COMFTF 08-B

Fallacies of Irrelevance

Dr. David F. Maas

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ An argument in which an attempt is made
to prove a conclusion that is not the one at
issue.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Synonyms for Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Irrelevant Conclusion
♦ Ignoring the Issue
♦ Befogging the Issue
♦ Diversion
♦ Red Herring

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Synonyms for Irrelevant Thesis
Red Herring- refers to a practice in which
escapees would smear themselves with a
herring (which turns brown or red when it
spoils) in order to throw dogs of the track.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Succeeds in proving a point, but it proves
the wrong point
♦ Two forms:
♦ Attacking someone else’s claim irrelevantly
♦ Defending a claim of one’s own irrelevantly

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Attacking someone else’s claim
irrelevantly.
♦ Example: “ The advocates of conversation
contend that if we adopt their principles we
will be better off than if we did not adopt
them. They are mistaken, for it is easy to
show that conversation will not produce an
Eden on earth.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Example:I fail to see why hunting should be
considered cruel when it gives pleasure to
many people and employment to even
more.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Example:Darwin conclusively proved the
principle of anatomical similarity, but he
did not prove evolution to be anything more
than a hypothesis.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Irrelevant Thesis
♦ Example:
♦ Professor: Roger, you have missed 11 classes in a
row. What is your problem?
♦ Roger: Well, the professor last year spoke with a
foreign accent.
♦ Example: Professor: “I noticed that you haven’t
been to class for over eight times.”
♦ Student “ Well, This class isn’t like other English
classes I’ve attended.I’ve never heard some of
those terms before.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Ignorance
(Argumentum ad Ignorantium)
♦ Appeal to Ignorance: Something must be
true merely because no one can prove it
incorrect.
♦ Don’t emphasize evidence for a thesis, but
lack of evidence.
♦ Matters of psychic phenomena , telepathy,
and the like.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Ignorance
♦ Example: “ There is bound to be life on
other planets.”
♦ “Really, can you prove it?”
♦ “ Well, can you prove there isn’t”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Ignorance
♦ Shifting the Burden of Proof
♦ Example: “Bush was a lousy president.”
♦ “Why, what was so bad about him?”
♦ “You tell me what was so good about him?”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Ignorance
♦ Example:On Good Friday of each year,
while the congregation bowed in prayer, the
statue on the altar would kneel and shed
tears. But if even one member of the
congregation looked up from prayers in
order to see the tears, the miracle would not
occur.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Ignorance
♦ Example:The chiropractors have failed
entirely in their attempts to establish a
scientific basis for their concepts.
Consequently chiropractic has no basis in
science.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Pity
(Argumentum ad Misericordium)

