- + New Debate
- Debate News
- About
- Debra AI More
frame
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
DebateIsland.com is the largest online debate website globally where anyone can anonymously and easily debate online, casually or formally, while connecting with their friends and others. Users, regardless of debating skill level, can civilly debate just about anything online in a text-based online debate website that supports five easy-to-use and fun debating formats ranging from Casual, to Formalish, to Lincoln-Douglas Formal. In addition, people can improve their debating skills with the help of revolutionary artificial intelligence-powered technology on our debate website. DebateIsland is totally free and provides the best online debate experience of any debate website.
Communities
- 8.3K All Communities
- 254 Technology
- 1.9K Politics
- 676 United States
- 592 Global
- 65 Immigration
- 1.9K Religion
- 230 TV SHOWS
- 60 Movies
- 78 History
- 44 Work Place
- 475 Philosophy
- 411 Science
- 62 Earth Science
- 9 Books
- 101 Economy
- 34 Investments
- 14 Europe
- 10 Tea
- 7 Coffee
- 59 Sports
- 42 Products
- 283 News
- 13 Airplanes
- 33 Cars
- 851 General
- 9 Mafia Games
- 24 Art And Design
- 20 Space
- 50 Military
- 3 Premium Member
DEBATE NEWS BREAKING NEWS
Lana Zak reports on a full jury seated in Donald Trump's criminal trial, what's changed 25 years after Columbine, and Taylor Swift's new double album...
Beware The Fallacy Fallacy, and Other Deceptions in Argumentation
Debate Information
This topic is going to be about argumentation itself. And it will
explore what I have learned from studies as well from my own experience
engaging in debates and observing debates among other people.
This is just going to be a quick one and I will do more in-depth discussions about this in the future as more time permits.
Anyway, some of the things to look out for include:
- The fallacy Fallacy
- The Strawman Fallacy
- Pretending to be an expert and/or talking as if you are one
- The Bias Bias
- The issues of Ad-hominem
- The misunderstandings of reductio ad absurdum
The fallacy Fallacy (Argumentum Ad logicam)
I find it to be a rather common one on debate sites. This is the tendency
to conclude that someone's argument must be wrong because it appears to
have a fallacy in it. I've noticed one of the most common conflations
here is regarding authorities on the subject. It appears that several
people will immediately almost always conclude that an argument is bad
because the person mentioned an authority figure. What they and others
need to realize is that they need to is that there is a big difference
between deferring to authority versus appealing to authority.
The Strawman fallacy is very common and has been used by a lot of people who appear to be educated and intelligent. Look a bit more closely and you the truth will set you free. This is basically trying to refute an argument by counter-argument against one that was never presented in the first place. So before you cheer a counter-argument do look at the previous argument and seriously consider if that counter-argument is valid in
that context of the time.
Pretending to be an expert and/or talking as if you are one is also something to be aware of. I've come across people here who have
said they are scientists and then said ludicrous things such as "There
is no evidence of climate change." Just because someone says they are a
Scientist online does not make it true or if they are they're definitley not a good one for saying such and false things.
The Bias Bias is about frequently seeing biases in multiple other people when none exists.
The issue of Ad-hominem
which you may come across is that some people will strawman your call out of an ad-hominem as victim mentality state. Ad-hominems are not name-calling or victimizing people. An ad-hominem like any other fallacy
is an error in reasoning. This is to do with concluding that an argument must be bad because of some personal characteristic or personal circumstances of the other party.
The misunderstandings of reductio ad absurdum
consist of trying to reduce every argument you come across to the
absurd which ironically is in itself an absurd thing to attempt. Another problem here is that people a number of people who try to do this
end up making an appeal to extremes fallacy; a common misuse and
misunderstanding of reductio ad absurdum. Some tips to consider here are
that reductio ad absurdum can work if there is an obvious flaw in the
the argument in the first place, and it usually works with statements such
as "Always," "100 percent," "Never," etc.
This Debate has been closed.
Post Argument Now Debate Details +
Arguments