nvm

anecdotal
appeal to authority
bandwagon
strawman

the fallacy fallacy one is a bitch too

The only fallacy is thinking there's any fallacies in any of these examples. If you're beat by your opponent, you lost. All I see are excuses to try and make yourself feel better about losing.


"HURRRR THEY USED A FALLACY IT DOESN'T COUNT LOL"

"HURRRR THEY USED A FALLACY IT DOESN'T COUNT LOL"

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy#Fallacy_fallacy_fallacy

"HURRRR THEY USED A FALLACY IT DOESN'T COUNT LOL"

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fallacy_fallacy#Fallacy_fallacy_fallacy

No such thing.

lol