Appeal to pity for the sake of getting a

conclusion accepted.
Not by presenting evidence, but by arousing
pity.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Pity
♦ Example: “Please officer, don’t give me a
ticket. My parents will take my car away
and my life will be miserable.”
♦ Shamelessly exploits single emotion-pity.
♦ Latin term Misericordium meaning pity.
♦ “ Would you want to put all these people
out in the cold working in drab factories?”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Prestige (Argumentum
ad Verecundium)
♦ Variety of Misplaced Authority
♦ Equates prestige with evidence.
♦ Authority out of his field (movie,athletic, or
recording star) peddling perfume
automobiles, or clothing, we are using
appeal to prestige.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Prestige
♦ Appeal to the one:If you like people, be
sure you brush with Colgate,Charles Frasier
wouldn’t think of brushing with anything
else.
♦ Appeal to the many.Everybody’s wearing it.
♦ Appeal to the select few.Infiniti-to set you
apart from the crowd.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Prestige
♦ Snob appeal- desire to act like aristocrats or the
select few.
♦ Camel Filters- They’re not for everybody.
♦ Only one grape in 50 grows up to be great
champagne.
♦ Guerlain is pleased to announce that only one
man in 10,000 wears Imperials.
♦ The Marine Corps is looking for a few good men.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Force (Argumentum ad
Baculum)
♦ Threat of force to cause acceptance.
♦ If X isn’t done,a bad thing will happen.
♦ Example: “If you don’t buy this Viper car
alarm, don’t be surprised if you walk out to
the parking garage some night and find your
wife raped, beaten, and murdered.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Force (Argumentum ad
Baculum)
♦ Example: The gay-lesbian lobbyist reminds
the representative that he has thousands of
voters in his constituency who will vote
against him if he doesn’t vote for the gay
rights bill.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Force
♦ Example: “If you won’t listen to our
demands when we speak softly, you’ll feel
our violent demands later.”
♦ Example: The congressman who warns his
colleagues, “ If you don’t vote for this
Federal Jobs Programs for Young People
Bill, don’t blame me if there are riots in our
cities during the long hot summer.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Appeal to Force
♦ Etymology: Baculum: stick or club,
implying that the user will swing a club to
get conclusions accepted.
♦ Example: “Mr. Editor, I hope you will agree
that this little escapade has no real news
value. I know that you’ll agree that my firm
buys thousands of dollars worth of space in
your paper every year. I suppose we could
consider another paper.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argument from Ridicule
(Argumentum Ad Hominem
♦ Ad Hominem “Against the man” or
personal attack
♦ Attack the character rather than the thesis of
opponent.
♦ Example: He should clearly not be our
leader. He has admitted having a drinking
problem.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argument from Ridicule
(Argumentum Ad Hominem
♦ Example: This theory about a new cure for
cancer has been introduced by a woman
known for her Atheistic tendencies. I don’t
see why we should extend her the courtesy
of our attention.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argument from Ridicule
♦ Example: Dan Quayle would make a lousy
candidate for president. He can’t even spell
potato.
♦ Example: We have to discount Linda
Tripp’s testimony in the Starr Report. She is
overweight and has a double chin.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argumentum Ad Populum
(Fallacy of Mob Appeal)
♦ Band wagon
♦ Everybody’s doing it.
♦ Position should be accepted because a large
number of people endorse it.
♦ Example: “You ought to buy your car from
Cal Worthington Ford. We’re the largest
dealer in southern California.”
♦ Example: “Join the Catholic Church- 800
million people people can’t be wrong.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argumentum Ad Populum
♦ Example:A campaigning politician argues
that he should receive our vote because
everybody is voting that way.
♦ Example: The child who begs his parents to
let him see an R-rated movie because “all
the other kid’s parents’ are allowing their
friends to see it.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Argumentum ad Populum
♦ Favorite device of the demagogue and
propagandist.
♦ George Bernard Shaw “ If 50 million
people say a foolish thing– it is still a
foolish thing.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Accident (Sweeping
Generalization)
♦ Consists of applying a general law or rule to a
special case for which it is not appropriate.
♦ Example:When the robber asked me to tell him
where the safe was, I told him because the Bible
says we should not lie.
♦ Example: Since horseback riding is a healthful
exercise, Harry Brown ought to do more of it
because it will be good for heart condition.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Accident
♦ Example:If we believe that everyone should
have the freedom of speech in this country
then we better stop forbidding judges from
speaking out about cases they are handling.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Accident
♦ Example:I believe in the golden rule as an
inherent duty to do unto others as I would
have them done unto me.
♦ If I were puzzled by a question on an
examination, I would want my neighbor to
help me.
♦ So it is my duty to help the person next to
me who has asked me to give her the
answer to a question on this exam.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Converse Accident
(Hasty Generalization)
♦ The reverse of sweeping generalization. An
isolated or exceptional case is used as basis
for generalization which is unwarranted.
♦ Example: Marijuana was used
experimentally to alleviate pain in cancer
victims,therefore marijuana should be used
by everybody.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Converse Accident
♦ Example: LSD was used experimentally at
UCLA to test recall and association.
♦ Therefore LSD ought to be made available
for everybody.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Fallacy of Converse Accident
♦ Example:I had a bad time with my former
husband.
♦ From that experience I’ve learned that all
men are no good.
♦ Example: I know one union representative
and he’s a terrible person. I wouldn’t trust
any of them.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
♦ A preceded B, A must have caused B
♦ Superstition
♦ Example: After I touched the toad I got
warts.
♦ Touching toads causes warts.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
♦ After Hoover was elected, we had a Depression
♦ Hoover’s economic policies caused the
Depression.
♦ Every time we’ve had a Democrat in office,
we’ve had a war.
♦ Democrats cause wars.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Non-Sequitur (It Doesn’t Follow)
♦ No logical connection can be found
between the conclusion and its premises.
♦ Individual statements relevant, but not
logically connected.
♦ Example: If it takes a man 20 minutes to
walk a mile, a woman should be able to live
longer than a man.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Compound Questions
♦ Loaded Question
♦ Trick question
♦ Leading question
♦ Fallacy of the false question
♦ Fallacy of many questions
♦ Poisoning the wells
♦ Combining several questions in such a manner as to
preclude all opposing arguments.
♦ We assume a single question has been asked whereas
the wording implies that prior questions have been
asked and answered.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Compound Questions
♦ Example: Has your mother ever had any normal
children?
♦ Example: When did you stop beating your wife?
♦ Example “Are you bragging or complaining?”
♦ Complex Question –interrogative form of Begging the
question.
♦ Makes us believe that a particular question has been
answered in a certain way-when this may not be the
case.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Complex Question
♦ Before rushing to answer a complex question, it is best to
question the question.
♦ Did John ever give up his bad habits? (Does John have
bad habits?)
♦ Are you still a heavy drinker? ( Have you ever been a
heavy drinker?)
♦ Example:Are you still following that goofy cult? (Are you
in a goofy cult?)
♦ Example: What did use to wipe your fingerprints from the
gun? ( Did you wipe your fingerprints from the gun?)

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Complex Questions
♦ Example: How long had you contemplated this robbery
before you carried it out?
♦ (Have you contemplated a robbery?)
♦ What are your views on the token effort made by the
government to deal with this monstrous oil crisis?
♦ Has the government made a token effort? Is the oil crisis
monstrous?
♦ Example: Was it through stupidity or through stupidity or
through deliberate dishonesty that the administration
botched our relations with Cuba?
♦ Were the relations botched hopelessly?

