What is a logical fallacy? How can we be better at spotting them? How does knowing and understanding logical fallacies increase our ability to think more critically? We'll answer these questions and many, many more in today's episode on recognizing logical fallacies for better critical thinking. Welcome to Wiser World, a podcast for busy people who need a refresher on all things world. Here we explore different regions of the globe, giving you the facts
and context you need to think historically about current events. I truly believe that the more we learn about the world, the more we embrace our shared humanity. I'm your host Alli Roper. Thanks for being here. As a long time foreign correspondent, I've worked in lots of places, but nowhere is important to the world as China. I'm Jane Perler's former Beijing Bureau Chief for the New York Times. Join me on my new podcast, Face Off, US vs China, where I'll take you behind the scenes
in the tumultuous US-China relationship. Find Face Off wherever you get your podcasts. I think it's safe to say that we've all had moments where someone makes a statement that seems great at first glance. We're convinced. Like, yeah, I totally agree. That's it. That's it. And then someone else comes in and asks a question or two and kind of picks at it for a minute and the whole argument falls apart. And then we kind of feel like idiots for
believing that statement in the first place and going for it, right? Those types of statements or arguments have a different name or a new name I'm going to introduce today. And that's called logical fallacies. These are deceptive or flawed arguments that appear to be strong. So they masquerade as strong statements. But once you know what to look for, you can dismantle them very easily. So again, the word for these is logical fallacies. And I've given a lot
of thought to what to cover in this final episode of 2023. And despite the fact that I have a massive list of things that I want to cover in this podcast and next year and the years after, the one idea that kept coming back to me was that I needed to do a review of logical fallacies and critical thinking skills. Because noticing logical fallacies is a skill that all of us need, especially because right now things are so polarizing. And many of us
are heading into election season in the countries we live in. And we just really need our wits about us. And I remember in high school, my English teacher spent some time on these and hands down. They are the most impactful lessons I think I learned that year of high school. I think about logical fallacies often now. And once you know them and you know what
to look for, you will see them everywhere. I'm not going to go into every single logical fallacy out there and overburden you with a bunch of vocabulary because that's not what I want to do. But I have picked a few of the most common ones that I see often. And I'm going to explain them, give some examples, make them really approachable. And then I want to talk about useful ways that we can apply what we're learning to just normal everyday
people life. So again, I'm going to give you examples of eight different types of logical fallacies. And then I'll tell you why they aren't logically sound. But before I begin, I just want to remind you that it really doesn't matter if you remember the name of the logical fallacy, you know, in high school, you're tested on knowing the name. And that's nice. But I don't think that's necessary. The point is that you can just catch the lack of logic
before it doops you or catch it after it doops you. And when you can catch something that's illogical and you can see, oh, this is trying to get me to think a certain way, you could stop and evaluate and think for yourself. And that I believe is the root of critical thinking is being able to think for yourself. So let's get to it. Let's learn a little bit about logical fallacies. The first one has a fun name. It's ad hominem. And ad hominem is Latin
for aimed at the man or attack the man. So starts with an A, you can think attack, right? Basically, this type of argument is a direct attack on your opponent's character rather than the issue at hand or their position on that issue. So let me give you some examples. So here's one that I actually saw I witnessed this. You shouldn't have an opinion on abortion
because you drink soda. So you must not care about your body. Someone said that. What's happening here is the person is getting you to look away from the issue at hand, which is what abortion, right? To focus on the other person, their opponent and something about them. So in this case, the issues abortion and they're pointing away by attacking that person based on their choices of what they're choosing to put into their body. Like wait,
what? Right? This is used all of the time in politics and in the comments sections under nearly every single YouTube video, social media post known to man, right? There are plenty of politicians who love ad hominem. It's their number one way to throw off a debate, not have to talk about the issue at hand, just attack the other person's character or their body or their family or their looks or whatever. Like anything, they'll do anything
to avoid talking about the actual issue. And that just isn't logical. If we're arguing about a particular issue, sending an insult isn't going to do anything else. It's not going to solve the problem at all. It's the oldest debate trick in the book. And if you know that it's there and that it's being used, you won't be fooled. So whenever I see ad hominem used, I instantly think, okay, this person has lost their cool or they don't know what
to say about the issue. And so they've resorted to personal insults. And for me, they lose respect in my book when they do that. Ad hominem, attack the man. So when you see people using ad hominem or you're tempted to use it, the key is to recognize it and then insist that we get back to the topic at hand, not the person making the argument. That's that's number one. That's the first logical fallacy ad hominem. Let's move on to number two.
