Sunday, April 10, 2011

Forty-four Foul Ways to Win an Argument

from The Thinker's Guide to Fallacies

1

Accuse Your Opponent of Doing What He is Accusing You of (or worse)

2

Accuse Him of Sliding Down ASlippery Slope (that leads to disaster)

3

Appeal to Authority

4

Appeal to Experience

5

Appeal to Fear

6

Appeal to Pity (or sympathy)

7

Appeal to Popular Passions

8

Appeal to Tradition or Faith ("the tried and true")

9

Assume a Posture of Righteousness

10

Attack the person (and not the argument)

11

Beg the Question

12

Call For Perfection (Demand impossible conditions)

13

Create a False Dilemma (the Great Either/Or)

14

Devise Analogies (and Metaphors) That Support Your View (even if they are misleading or "false")

15

Question Your Opponent's Conclusions

16

Create Misgivings: Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

17

Create A Straw Man

18

Deny or Defend Your Inconsistencies

19

Demonize His Side Sanitize Yours

20

Evade Questions, Gracefully

21

Flatter Your Audience

22

Hedge What You Say

23

Ignore the Evidence

24

Ignore the Main Point

25

Attack Evidence (That Undermines Your Case)

26

Insist Loudly on a Minor Point

27

Use the Hard-Cruel-World Argument (to justify doing what is usually considered unethical)

28

Make (Sweeping) Glittering Generalizations

29

Make Much of Any Inconsistencies in Your Opponent's Position

30

Make Your Opponent Look Ridiculous ("lost in the laugh")

31

Oversimplify the Issue

32

Raise Nothing But Objections

33

Rewrite History (Have It Your Way)

34

Seek Your Vested Interests

35

Shift the Ground

36

Shift the Burden of Proof

37

Spin, Spin, Spin

38

Talk in Vague Generalities

39

Talk Double Talk

40

Tell Big lies

41

Treat Abstract Words and Symbols As If They Were Real Things

42

Throw In A Red Herring (or two)

43

Throw in Some Statistics

44

Use Double Standards (Whenever you can)

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