Logical Fallacies

1. Logical Fallacies

2. Logic • Logos/logic is situated (bound/defined by a cultural space). • In Philosophy, there are “traditions” of logic, and a study of various forms of logic including logics that don’t use language at all. • P (theorem), Q (consequence) P & Q • We are covering “Argument” here—a claim followed by evidence appropriate for a given audience.

3. Logical Fallacies • Logical fallacies are misaligned or flawed associations between a claim and its evidence/reasoning. • IMPORTANT: arguments are situated, so some logical “errors” might not be errors to the intended audience. Check your assumptions at the door and get into the mind of the reader.

4. Common Logic Fallacies • Hasty Generalization • False Analogy • Circular Reasoning • Irrelevant Argument • False Cause • Self-contradiction • Red Herring • Argument to the Person • Guilt by Association • Jumping on the Bandwagon • Misplaced Authority • Card-stacking • Either-or fallacy • Taking something out of context • Appeal to Ignorance • Ambiguity

5. Hasty Generalization – Conclusion without enough evidence • “After playing Mass Effect, I can say that Bioware is the greatest game developer ever.” • False Analogy – comparison in which differences between the objects are greater than similarities. • “Gears of War is like Whack-a-mole; aliens jump up, and you smacked them down.” • Circular Reasoning – claim + claim; argument is confirmed by same claim, just differently worded. • “Grand Theft Auto III is a violent game because all you do is commit acts of violence.”

6. Irrelevant Argument – non sequitor; conclusion of a premise doesn’t follow from claim+evidence. • “If you haven’t played Halo, you can’t call yourself a gamer.” • False Cause – two events connected by time/situation do not equal a cause. • “Jared plays Plants versus Zombies every morning, and he was the only one who got an A on that paper.” • Self-contradiction – two premises that cannot both be true. • “No comment”

7. Red Herring – purposefully distracting the audience with unrelated premise/conclusion. • “Before we worry about game violence, shouldn’t we worry about violence in sports?” • Argument to the Person – ad hominem; attacking the character or person rather than looking at conclusion/premises/argument. • “I don’t care what you say about Fable, Peter Molyneux is an idiot, so it can’t be good.” • Guilt by Association – argument isn’t valid because of unrelated associations. • “Microsoft donated $5 million dollars to Democrats, so they are more likely to approve liberal games for their Xbox 360.”

8. Jumping on the Bandwagon – it’s correct because everybody does it. • “If you don’t have the money for that game, just BitTorrent it. Everybody does it.” • Misplaced Authority – pitch is from non-expert. • “Steve Ballmer said that the Kinect will revolutionize gaming.” • Card-stacking – ignoring both sides of an issue or contradictory evidence. • “Wii Sports is the most popular game of all time.” • Either-or fallacy – binary decision when there is more than one option • “you are either a gamer or not.”

9. Taking something out of context – distorting an argument based on cherry-picked evidence • “According to IGN, Alan Wake is not revolutionary.” • Appeal to Ignorance – argument based on lack of opposing evidence. • “Because game violence has never been proven to not lead to real-life violence, it must actually lead to real-life violence.” • Ambiguity – purposefully open to two interpretations. • “Madden 11 sales were as expected.”

10. Activity • Working with your team, draft a short review of the game that you were playing that uses as many logical fallacies as you can. • Hydro Thunder • Outlaw Volleyball • And Everything Started to Fall http://gamejolt.com/freeware/games/platformer/and-everything-started-to-fall/1262/ • Zuma’s Revengehttp://www.popcap.com/games/zumas-revenge/online