This one's called the red herring. You've probably heard of this one before. This is fun. So a red herring is when a person shifts the focus from the debate by introducing something completely irrelevant. So it's like a distraction. They want to divert your attention. So they'll
bring up something else, anything else to avoid talking about the issue. Now the term red herring is believed generally to have come from British fox hunting, where sometimes to make a hunt go longer, they would drag a dead red herring, which is a really strong smelling fish. And they drag it across the trail to confuse the dogs and make the hunt go longer. So a common red herring tactic is just changing the subject, like in a debate
when someone asks about the economy. And the politician just masterfully tweaks it to start talking about pollution. Like they can find a way to talk about the thing that they want to talk about instead of the issue at hand. It also can mean avoiding the question entirely. Like when you ask someone where they were last night and then they start telling you how hard they've been working lately. And they can just kind of like tweak it so they
don't have to talk about the thing that they don't talk about. Or like when you're arguing with your spouse and you say, you never do the dishes and they respond back with, what about you? You never take out the trash. It's like, wait, that's a red herring. Right, we're talking about the dishes. And if they added in and you're a horrible messy person,
then they've added ad hominem too. Right. So hopefully you can see now how a red herring is that they haven't answered your question or talked about the issue at hand, but they've made you feel like they have because they're often talking about something along similar lines. That's the trickiest part about red herring is recognizing like, wait, we've changed this subject or we've distracted me to something else, but it's so close to it that I'm just
kind of going with it. That's a red fish or a red herring. It's a dead fish trying to throw you off the scent. So when you see a red herring being used, again, recognize it, point it out and say, no, that's not the topic that we're discussing. We are discussing this, right? And bring it back because it's a, it's very subtle. Sometimes people are very good at it and it's, it can be very, very subtle. So that's red herring. All right,
next let's talk about the straw man. A straw man is where someone takes the issue at hand and instead of arguing about it at face value, they exaggerate or misrepresent the topic to make it easier to refute or attack it. Now, if you stop and think about this, a straw man or a scarecrow or whatever you want to call it, it's a lot easier to knock
that down than an actual living person, the living man, right? So the idea is if you can exaggerate the topic, misrepresent it strongly enough, it just makes it a lot easier to knock it down. And this became very popular in the late 1800s and debates and it continues until today. And I have seen this across the spectrum in politics. Everybody uses it.
