Short-Form Nonfiction Week: Logical Fallacies

If you’re going to write nonfiction, you’ll need to create a cogent argument. Luckily there’s an entire list of shitty arguments to draw lessons from. You no doubt know them as logical fallacies, and no credible nonfiction writer should use them.

Logical fallacies are arguments that can be rationally argued away. We’ll start with the easy ones:

Ad hominem attack: Pinning your argument on the personal traits of your opponent. E.g. You can’t possibly know if you need fluoride in your water because you’re not a dentist. (One is perfectly capable of learning something true even if they’re an artist or a mathematician.

In the same vein, an appeal to authority makes the opposite mistake. It assumes an argument is correct because the person making it is an expert or professional. E.g. I’m a doctor, therefore I'm right to say homeopathy will cure your gum disease.

Now for everyone’s favourite fallacy: The strawman, which tries to make an argument seem irrational by creating a different, hyperbolic version. E.g. The world isn’t going to burst into flames tomorrow, so climate change isn't real.

Now for the lesser-known ones:

A false dichotomy: This argument insists there are only two possible ways a situation might play out in an attempt to disprove the opposition’s view. E.g. Either we stop using all fossil fuels or humanity will die an ugly death in the next decade. (There are more than two ways to address climate change, and none prove that humanity will die out within that timeline.)

Slippery slope fallacy: This one’s a favourite among conservatives and pseudoscience peddlers. It assumes that if we make a rational choice, we will follow by making a long series of irrational choices. E.g. If we legalise abortion, we’ll start murdering one-month-old babies.

Bandwagon fallacy: It’s okay to murder babies because all the cool kids are doing it.

Appeal to ignorance: Assumes something must be true because it hasn’t been proven false or vice versa: There must be a dragon in my garage because nobody’s proved otherwise.

Circular argument: Stating the same thing as your premise and conclusion: Dragons hang out in garages so there’s a dragon in my garage.

Sunk cost fallacy: Assumes that if you’ve poured resources into something, it’s best to finish it. E.g. You paid good money for that shitty book, so you have to finish it.

Tu quoque fallacy: Rebutting a claim by pointing out an opponent’s hypocrisy. E.g. You cheated as well, so I wasn’t wrong to cheat.

Causal fallacy: Assuming that just because two things happened, it must mean they are linked. E.g. ice cream sales rose over COVID, therefore COVID causes ice cream cravings.