Group Five: Sample Fallacies And Booby Traps
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Understanding Fallacies and Booby Traps in Argument and Persuasive Writing
- 1.According to Freud, your belief in God stems from your need for a strong father figure. So don’t you see that it’s silly to continue believing in God?
- A.
Appeal to Authority
- B.
Genetic Fallacy
- C.
Straw Man
- D.
Equivocation
- E.
Suppressed Evidence
- 2.Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking Glass: “ ‘You couldn’t have [jam] if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday — but never jam today.’ ‘It must sometimes come to jam today,’ Alice objected. ‘No it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: today isn’t any other day, you know.’ ”
- A.
Genetic Fallacy
- B.
Red Herring
- C.
Equivocation
- D.
False Cause
- E.
Undistributed Middle
- 3.Do most Americans believe in God? To find out, we asked over 10,000 scientists at colleges and universities throughout America. Less than 40 percent said they believed in God. The conclusion is obvious: Most Americans no longer believe in God.
- A.
Straw Man
- B.
Equivocation
- C.
Appeal to Authority
- D.
Questionable Use of Statistics
- E.
False Cause
- 4.Most heroin users started out smoking pot. If you start smoking pot, you’ll end up a heroin user, too.
- A.
Undistributed Middle
- B.
Red Herring
- C.
Vagueness
- D.
False Cause
- E.
Appeal to Authority
- 5.Really exciting novels are very rare. And since rare books are expensive, I can’t afford to buy any really exciting novels.
- A.
Straw Man
- B.
Equivocation
- C.
Appeal to Authority
- D.
Undistributed Middle
- E.
Genetic Fallacy
- 6.The war in Iraq has been a complete success. After all, Saddam Hussein is dead, and the Iraqis had their first free election in years.
- A.
Questionable Use of Statistics
- B.
Appeal to Authority
- C.
Vagueness
- D.
Red Herring
- E.
Suppressed Evidence
- 7.Before he died, poet Allen Ginsberg argued in favor of legalizing pornography. But Ginsberg's arguments are nothing but trash. Ginsberg was a pot-smoking homosexual and a thoroughgoing advocate of the drug culture.
- A.
Red Herring
- B.
Genetic Fallacy
- C.
Equivocation
- D.
False Cause
- E.
Questionable Use of Statistics
- 8.Many people criticize Thomas Jefferson for being an owner of slaves. But Jefferson was one of our greatest presidents, and his Declaration of Independence is one of the most eloquent pleas for freedom and democracy ever written. Clearly these criticisms are unwarranted.
- A.
Appeal to Authority
- B.
Suppressed Evidence
- C.
Genetic Fallacy
- D.
Straw Man
- E.
Red Herring
- 9.How can you possibly believe in evolution? That would mean that you believe that an elephant evolved from a mouse, and that’s just ridiculous.
- A.
Red Herring
- B.
Undistributed Middle
- C.
Genetic Fallacy
- D.
Straw Man
- E.
False Cause
- 10.I’m not a doctor, but I play a doctor on TV, and I wouldn’t dream of using anything but Tylenol for my toughest headaches.
- A.
Equivocation
- B.
Appeal to Authority
- C.
Genetic Fallacy
- D.
False Cause
- E.
Vagueness
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