An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity - always yours

180 FALLACIES
the question. Murder, after all, is a wrongful killing, hence stating that abortion
is murder already assumes that abortion is wrong.
• Biased sample: Using a biased sample is fallacious because the results of
a biased sample cannot be reliably generalized to a larger population. A biased
sample is a sample that has been selected in a way that makes it unrepresentative
of the group it is meant to reflect. For example, a survey might
be held in which people near a church on Sunday are asked if they believe
in God. If this survey is then reported to represent the general population,
the results will be deceptive, because the people near a church on Sunday
are more likely to believe in God than are the general population. Perhaps
80% of people near a church on a Sunday believe in God, but only 50% of
the entire population believe in God.
• Complex question: Also kfiüwn as a loaded question. This is a question that
inappropriately presupposes certain facts in a certain context, in such a way
that a simple yes or no answer cannot suffice to deny the presupposed facts.
For example, the question "Do you still cheat on tests?" presupposes that
the person being asked used to cheat on tests. If he says no, he implicitly
confirms that he used to cheat on tests, and if he says yes, he confirms that
he used to cheat on tests and further states that he is still cheating on tests.
The question is entirely proper if being asked in a conversational context
where it is known that the person being asked has cheated before. But in
a context where this has not been accepted, the question is fallacious. To
avoid the fallacy, one can break the original question into two parts: "Have
you cheated on tests in the past? If so, do you still cheat?"
• Composition: Assuming that the whole contains the same properties as
each of its parts individually contain. For example, you may think that chocolate
tastes good, cheese tastes good, and beer tastes good, but it doesn't follow
that if you make a dessert consisting of chocolate, cheese, and beer, that
it will taste good to you. The whole may have a radically different character
than the constituent parts considered separately.
• Denying the antecedent: The fallacy of deducing "not-Q" from the premises
"if P then Q" and "not-P". Example: If there is God, then there is a hell.
There is no God. So hell does not exist.
• Division: The fallacy of assuming that each part of a whole contains the
same properties as the whole itself. For example, it would be a mistake to
assume that all the components of a fast car are themselves fast or that all
the brushstrokes of a beautiful painting are themselves beautiful. The whole
is more than (or less than, or otherwise different from) the sum of its parts.
• Equivocation: Equivocation consists of changing the meaning of a word in
the course of an argument, without acknowledging the change in meaning.
For example, someone might argue that there is no need for legislation ensuring
the equal treatment of citizens, because people are naturally differ-