There are tons of logical fallacies out there, so many that it can seem overwhelming to learn them. Among the mountains of fallacies facing us are several that seem to come up often. These fallacies also help make a good foundation to help us understand more obscure or harder to understand logical fallacies. So here are my top 5 logical fallacies.
1. Red Herring Fallacy
A red herring fallacy is where someone tries to divert your attention away from the subject or argument by introducing a new topic. This is a defense technique often employed when the person realizes you have a logical and sound argument forming. This can even develop as an unconscious technique employed by one who wishes to protect their beliefs from any scrutiny, truly a strong self delusion.
2. Begging the Question
Begging the question is a fallacy where someone makes an assertion where the conclusion assumes the premise. An obvious and popular example of this is when someone uses a religious book (supposedly) written by a god as evidence for that god, then when prompted to explain the validity of the book they use god as a reason for its validity. Basically this “I know the bible is true because it’s the word of god, and I know its the word of god cause the bible is true”.
3. Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to popularity is a fallacy where someone tries to justify their position by how many others support it also. It doesn’t matter if all 7 billion people on the planet believe a thing it doesn’t make it true. A thing is either true or false and this reality is independent of how many humans adopt it. After all we used to believe the earth is flat.
4. Negative Proof Fallacy
The negative proof fallacy is where someone justifies their position or belief because you cannot prove their belief wrong. This is a completely ridiculous reason to justify beliefs because I could simply proclaim there to be a giant purple dragon living on the dark side of the moon and until it was proven wrong it was true and worthy of belief.
5. Argument from Ignorance
An argument from ignorance is made when someone ascribes an answer or belief to something because they feel it cannot be explained in any other way. This fallacy was made famous by Bill O’Reilly when he tried to support his belief for god by proclaiming “Tide goes in Tide goes out, you can’t explain that!”. This spurred all sort of internet shenanigans however the sad reality is that many people actually use this fallacy to formulate beliefs which segue into actual daily behavior changes. It is quite scary especially when one realizes everything we actually do not know or understand, which leaves a lot of room for people to keep employing this fallacy.