The Fallacy Itself

A fallacy is a part of an argument that usually doesn’t make sense or tries to deceive its audiences. Some fallacies can be accidental, but sometimes that can be purposely used in an attempt to further persuade an audience. If a fallacy is detected then the argument is weakened and the audience begins to question the credibility of the author. Most of the time a fallacy is not detected because the reader or listener may just be casually reading or listening. They can be found in almost every newspaper, journal, and advertisements.

Poisoning the Well

Poisoning the Well discredits opponents before the audience receives their argument. Essentially the opponents are given a bad reputation and are consistently fighting an uphill battle to convince the audience of their argument.

An example would be, “Frank’s got terrible taste in music; I saw that he had Linkin Park on his iPod.” So every time Frank talks about music with people they won’t listen to him because he likes Linkin Park and they are trash.

Guilt by Association

This particular tactic of guilt tries to keep attention away from the main issue and instead divert it towards the reputation of others who support a particular claim. Reminding people that someone is associated with an unpopular person distracts the listener from the actual argument.

For example, “I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton; her husband’s presidency was nearly impeached, not to mention he is an adulterer.”

Attacking the Person

This method attempts to question the credibility of the person making an argument rather than attacking the argument itself. The fallacy lies in the perception that a dishonorable person cannot be trusted no matter what his or her claims may be.

For example, “He never even finished high school, don’t listen to him.”

Appeal to Fear

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 Bush was in more of a position than ever to ensure that people were going to still be his followers and believe in his authority. In the first minute of his speech, he retells the story of what had happened, and how these "vicious enemies" are out to get us and bring us down. By using the fear fallacy, which uses dread to achieve a wanted outcome, he instills such an emotion to where people will think they have no other choice than to be supportive of Bush in hopes that he will get his people through this terrible trauma.

Appeal to Faith

Especially prevalent in religions, the faith fallacy relies on the concept of a blind follower. In the poem above Jesus tells his follower that he was indeed there, even though he could not see him, and it felt otherwise, but because of his blind devotion, the follower accepts it as fact. His faith in the entity substitutes for any lack of factual evidence.

Appeal of Authority

When translated, this poster means "The Jew: Inciter of war, Prolonger of war." Simply because Hitler was a well-known authoritative figure and had a powerful position, his belief that the Jews were essentially "ruining Germany's chance for perfection" was blindly followed by his people. As in Hitler's case, the authority fallacy heavily relies on the authority to replace the logic; Hitler's personal beliefs were followed with no real evidence to back him up, but since he was in high office, everyone went along with him.