Argumentum Ad Puppulum

Or as Gir would put it, "Your head smells like a puppy."

We're all familiar with the common logical fallacies like the argument from popularity, argument from authority, ad hominem, and so on.  Even if we don't know their technical names, anyone who's spent more than half an hour online has seen most of them.

There are a few I've named myself; they're just special cases of existing fallacies, but they're common enough to warrant their own entries in the Bumper Book of Stupid Arguments:

Black Knight Fallacy

A special form of the argument ad nauseam: Consists of presenting an unending sequence of false and illogical statements, being rigourously taken apart by the opposing side in the debate every time, and then declaring victory when they get bored and leave.

Invisible Bigfoot Fallacy

This is what you get when you grasp Ockam's Razor by the wrong end.  The name comes from the classic example, explaining that the reason no-one has seen or photographed bigfoot is because it is invisible.

Argument from Dead Philosophers

A form of the argument from authority, but rather than presenting an actual statement from someone, the author just names a bunch of dead philosophers.  "blah blah blah Kant, Hegel, Descartes, Plato blah blah blah".  Extra points may be awarded for misspelling their names.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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