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Complex Questions
♦ Example: When should you buy your first
Cadillac? (An assumption has already been
made on the positive merit of the product.)
♦ Example: What is the explanation for
mental telepathy? ( An assumption has been
made that it exists)

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Begging the Question
♦ Instead of offering proof for its conclusion, an
argument simply asserts the conclusion in another
form.
♦ Example: Free trade will be good for this country.
♦ The reason is patently clear. Isn’t it obvious that
unrestricted relations bestow on all sections of this
nation the benefits which result in an unimpeded
flow of goods between countries.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Begging the Question
♦ (Free trade will be good for this country
because free trade will be good for this
country.)

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Begging the Question
♦ Example: “People can’t help doing what they do.”
♦ “Why not?”
♦ “Because they always follow the strongest
motive.”
♦ “But what is the strongest motive?”
♦ “It is, of course, the one that people follow.”
♦ Engel” Repetition of a conclusion should never be
mistaken for proof of that conclusion.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Tu Quoque (You Yourself Do It)
♦ Tu Quoque a person answers a charge
against himself by leveling the same charge
against his opponents.
♦ In the recent presidential sex scandal, the
president’s supporters attempted to deflect
the attack by pointing out moral faults in
their accusers.
♦ Also known as double standard charge.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

TU QUOQUE
♦ Example: The son tells his father,”Look
who’s telling me to stop smoking.You
smoke more than I do.”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

TU QUOQUE
♦ Example:Far much too much fuss has been
made over our Central Intelligence
Agency’s espionage abroad.Other countries
are just as deeply engaged in spying as we
are.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Genetic Fallacy
♦ Source of the idea not relevant in
determining its truth.
♦ Variety of Ad Hominem (argument against
the man)
♦ An attempt to prove conclusion false by
condemning the source

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Genetic Fallacy
♦ Example:The scholarship aid proposal is
calculated to exploit poor students, for it
was written by a committee composed only
of members of the faculty and
administration. No scholarship students
were on the committee.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Genetic Fallacy
♦ Example:We must take Schopenhauer’s
famous essay denouncing women with a
grain of salt.
♦ Any psychologist would at once explain
this essay by reference to the strained
relationship between Schopenhauer and his
mother.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Genetic Fallacy
♦ Example:Let’s examine this suggestion that
prisons should be made a better place to
live. Where does that idea come from?
♦ Its source is mostly men who have been in
prison before, convicted felons and
criminals.
♦ Surely we can reject this idea just by
knowing its source.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

False Analogy
♦ In an analogy,it is assumed that since two
things are alike in one respect, they might
be alike in other respects.
♦ Any major difference between the
proposition destroys the analogy.
♦ Example: Women should make better
Congressional Representatives than men,
for government is merely good
housekeeping.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

False Analogy
♦ Example:Why should we sentimentalize
over a few hundred thousand native
Americans who were ruined when our great
civilization was being built?
♦ It may be that they suffered injustices, but ,
after all, you can’t make an omelet without
breaking a few eggs.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

False Analogy
♦ Example:What is taught on this campus should
depend entirely on what the students are interested
in.
♦ After all, consuming knowledge is like consuming
anything else in society.
♦ The teacher is the seller, the student is the buyer.
♦ Buyers determine what they want to buy, so
students should determine what they want to learn.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Insufficient Evidence
♦ Consists of accepting inadequate data as a
basis for a conclusion.
♦ Example: Proving the murder weapon
belonged to the defendant does not prove
that he used it to commit a crime.
♦ The missing 18 minutes on the audio tape
may lead to speculation as to what may
have been on the tape, but does not
constitute evidence.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Pathetic Fallacy
(Anthropomorphism)
♦ Ascribing human feelings to inanimate
objects.
♦ Uses Poetic License
♦ Example: Colonizing the wilderness was a
bad idea.
♦ The very rocks threatened us, warning us to
go back.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Pathetic Fallacy
♦ Example:The forest was gloomy and
sinister, full of evil.
♦ Example: The day John Kennedy was shot,
a climate of hatred enveloped Dallas.
♦ One could just feel it in the air.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Contrary to Fact Conditional
Error
♦ This fallacy alters historical facts and then
draws conclusions from them.
♦ Example: If Nixon had been allowed to
continue in the Whitehouse, the morals of
this nation would have gone bankrupt.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Contrary to Fact Conditional
Error
♦ Example: If Goldwater had been in the
Whitehouse, there would have been no Viet
Nam conflict.
♦ Example: If the South had won the Civil
War, slavery would have existed in the
North.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Contradictory Premises
♦ Fallacy contains contains premises which
contradict each other.
♦ We can reach no conclusion because one
premise cancels out another.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Contradictory Premises
♦ Example: “Is God All Powerful?”
♦ “Yes”
♦ “Could God make a rock so big He couldn’t
lift it?”
♦ “I doubt it. Why would He want to do
that?”
♦ “How can you say He is all powerful then?”

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance

Contradictory Premises
♦ Example:What happens when an irresistible
force meets an immovable object?
♦ Nothing- one cancels the other.

01/04/10 Fallacies of Irrelevance