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A Closer Look at Me: MyDailyShe Guest Post
I know I’ve been away from my blog far too often recently, but this whole dissertation-thing kinda sucks it out of you. But worry not – I’ve already started working on new content (now that I’m post-quals – yay!). In the meantime, check out my story on MyDailyShe – You get a close-up look at why…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is…Appeal to Heaven!
(Deus Vult, Gott mit Uns, Manifest Destiny, the Special Covenant) An extremely dangerous fallacy, this occurs when someone argues a position because it is the “will of God,” thus claiming that God has ordered, supports, or approves of a particular position or action and that it cannot be wrong or questioned. This fallacy seems more…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is…Special Pleading!
(Ad-Hoc Reasoning, No True Scotsman, Stacking the Deck, Ignoring the Counterevidence, One-Sided Assessment, Slanting, “Double-Standard”) This fallacy occurs when someone applies standards, principles, or rules to other positions while claiming that their position is exempt from them – without adequately justifying the reasons for their exemption (if there is a viable reason, it’s not fallacious).…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is…Straw Man!
(The Straw Person) This fallacy takes the opponents argument and restructures it, creating an extreme version that no one could possibly agree with, and then dismisses it because it is absurd. It is a fallacy because you are not actually confronting the opponent’s argument; you are claiming that it is something it isn’t and then…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is…Moral Equivalency!
A fallacy common in politics, this occurs when two different and unrelated issues or positions are falsely said to carry the same moral weight. This is often used to sway the audience’s perception of the morality of a questionable position or action. It is used in three primary ways: 1) “Just as bad” – trying…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is… Bandwagon!
(argument from common sense, argumentum ad populum [“appeal to the people”], appeal to the crowd, appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to democracy, appeal to popularity, argument by consensus, consensus fallacy, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, argumentum ad numerum [“appeal to the number”], consensus gentium [“agreement of…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is… False Dichotomy!
(False Dilemma, Black/White Fallacy, Either-Or Reasoning, Fallacy of False Choice, Fallacy of Exhaustive Hypotheses, Fallacy of False Alternative, Fallacy of the Excluded Middle) Closely related to the straw man fallacy, this occurs when choices are artificially reduced to only two options, ignoring all other alternatives, either intentionally or unintentionally. It implies that there really is…
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Today’s Logical Fallacy is… Slippery Slope!
This fallacy has been chosen especially in honor of today’s Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage! (Also known as “Snowball Argument,” “Domino Theory”) The slippery slope fallacy is based on the idea that if we allow one thing to happen (“A”), then it will inevitably lead to a chain reaction of consequences, eventually culminating in…