Some Basic Logical Fallacies

"Shouldn’t you read the document first, before you come out publicly against it?" To which Curren replied: "There’sno virtue in delay”.Indeed, there is no virtue in delay. Virtue is a disposition, a good habit, and 'delay' is an unexpected lapse of time, orlateness. Virtue and delay have nothing to do with one another. But the question was: “Shouldn’t you read the documentfirst, before you come out publicly against it?”Or, consider Pierre Elliot Trudeau's classic statement that duped a generation of Canadians'There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation'The issue is not whether there is a place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, but whether the state should makelaws governing sexual behaviour which bears upon character, and which in turn plays a part in determining the characterof the state as a whole; for law makes a statement which instructs and shapes the character of the people who are underthat law. In order to bolster his position that people should be allowed to do what they want when it comes to sexualmatters, Trudeau asserts that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, evoking images of police orpublic officials entering into a person's bedroom in order to take note of what is going on.Species of Ignoring the Question:Ad hominem (to the man): This involves the criticism of some person's position or belief by criticizing the person ratherthan the position itself. For instance,Einstein couldn't have been right about Relativity, for just look at the way he combs his hair.Father Damian couldn’t be a good and holy priest, for just look at his belly.He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just listen to his stuttering.I’m not going to vote for him; I can’t stand the way he looks.The Fallacy of Ridicule (bully tactics): This is a kind of ad hominem argument. One tries to discredit a person’sargument by ridiculing him. “That’s just ridiculous!” “Only a fool would think such a thing!” “Did you leave your brainat the door when you came here?” “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”The Fallacy of the Double Standard: This is a fallacy that involves an inconsistent application of a principle orstandard, that is, applying it differently to two different persons, without any rational basis. Perhaps it is a latent adhominem argument. For example, the typical liberal will argue that former President Bill Clinton (a Democrat) cancommit perjury, adultery, and sexually abuse a woman young enough to be his daughter and lie about it under oath, andremain a good president because “his private life has nothing to do with his public life.” But when these same peoplediscover even the slightest moral flaw in the history of a Republican candidate, the latter is immediately be dismissed asunworthy of political office. Consider:“You can't possibly understand menopause because you are a man.”“Those rules don't apply to me since I am older than you.”Consider the following excerpt from Chris Horner’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming: “People weretraveling more (vehicle-miles traveled were up by 140 percent), the U.S. Gross Domestic Product was up 147 percent, andU.S. population climbed 33 percent. Still, air pollution fell. For eight years, Clinton-Gore took credit for these gains—which had been under way for decades—while they simultaneously claimed tens of thousands of annual deaths from airpollution whenever such claims could justify greater regulatory controls. Somehow, though, environmentalist groups andthe media woke up on the rainy day of President George W. Bush’s inauguration and found that there was no good news.Things were getting worse, every day, we were told, every day. This gloomy drumbeat for years doubtless laid thefoundation for what Gallup concluded in its 2005 annual “Earth Day” poll. That march, 63 percent of Americans polledsaid the environment was getting worse, even though the positive, long-running positive trends continued during the Bushadministration.” (Cf. Chapter 3: The Sky is Falling)