I'm going to give you two examples on both sides of the spectrum. The first is I recently saw someone talking about how they supported the idea of restricting the sale of assault weapons and someone else responded, why do you want to take away everyone's guns? Okay, this is a straw man argument, right? That's not what the person said. The person said they wanted to restrict the sale of assault weapons and the response was, why do you want
to take away everyone's guns? That is an exaggeration or misrepresentation of what the person was saying. Now on the other side, I saw another argument where someone was talking about how climate change policies were making it very difficult for businesses to make a profit. And someone said, why are you denying that climate change exists? Again, you can see how this is straw man, right? This is not like they've exaggerated the climate change
thing, made it much bigger of an issue. That's not really what they're talking about. They're talking about climate change policies and economics and business, right? So another example could be if you believe in the color blue, then you must hate the color red. That's a very simple straw man, but it's just like, whoa, that's really a large exaggeration of the issue here. Now when we see ourselves using straw man, it might be helpful to ask
ourselves, okay, what nuance am I missing here? Can two things be true at once? Can this issue be more complicated than I'm making it to be? How can I have more space for complexity? I will be honest, I find myself using straw man when I don't know enough about an issue that I'm arguing against. I find myself making more wild claims about people when I really
haven't gotten to know them as well or the issue as well. And this play on extremes and this moving to hyperbole is not a great spot to get into and unfortunately our world is full of it today. I believe we can avoid straw man by being willing to tolerate and acknowledge complexity and have hard conversations that take a little more time. And we could still stand up for what we believe in, but recognize we're not going to exaggerate
here. We're going to talk about the issue at hand for a little bit longer than three seconds, right? All right, number four, this one is so good. This is the slippery slope. I think this one's very easy to remember in a slippery slope scenario, a person claims that there's a starting point. And then there's going to be this series of events following and there's no real evidence that this series of events is going to happen. So here's
one example I read online that made me laugh. If we make an exception for that guy's service dog, then other people will want to bring their dogs and then everybody will bring their dog. And before you know it, our restaurant is going to be overrun with dogs and their slumber and their hair and all the noise they make. And nobody will want to eat here anymore
and we'll have to close. Those are slippery slope, right? You can see here how the person assumes that because one small thing has happened, it's going to lead to major and sometimes really ludicrous consequences. Now, if we pause here for a minute, this person might be right, right? Like that legitimately could happen. All of those things are possible and looking ahead and seeing the possibilities of the dominoes that could fall from one choice,
I believe that is very smart. It is intelligent to think, okay, how could the decision that I'm making right now have a domino effect in the future, right? So not always is a slippery slope argument of fallacy. What makes it a fallacy is when someone claims that something will automatically lead to a series of other things happening and they don't make any
room for other options as well. So in this example of the dogs, there are a lot more options available to that restaurant than just our business is going to close because we make this one exception, right? So acknowledging all of the different possibilities and options that they have would be a more logical approach. I have another example of a slippery slope fallacy that happened to me the other day in the past few months and I'm recording this
in December 2023. A lot more people have been listening to this podcast, which is exciting and I'm really happy about that. But as a result, I have had to pay more money for my hosting platform because I don't know if you know this, but they charge you based on download number. So if your download numbers go up, it becomes more and more expensive to podcast. I did not know that when I started, but that's true. Also email platforms and websites, you get
the picture. It just all expands. So while I'm very happy that more people are listening to the podcast and hope that continues, it's also opened up more questions for me. And I've been recently approached by some podcasting networks and they're encouraging me to do ads. And I initially started my Patreon with the hopes of avoiding ads, but it's really
hard to run a large podcast without them. And so as I was deciding what to do, I told my husband, if I joined a network and I start growing my audience and I start doing ads on my show, then I might grow more than I want to grow. And then I could become famous. And I don't really want to become famous because I won't be approachable anymore. And then I'll become weird. And I just want to be a person who wants to go to the grocery store
and their pajamas to get ice cream and I want to be recognized. And then I'm just going to become Taylor Swift. And my husband was like, Ali, it's a history podcast. Anyway, it was such a good slippery slow moment. You know, if you join a network and you're really choosing to deliver about what types of ads you want to show, just like all other podcasts out there, you're probably going to be fine, right? I just needed a good dose of logic.
I hope you get a laugh at that because I sure did very human over here. When we start going down slippery slopes and you start to see other people going down them, catch it, run it through a more logical perspective, make room for complexity, reality, there are probably more options out there than you're giving credit. All right, let's talk number five. This is the false dilemma. Sometimes it's known as a false dichotomy. This is where
someone claims that there are only two options in a given situation. Usually these two options are extreme opposites of each other. So here's some examples. If you don't support my choice, then you are never really my friend anyway. There's more than two choices there. Or here's an easier one. If we don't order pizza, then we'll have to eat the weak old
leftovers in the fridge. No, no, that's not true. If we don't order pizza, we could order takeout or we could eat something from the freezer or we could do any number of other things. But a false dilemma makes you feel like there's only two options. And this also can be, it's pretty glaring when you can recognize it, but people use it all the time and people fall
for it. This is very black and white thinking. Very often it's used in advertising, like a moving company will say, do you want a seamless, easy move or do you want complete chaos? Well, that's illogical. There are a lot of options of moves in the middle, but there's no acknowledgement of that at all. Now, sometimes there really isn't actual dilemma between two opposing options. And you do have to choose, right? That does happen. That is a legit dilemma.
