Since the United States House of Representative's Committee on un-American Activities can find

no evidence that Alger Hiss is not a communist, we conclude that

he is.

Argument From Ignorance

• X is false, because x has not been proven true.

• X is true, because x has not been proven false.

Global warming is real, since my uncle, who is a physician, says

the evidence is decisive and that within the next 4 years the polar ice caps will be entirely melted.

Appeal to Inappropriate authority

Jack Linder, a bleeding-heart liberal, is the community activist

against referendum initiative 103. Linder is such a far-left liberal that nothing in the referendum

should be approved by the voters.

Ad hominem/Attacking the person

(abusive or circumstantial)

The United States Flag is  a symbol of our national heritage

and pride, therefore,  it should be protected from burning by law.

Ad populumor

Appeal to tradition

The crime rate in Tucson went up as soon as we stopped teaching Hispanic children

English. Therefore, in order to bring the crime rate down, we must resume teaching

Hispanic children English.

False Cause(post hoc ergo propter hoc)

All of us cannot be famous, because all of us cannot be well-

known.

Petitio Principii(begging the questionor circular reasoning)

The two men in the matching green suits that I met at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas had a

terrible fear of cats. I remember their saying they were from Delaware. I've never met anyone else from

Delaware, so I suppose everyone there has a terrible fear of cats.

Unrepresentative Sampleor hasty generalization

If you are not with us, then you are against us.

John is against us.Therefore John is not with us.

Affirming the consequent

When my friend visited Tucson this time last year, all she could talk about was how hot it was.She refuses to come back to

Tucson again, saying the heat was too much the first time, it will be too much the second time too.

Hasty Generalization

My political opponents state that my advisors are executives in a company

that receives several thousands of dollars from Freddy Mack and Fannie May – but they have political advisors from the housing sector too, hence we

can ignore what they say.

Tu quoque(you too)

After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions,

gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. There he found

that nature was kind and benevolent, unlike other humans that lived in the rat race of capitalism. Hence, since nature is so kind and benevolent, better to live in nature than in a city.

Anthropomorphic projection(the quality of kindness and

benevolence are projected on nature)

Either the Large Hadron Collider will encounter the Higgs boson within 2 years, or the Higgs boson does not exist.

The Higgs boson was found to existTherefore it was found by the Large Hadron Collider

False Dichotomy(black-white fallacy)

If the airport gets a bomb threat, then my flight will be delayed.

The airport did not receive a bomb threat.Therefore my flight was not delayed.

Denying the Antecedent

Karl Marx wrote the essay, “Alienated labor” found in the Parisian manuscripts.

But he was also the author of Capital.And many consider him to be the father of communism.

And we all know how failed an economic and political system communism turned out to be.

Hence whatever he says in “Alienated labor” is worthless.

Poisoning the Well(ad hominem circumstantial)

It is false that no automobiles can be easily converted to run on ethanol.

Hence, they all can.

Mary has worked in a clinic for drug abuse, and has seen so many people’s lives ruined by drug

abuse.Hence if you turn your back on your

son’s pot smoking, his life is headed for certain ruin.

Biased sample

The theory of evolution states that humans are descended

from monkeys. But monkeys are still around, and so are humans,

hence evolution is absurd.

Straw Man

Accugen baby gender mender has not been shown to be able

to detect the gender of your baby, hence we conclude that it

is a useless device.

Appeal to ignorance.

It makes no difference if General Pinochet was guilty of terrible

crimes against humanity. The man is eighty years old and in frail

health, so he should not be made to stand trial.

Ad misericordium(appeal to pity)

Cherry swears by her horoscope.She has used it for years, and can name a score of times where her horoscope was dead on. Hence, since it works for Cherry, it is a

good idea to pay attention to the horoscopes she reads.

Selective attention

This sentence is false.

Inconsistency(paradox)