Logical fallacies

THIS IS A DRAFT!!!

There are may fantastic and exhaustive lists of logical fallacies on the Internet. I’m just going to list a few here that I run into quite often on this site. Many of my definitions are not strictly accurate, I’m trying to communicate an idea rather than a formal definition.

Ad hominem
An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter my claims or conclusions by attacking the me rather than addressing what I actually said or asked. Strictly speaking the statement “Jon is a jerk.” is not a fallacy,“Jon is wrong because he is a jerk.” is a logical fallacy, however I do tent to treat them the same way.

Ad ignorantiam / argument from ignorance
Some specific belief is true because we don’t know that it isn’t true. For example, HHO works because Jon has not proven it to not work.

Argument from authority
NASA looked into it once therefore it must be true.

Begging the Question
Putting an untrue statement into a question, making the question impossible to answer. “Jon,  have you stopped beating your wife yet?” is impossible for me to answer since I have never beaten my wife.

Post-hoc / Confusing association with causation
Just because two things happen in sequence does not mean that one caused the other. A happend and then B happened, therefore A caused B. “I took the remedy and my cold got better” is a very common exapmle of this.

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