A false dilemma is when you've been given only two options and there really are more legitimate options. To solve this, we have to recognize and acknowledge aloud that other reasonable options exist. Recognize it, put a stop to it. Okay, we got other options. Want to learn how you can make smarter decisions with your money? Well, I've got the podcast for you. I'm Sean Piles and I host Nerdwallets Smart Money Podcast. On our show, we help
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smartest financial decisions for your life. Listen to Nerdwallets Smart Money Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. When Johann Role received the letter on Christmas day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season screening and wanted to save it for the fireside. But what it actually was was a warning. Delivered to the Hessian Colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing
the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Role lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial boxing day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pockets. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Now, well, this is the constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Every episode we look at the bad ideas, mistakes and accidents that misshaped
our world. Find us at constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's talk about number six. This is a hasty generalization. This is when someone makes a statement when they've only considered one or a few examples instead of using more extensive research to back up the claim. So there's a lot more information that they are not talking about. It's too hasty, it's too fast, and it's generalizing
something without more data. I actually saw this recently done on social media about my podcast and I thought this would be a really great example. I saw someone say in a comment on someone else's post, I recently listened to a podcast on this issue by Wiser World. And basically, every problem in the world is because of great Britain. So facts. I was like, okay, first of all, I'm really glad that they listened to the podcast. I'm
very happy about that. But that's not, that's not what I say in the podcast, right? So first starters, we can't, we can't make claims based off of just one podcast, right? We have to listen to more things. We have to do more research on our own. We need to have more information. Otherwise, it is too hasty and it is too generalized. Yes, I'm happy my podcast is helpful. I do research it heavily. I hope that it is very reliable. But I also
hope that we continue to do more research beyond just this, right? Sure, British politics have affected many countries in the world. They admit that they have caused some problems, but not every problem in the world is because of great Britain. That that's a very general, it's a very strong generalization. Personally, I think that this is something to be very aware of in social media, to notice when you yourself do it and when others do it to
you or to others. Sometimes we generalize because we need to make sense of the world. And I think that there are times and places to generalize, but hasty generalizations, I don't acknowledge that there could be more complexity. They don't recognize that it hasn't been well researched. And I think that we definitely need to be aware of that and stay away from that. Let's talk about number seven. The example I just gave also applies to number seven,
which is called appeal to authority. What happens in this logical fallacy is when someone appeals to an authority figures expertise, but kind of over states or exaggerates that expertise a little bit more than necessary. So in that case, we had a person stating that this one podcast shared something that now is, you know, facts done and story. Well, first of all, I never said that in my podcast, but what's happened here is there's been
an inflation of authority. There's been an exaggeration of authority. Another example of this could be if you want to be healthy, you need to stop drinking coffee because I read it on this one fitness blog. Okay, now the fitness blog could be right. It totally could be right. It's not that it's not. It's that it's inflating the authority of that blog. Just just a smidge, right? Let's think here, what other sources could we use to justify
that claim? If we can find more sources, that's great. This one can be a little bit twisty at times for me because it requires some work. It requires some nuance and it requires some discernment because we do want to appeal to authority in some situations and on some issues. There are such things as experts and appealing to authority can be good and necessary. The problem is when the authority is exaggerated. So how do we combat this? Well, we have to
recognize that authority can be good. It is necessary in many, many cases like a court of law for starters, like there are a lot of places where experts and authority really do matter. However, what's important is to catch when the authority of that person is exaggerated or misconstrued is like, we're done. The conversation's over. If someone drops it like, I'm just going to pull rank here and say boom, boom, boom. And I have no room
