Asking the Right Questions, A Guide to Critical Thinking, 8th Ed

Expanding Your Knowledge of Fallacies
Are There Any Fallacies in the Reasoning? 99
We recommend that you consult texts and some web sites to expand your
awareness and understanding of reasoning fallacies. Darner's Attacking Faulty
Reasoning is a good source to help you become more familiar with reasoning
fallacies. There are dozens of fallacy lists on the web, which vary greatly in
quality. A few of the more helpful sites, which provide descriptions and examples
of numerous fallacies, are listed below:
The Nizkor Project: Fallacies, http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
The Fallacy Zoo, by Brian Yoder: (list of basic fallacies with examples) http://
www.goodart.org/fallazoo.htm
The Fallacy Files by Gary Curtis http://www.fallacyfiles.org/
Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/
Fallacies and Your Own Writing and Speaking
When you communicate, you necessarily engage in reasoning. If your purpose
is to present a well-reasoned argument, in which you do not want to
"trick" the reader into agreeing with you, then you will want to avoid committing
reasoning fallacies. Awareness of possible errors committed by writers
provides you with warnings to heed when you construct your own arguments.
You can avoid fallacies by checking your own assumptions very carefully, by
remembering that most controversial issues require you to get specific about
advantages and disadvantages, and by keeping a checklist handy of possible
reasoning fallacies.
Practice Exercises
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Critical Question: Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
Try to identify fallacies in the reasoning in each of the three practice
passages.
Passage 1
The surgeon general has overstepped his bounds by recommending that explicit
sex education begin as early as third grade. It is obvious that he is yet another victim