Flashcards
21 Common Argument Flaws
Cards in this deck (21)
- 1Congressman voted to change the law - had significant investments in industry. Thus, bill should not be passedAttach the source - ad hominem
- 2“public interest” of the public (e.g., clean air). vs. what the public is interested in (e.g., celebrity gossip)Uses terms unclearly
- 3Attacking LSAT questions is like attacking enemy starships.Bad Analogy
- 4Dentist's opinions on automotive maintenance.Appealing to Authority
- 5New speed limit sign was put up! Accident rates drop! Therefore, it must be that the new speed limit sign dropped the accident rateCausation Confusion
- 6“Everything I say is true. This is true because I said it, and everything I say is true.”Circular Reasoning
- 7The oldest trick in the book.Confusing necessary and sufficient conditions
- 8Cats and dogsFalse dichotomy
- 9If A then B is 99% likely to happen. Therefore, B happenedConfusing probability for certainty
- 10The house is on fire therefore we should put the fire out.Confusing "is" for "ought"
- 11Group A wants a 10% raise and Group B wants a 50% raise. Who will earn more money afterward?Percentages v. quantity
- 1290% of 20 year olds say they will vote for candidate A, therefore candidate A will win the electionSurveys and samplings to reach a general conclusion
- 13Make a generalization based on small sample size or based on one or two incidents.Hasty generalization
- 14No control group in an experimentExperiments to reach a general conclusion
- 15You make a crappy argument for going to the movies tonight as opposed to going to a bar. I show you why your argument sucks. Therefore we should go to a barYour argument fails therefore the opposite of your conclusion must be true
- 16A is faster than B, therefore A is fastRelative v. absolute
- 17If I nuke Cleveland, then the city's public education problem disappearsConfusing one possible solution for the only solution
- 18When the argument doesn’t address the relevant issueRed herring
- 19Solution A has been done well for 50 years, so we should choose solution ATradition fallacy and novelty fallacy (the inverse)
- 20In a troupe of ballet dancers, each one is beautiful and graceful like swans. Therefore the ballet troupe is graceful.Confusing part v. whole
- 21A fast radio burst is a high-energy astrophysical phenomenon manifested as a transient radio pulse lasting only a few milliseconds. Dr. Lorimer knows that her colleague's lab detected such a burst earlier this year. Therefore, Dr. Lorimer knows that her colleague's lab detected a radio pulse lasting only a few millisecondsBeliefs v. facts
(We don't know that Dr. L knows FRBs manifest as a radio pulse)
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- LSAT Logical Reasoning Flashcards on 21 Common Argument Flaws, created by CJ Holmes on 03/03/2022.
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- CJ Holmes
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