for any other person's opinion on this. We might be overstating authority and we might need to dig a little bit more there. That's my thoughts on those are my thoughts on appeal to authority. All right. Number eight, we're at the last one. This is called begging the question. This is a fallacy where an arguer says something that begs a question. In other words, the person makes a claim that's based on an assumption that something's true, but
they don't present any reason to believe it. So some examples, vintage furniture is better than new furniture because it's usually made of real wood. Okay. I would read that and be like, oh, yeah. Okay. Cool. But if you stop and think this statement assumes that real wood is a better material for furniture, is it? It begs the question, wait, what makes real wood better than other materials? So it takes, you have to stop and be like,
wait, what question comes up in my mind next, right? Another example is blueberries are good for you because they're filled with antioxidants. Okay. This, this might be true, but it begs the question, what's so beneficial about antioxidants? Right. It assumes that antioxidants are good for you and healthy for you. So you see in these examples that these statements might actually be true. It's not that the statement is incorrect. It's that
it isn't fully logical. We need something to be added to it to make it logical and valid like the explanation to the question that it begs. Real wood might make for better furniture. So antioxidants might legitimately be good for you, right? But we have to answer those questions. There has to be evidence of the claim. This one is also really tricky to
spot and requires us to think more critically. We've got to think it through. Okay. There are many, many more fallacies out there, but I do hope that this gives us a stronger foundation to begin thinking of them if we aren't already. So let me just review them really quick and then I'll end with a few thoughts of my own. So first is ad hominem. This is attack the man, right? Attack the person instead of the issue. Red herring. That's a distraction,
right? Throw you off the scent. Straw man. That's exaggerated claim to make it easier to knock it down. Slip re slope. Claiming that a series of events will happen. It usually ends catastrophically without acknowledging that there could be other options. False dilemma. This is showing only two options when there are more hasty generalization. This is making a statement without doing more research. Appeal to authority. This is exaggerating someone's
authority to make a claim and shut down the conversation. And lastly, begging the question, making the claim that something is true based on an assumption that hasn't been shown evidence. Okay. So if you want to look into more logical fallacies, there are so many out there and they're highly Googleable. I think it's important to distinguish that some logical fallacies aren't necessarily untrue. I think it's really important. We know that. But what's the
key is that they aren't persuasive arguments because they lack strong logic. I do not personally believe that everything alive has to be logical and not everything has to be pushed through the lens of logic. However, when it comes to history, politics, social media, creating opinions, logic is a very helpful guide. And people who have a strong foundation in logic tend to, in my opinion, be a little bit more wise. They can take a step back, ask
some questions, dig a little. They aren't quick to make flash arguments judgments. Not quick to generalize. They're just willing to stop and ask. Okay. Wait. Do I believe this is this true? Is this good? Is this logical? And then usually these types of people can take feedback that can poke at their own ideas. I love being with these kinds of people. And you know, I really hope to be one of them. Now that you know these eight logical fallacies,
I hope that you go on the hunt for them. You'll see them everywhere. And if you're anything like me, you'll probably get a real kick out of knowing them. Like, oh, that's, oh, that's a straw man. One one way that understanding logical fallacies has helped me in my life is that when people use them against me, instead of it hurting my feelings, I really feel like, well, wait, that's just not logical. And I can kind of laugh it off and move on.
I found them to be very empowering. So I hope that's the case for you as well. If you learn anything in this podcast, please consider sharing it with a friend or a family member. And thank you so much for listening. You can always support the podcast through Patreon, which is where you can spend a little each month and get extra resources that go along with each episode. A big thank you to all my Patreon subscribers. I'm super grateful. You can sign up at
www.patrion.com slash wiserworldpodcast. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, let's flex our critical thinking muscles and go make the world a little wiser.