Common fallacies

Common fallacies are arguments that have a logical fallacy inherent in them, yet are still commonly accepted by people who:

• have difficulties with abstract thinking
• are young students, or are adults unwilling to reconsider opinions they formed as students
• exercise their free will to embrace fallacies without concern for whether they are flawed

Examples of common fallacies are:

• a theory should be accepted until a better alternative is found
• rates of recession, decay or growth observed today are somehow constant for extrapolation backwards in time
• higher taxes must produce more revenue for the government
• fewer guns must reduce the rate of crime
• choice is somehow meaningful regardless of whether it is informed
• human thought can answer any question
• loaded questions: embodies an assumption that, if answered, indicates an implied agreement. (e.g., Have you stopped beating your wife yet?)
• Ad Hominem: arguments that focus on irrelevant personal attributes of an opponent, hoping to divert attention from the issue being discussed or the content of an opponents argument.
• Guilt By Association: hoping to discredit a person by associating them with generally disliked persons who also hold their views, or rejecting an idea because a generally disliked person accepts it.
• Appeal to Misleading Authority: When a person believes a claim to be true simply because an "authority" says so, when that "authority" is not actually an authority on the subject at hand. For example if somebody believes a claim about chemistry to be true simply because a psychologist says it is true. What constitutes an authority is debatable.
• Wishful Thinking: When a person ignores contradictory evidence to one of their beliefs because they really want their belief to be true. Another kind of wishful thinking is believing something because their are material benefits involved in believing it.

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