User:Miagilbert

Hi, my name is Mia Gilbert.

I am a first year student at the University of Kansas studying pre-nursing and minoring in Spanish. I am involved with Rotaract KU, and I will be the Recruitment Coordinator for Amnesty International this upcoming semester.

I enjoy learning the language and culture of countries in Latin America, and I am passionate about the topic of human rights for immigrants in the United States. I also enjoy the subjects of psychology and biology.

The pages I have made improvements on include: Fallacy. This source mentions a few of the common fallacies, but I will be adding to that list.

Logical Fallacies

A logical fallacy is a term to describe a way in which arguments are generally used, but are inherently weak arguments. To be able to distinguish between a solid argument or an argument that violates the rules of logical fallacies is the key in determining whether one is a knowledgable or poor skeptical thinker. These rules are key for anyone who is interested in the realm of science, or even for everyday thinking and conversation. They are an important part of creating a strong argument that can hold through any opposing conversations not only in the realm of science, but also in everyday life.

There is a number of these listed out by Carl Sagan in his book over critical thinking called The Demon-Haunted World. His chapter called "Baloney Detection Kit" lists these fallacies out in a simple manner. If one can go by these rules in their arguments, then Sagan believes that they will have strong arguments against their opponents.

These fallacies are very important because they are used very often, and many people are not aware of them. For example, Ad Hominem, Appeal to Ignorance, Correlation does not imply causation, Argument from adverse consequences, Argument from authority, Straw Man, Slippery Slope, Special pleading and False Dichotomy are popular fallacies that are mistakenly made that always weaken arguments.

Ad Hominem

This is a term used when one does not attack the argument itself, but the person giving the argument. These are poor arguments because attacking the arguer does not do anything for the argument itself; it is meant to redirect the audience to disregard the arguer. This does nothing to refute the argument itself.

Appeal to Ignorance

When one uses an argument that appeals to ignorance, they plea that if there is neither evidence for nor against a certain topic, then it must be true/ false. Carl Sagan uses the example of UFO’s. There is currently no evidence to suggest that UFO’s have visited earth one time or another, which means that they do not exist. This argument could also be reversed by saying there is not evidence that UFO’s have not been to earth, which means that they inevitably have visited earth. This is a weak claim because although there has been no evidence for or against a certain topic does not mean that the latter can be refuted.

Statistics in Small Numbers

The argument for this fallacy is done when something out of the ordinary happens with a small group of numbers, which in turn makes the person think that there is a meaning behind these numbers. For example, Carl Sagan uses the example of when someone does well in a sports game. An example of this would be if someone makes multiple scores in a game, and they end up believing that because of this, the scoring will occur for the entirety of the game.

Correlation does not imply causation

Just because two things have a correlation does not mean that they are in any way related. There is often a third variable for each assumption about the correlation of the two variables. For example, Sagan explains that more individuals who are homosexual have a higher education. By using this fallacy, one could say that higher education makes people homosexual. But, this is obviously not the case. It is true that both variables are positively correlated, but there is not evidence for causation between the two.

Argument from authority

This is used when an argument is made in favor of the arguer because he/ she is an authority figure. The status of authority causes people to trust them more than they would any average human being, which can lead to unwanted outcomes. For example, celebrities are often used in commercials to try to sell products to people - and this usually works

Straw Man

This fallacy is when the attacker makes the opponent feel as though their argument is ridiculous. This is generally used in arguments against Creationism, the Big Bang Theory, Evolution, or different topics for science. Sagan quoted that, “Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance”, and “Environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people”. It is an attempt to make the argument easier to attack by making it sound like the arguer could not possibly be in their right mind.

Slippery Slope

A tactic used heavily when talking about political arguments, this fallacy takes something small and makes it into something much larger. Sagan uses the example of abortion that many people argue. They say that if women have the right to abortions, then eventually the right to kill babies after they have been born will happen inevitably. This argument can also be switched around by saying if the government takes away the rights to legal abortions, then they will also take away the rights of mothers when their babies are born. It is a weak argument because the two outcomes are not correlated with one another.

Special pleading

Special pleading is used often when arguing in the name of the church. To show an example of special pleading, Sagan exclaims, “You don’t understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways”. When someone asks a question or makes an argument against the church or another thing someone is affiliated with, they sometimes use special pleading to try and separate that person from themselves, saying that the person just does not understand what they are saying because they are not in the same special group as them. It is a weak argument because there is nothing to back their arguments up. Instead of answering their question with thought and critical thinking skills, they claim that the arguer cannot even begin to make an argument because they do not hold the same special knowledge as others who are affiliated with the group.

False Dichotomy

Also called excluded middle fallacy, this argument is put in a way where the arguer is saying, "either this or that", which are both on extreme sides of the spectrum without any choices of something in between. An example of this would be, "You're either with God or against him", or "I thought you were a good person, but you were not at church today". In this example, the person is saying that if you go to church then you are a good person, and if you don't go then you are a bad person. This is a weak argument because someone can still be a good person and miss one Church Sunday. This fallacy goes too far to make a person one way or another.

Comments on Your Content

I think it is great that you are focusing on the identification of logical fallacies. However, there are some problems with your citations. The website http://logicalfallacies.com does not exist. Is it possible that you had this confusted with http://logicallyfallacious.com ? Hoopes (talk) 17:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, as you indicate with your hyperlink references, most of these are already in Wikipedia. What new content are you adding? If it is reference to Sagan and/or online materials, that is helpful. However, you do not want to be duplicating what is already in Wikipedia but rather adding content to increase its usefulness. Hoopes (talk) 17:45, 7 May 2019 (UTC)