Transcript Logical Fallacies

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Logos/logic is situated (bound/defined by a
cultural space).
In Philosophy, there are “traditions” of logic,
and a study of various forms of logic
including logics that don’t use language at
all.
 P (theorem), Q (consequence) P & Q
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We are covering “Argument” here—a claim
followed by evidence appropriate for a given
audience.
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Logical fallacies are misaligned or flawed
associations between a claim and its
evidence/reasoning.
IMPORTANT: arguments are situated, so
some logical “errors” might not be errors to
the intended audience. Check your
assumptions at the door and get into the
mind of the reader.
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Hasty Generalization
False Analogy
Circular Reasoning
Irrelevant Argument
False Cause
Self-contradiction
Red Herring
Argument to the Person
Guilt by Association
Jumping on the Bandwagon
Misplaced Authority
Card-stacking
Either-or fallacy
Taking something out of context
Appeal to Ignorance
Ambiguity
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Hasty Generalization – Conclusion without enough
evidence
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False Analogy – comparison in which differences
between the objects are greater than similarities.
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“After playing Mass Effect, I can say that Bioware is the
greatest game developer ever.”
“Gears of War is like Whack-a-mole; aliens jump up, and
you smacked them down.”
Circular Reasoning – claim + claim; argument is
confirmed by same claim, just differently worded.
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“Grand Theft Auto III is a violent game because all you do
is commit acts of violence.”
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Irrelevant Argument – non sequitor; conclusion of a
premise doesn’t follow from claim+evidence.
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False Cause – two events connected by
time/situation do not equal a cause.
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“If you haven’t played Halo, you can’t call yourself a
gamer.”
“Jared plays Plants versus Zombies every morning, and
he was the only one who got an A on that paper.”
Self-contradiction – two premises that cannot both
be true.
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“No comment”
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Red Herring – purposefully distracting the audience with
unrelated premise/conclusion.
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Argument to the Person – ad hominem; attacking the
character or person rather than looking at
conclusion/premises/argument.
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“Before we worry about game violence, shouldn’t we worry about
violence in sports?”
“I don’t care what you say about Fable, Peter Molyneux is an idiot,
so it can’t be good.”
Guilt by Association – argument isn’t valid because of
unrelated associations.
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“Microsoft donated $5 million dollars to Democrats, so they are
more likely to approve liberal games for their Xbox 360.”
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Jumping on the Bandwagon – it’s correct because everybody
does it.
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Misplaced Authority – pitch is from non-expert.
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“Steve Ballmer said that the Kinect will revolutionize gaming.”
Card-stacking – ignoring both sides of an issue or
contradictory evidence.
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“If you don’t have the money for that game, just BitTorrent it.
Everybody does it.”
“Wii Sports is the most popular game of all time.”
Either-or fallacy – binary decision when there is more than
one option
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“you are either a gamer or not.”
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Taking something out of context – distorting an
argument based on cherry-picked evidence
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Appeal to Ignorance – argument based on lack of
opposing evidence.
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“According to IGN, Alan Wake is not revolutionary.”
“Because game violence has never been proven to not
lead to real-life violence, it must actually lead to real-life
violence.”
Ambiguity – purposefully open to two
interpretations.
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“Madden 11 sales were as expected.”
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Working with your team, draft a short review of
the game that you were playing that uses as
many logical fallacies as you can.
 Hydro Thunder
 Outlaw Volleyball
 And Everything Started to Fall
http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/andeverything-started-to-fall/1262/
 Zuma’s Revenge
http://www.popcap.com/games/zumasrevenge/online