Winner of Contest #3: Name That Logical Fallacy
Harder Than I Thought
I didn't anticipate the level of response I got from this contest. I also was very impressed with the detailed answers I received from some contestants. (I was less than impressed with what I will call the "minimalist" entries, such as the anonymous reader who replied, "The argument is a fallacy because the guy is a dumbass.")
A word of explanation: informal logic is not an exact science. There can be overlap in the categories, and some fallacies are actually just subspecies of others. The winner was chosen based on not only the number of fallacies named, but how well the contestant defended his choices.
So, after reading through the many hundreds of entries we received here at Perfect Fool Central Command (OK, it was a team of unpaid interns who did the actual reading—The Fool just ate bonbons and drank cocoa) , the winning entry comes from "Mooby the Golden Sock."
Mooby's entry names 13 separate fallacies. Here is his reply:
A new contest coming soon!
I didn't anticipate the level of response I got from this contest. I also was very impressed with the detailed answers I received from some contestants. (I was less than impressed with what I will call the "minimalist" entries, such as the anonymous reader who replied, "The argument is a fallacy because the guy is a dumbass.")
A word of explanation: informal logic is not an exact science. There can be overlap in the categories, and some fallacies are actually just subspecies of others. The winner was chosen based on not only the number of fallacies named, but how well the contestant defended his choices.
So, after reading through the many hundreds of entries we received here at Perfect Fool Central Command (OK, it was a team of unpaid interns who did the actual reading—The Fool just ate bonbons and drank cocoa) , the winning entry comes from "Mooby the Golden Sock."
Mooby's entry names 13 separate fallacies. Here is his reply:
- False analogy – This is the fallacy of assuming that if two things are similar in one respect, they are similar in all respects. A legitimate analogy uses comparisons that are relevant to the argument. For instance, as a deer and a dog are both four-legged mammals, one could use a deer’s leg to compare to a dog’s. However, asserting that the dog has antlers would be a false analogy. This story notes the similarity between a barber’s job and God’s job, and uses the analogy to assert that the barber and God are alike in every characteristic.That's a full thirteen fallacies! Mooby wins his choice of Sin-O-Mints, AtoneMints or Messiah Mints. Runner up was Anna with six. Sorry, Anna, better luck next time. Mooby, send The Fool your snail mail address and you'll soon be the guy with the minty fresh—and logical—breath!
- Hasty generalization—This is the fallacy of using the properties of a small sample size to generalize about an entire group. In the story, the narrator uses a sample size of one (the barber) generalize about all beings in service of others. Logically, he could not even draw conclusions about the majority of other barbers from this one barber. Who’s to say that the rest of the barbers don’t actively turn away customers with beards?
- Accident – The fallacy of ignoring acceptable exceptions to a generalization. The narrator does this when he ignores possible exceptions (such as “not existing”) when he draws the conclusion about God from his (hasty) generalization. Note that this fallacy would still be present even if his generalization was not fallacious.
- Argument from personal incredulity – This is the fallacy of arriving at a conclusion due to one personally finding a premise unbelievable. The barber explicitly says, “I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”
- Package deal fallacy – The fallacy of assuming two things historically grouped together are always grouped that way. The barber does this when he first speaks of “God” with the assumption of omnibenevolence. Only later does he qualify the God as “loving.”
- Affirming the consequent – This fallacy states that if A => B, then necessarily B => A. This is fallacious because C could also => B, which would mean that B being true could imply C and not A. In the story, it gets even trickier as 3 terms are used: A + B => C, where A is “X exists,” B is “there are people who don’t use X’s services,” and C is “they don’t come to me.” Here, the narrator concludes C from A and B, and then tries to conclude C from B alone (never mind that pesky A), and then affirm the consequent from C to get A.
- Straw man – The fallacy where an opposing argument is misrepresented to make it easier to attack. The narrator does this by ignoring the part of the barber’s argument that hinge on God being an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being. Were he to consider a perfect barber who has the ability and the infinite desire to cut all hair past X length, he would be phrasing his opponent’s argument properly.
- Non-sequitur – I used to have a pet cat, but she died. That explains non-sequitur. The poster’s story is like my pet cat, except it didn’t meow. Therefore, it did not really answer any questions in the video, despite the poster’s claim. This fallacy would have been avoided by explaining the relevance of the story to the question, and then making the argument, rather than letting the story be the argument. For example, my comment about my dead cat is in no way related to the explanation of non-sequitur, making it an example of non-sequitur. The previous sentence, on the other hand, is not a non-sequitur because it establishes its relevance to the explanation of non-sequitur.
Ok, enough with the damn story. I could probably find more, but they’d undoubtedly overlap.
- Ad hominem – “you are still incrediblyignorant.” – An ad hominem argument draws a conclusion about an argument from a characteristic of the arguer (true or not.) In this case, the poster uses the claim that the video author is “ignorant” to dismiss the arguments in the videos. Even if the video author is truly ignorant, his argument may still be valid. This ad hominem is continued in the next sentence, but rephrased to say that the argument is only valid if the person changes the characteristic in question (i.e. gets a church education.)
- Bare assertion fallacy – The fallacy of stating an assertion without showing why that assertion is true. The poster claims that one must meet certain criteria to argue without saying why, and in the PS he states that God heals through prosthetic limbs, that “it doesn’t have to be the same thing,” and that it functions “just fine” without any justifications for those statements.
- Argument from verbosity – The fallacy where one attempts to use the length of an argument to give it credibility. I wouldn’t have included this one, but the guy did apologize for length so I figured it was fair game.
The PS:
- False attribution – The fallacy where someone appeals to a false source of an action. This can be seen simply by tracing the source of a prosthetic limb to the person who manufactured it or the person who attached it (a.k.a. not God).
- Equivocation – The fallacy of using a term in two different ways. For instance, responding to a question about the healing of a limb with an example of a prosthetic “healing,” even though the word is being used differently in each instance (physical vs. functional healing).
A new contest coming soon!

Comments