· False Dichotomy We cannot assume that one must be correct just because there are only two choices presented. Many things are not “either/or” or “black/white.” “Since you don’t support free trade, you must support protectionism!”
· Middle Ground Many people like to take the middle ground between two choices because it avoids either extreme, so sometimes this approach is called moderation (or the Doctrine of the Mean). “The junior high teacher believes that the school should arrange a fixed timetable. But the parents believe that students should be able to choose courses freely. So the best way is to combine the two.”
· Hodgepodge Putting together locally correct things does not necessarily result in a correct outcome. “Brad is a nice young man, and Janet is an excellent lady; they must be a perfect pair.” Marriage is not as simple as “1+1=2.” Two excellent people may not necessarily become a pair of excellent spouses, so local correctness does not necessarily mean overall correctness.
· Partial Error Just because the whole is correct does not mean that every part of it is correct. For example, a team is great, which doesn’t mean that all the players on that team are equally great. “Because the car is heavy, all the accessories on the car must be heavy.” Clearly, this statement is not true!
· Fallacy of Continuity Sometimes people feel that some differences are too small to be worth paying attention to, which leads to the Fallacy of Continuity. “Learn one new word every day to improve your vocabulary. Take a medium-sized dictionary and start from the beginning. If you memorize one new word every day, eventually you will reach the last page. And more importantly, you will learn almost all the important words in English. But how many people can achieve this?”
· Attacking the Point Many people believe that something that has been generalized is easily refuted, because finding just one exception is enough. For example, a cinema claims that children under 18 are not allowed entry, but this doesn’t mean that parents cannot bring a 7-month-old baby to watch a movie. Student A: “It is well known that smoking shortens human lifespan.” Student B: “Yes, but my great-grandfather smoked a pack a day and is still over 90 years old and doing fine. How should we explain that?” Finding an exception does not mean the generalization is wrong—everything has exceptions, but exceptions are always exceptions, just low-probability events.
· Distortion What is meant by distortion is deliberately twisting the opponent’s viewpoint in order to achieve the goal of refuting the opponent. Proponent: “The only way to improve the educational level of developing countries is to provide more material support, such as textbooks.” Opponent: “Are you saying that no matter how many trees are cut down, you still have to print more textbooks?”
· Faulty Analogy We cannot assume that two things are similar (or dissimilar) in other aspects just because they are similar (or dissimilar) in one or a few aspects. “Speaking of artificial bait, my favorite is Rapala bait. This summer, every time I use it, I catch many smallmouth bass, so I will definitely use it when fishing for trout in the fall.”
· Causal Error When we arbitrarily attribute something to a certain aspect, we are committing a causal error. “I heard that rich people work hard, so I must work hard to become rich.” Indeed, working hard may make a person wealthy (at least from a financial perspective), but it is only one factor. We cannot arbitrarily assume that working hard alone is enough to turn a pauper into a rich person.
· Domino Effect Fallacy We cannot assume that one event will trigger another, which then triggers a series of subsequent events. The Domino Error is sometimes also called the “Chain Reaction Fallacy.” “I don’t oppose providing free food to the homeless, but since we provide free food, we will need to provide free clothes, and then free accommodation. Soon, we will have to provide them with a fixed annual salary.”
· Gambler’s Fallacy When we judge the probability of a future event not based on facts, but merely based on what happened previously—and these two events are completely independent and unrelated—we are committing the Gambler’s Fallacy. (Parents to doctor) “Since we already have three boys, I believe the next one must be a girl.” The result of the last birth is actually completely unrelated to the result of the next birth; it is certain that the probability of the next birth being a boy or a girl is still 50/50.
· Fallacy of Precision What is meant by the Fallacy of Precision is arbitrarily citing figures that seem precise but are actually without factual basis to prove one’s point. “In the time of Shakespeare, one in every four people disliked Shakespeare’s plays.” The speaker is unlikely to obtain such precise data, especially data from the time of Shakespeare over four hundred years ago.