red herring fallacy examples in politics

This tactic manipulates and polarize the people and make them think that the argument is much more simple than it is in reality. This means that a person oversimplifies the arguments and only focuses on the two options while logically other possible outcomes also exist. This fallacy happens if someone presents you with very limited, generally two options to choose from, while in reality there are more than two possible options available. Here, both the argument, i.e., ‘his friend is a lier’ and the premise, i.e., ‘he is lier because he never speaks the truth’ are the same statements, which shows that it is a circular argument. If a person says that his friend is a liar, and he knows this because his friend never says the truth.The person is not providing any explanation that why the floor is wet? It may be he/she dropped the glass of water on the floor. A person says that ‘the floor is slippery because it is covered with the water.’ This is a fallacious argument it’s pretty much obvious that the floor is wet due to water.Well, it sounds confusing, let’s understand it with the following examples, It may seem like that the person is putting the arguments, but all he/she is doing is, going around in a circle to justify his/her conclusions and arguments. If a person uses his/her conclusion to explain his/her argument, and his/her argument to explain his/her conclusion, it refers to the circular reasoning fallacy. For example, if we say that ‘all students in section B are liars’ then it is an insult, but if we say a boy name Jay can not become the team leader as he belongs to section B, then it is the example of ad hominem fallacy. Remember we can not term anything as ad hominem fallacy if is not an argument. People often confuse the ad hominem fallacy with the insult. Hence, this is an example of the ad hominem fallacy. Well, if we think logically, there is no relevant link between these two factors, i.e., a person who can speak Hindi fluently does not mean that he/she will be a trustworthy politician. For example, Politician A will say that you should not vote the Politician B because Politician B is not trustworthy as he/she is not fluent in speaking Hindi.

These types of attacks are flawed as they do not link to the real argument, and distract the other people from the logical argument.Īd hominem arguments are generally observed in politics, which are commonly known as ‘mudslinging.’ These arguments makes it easier for politicians to manipulate the opinions of the voters regarding the opposition parties. The term Ad Hominem means, ‘attacking the person’ or ‘against the person.’ In this fallacy, the person does not directly attack or criticize the views of another person, instead, they attack or criticise the personal characteristics of the other person such as physical appearance, ethnicity, or other traits.

Now, instead of putting the relevant counterpoints such as examples of the colleges that charge high fees, but they also provide high-quality education that benefits the student, you may try to divert the person’s argument by using the other arguments such as you say that ‘the person does not support the higher education and he/she believes that colleges should be closed, or the person is anti-national as he/she does not want the development of the country.’ This shows that you are using the straw man fallacy by ignoring the original question by the irrelevant or straw man arguments. Imagine you are in a debate where a person put an argument that the colleges takes the advantage of the students, and they do not provide the students with the relevant knowledge or experience that is required in the real world, and colleges only make money through the high college fees. In simply, we can say that a straw man is created in place of the original argument. In the same way, the straw man fallacies represent the weak or simplified arguments that distract the person from the original point that he/she was making, i.e., the one who uses the straw man argument diverts the debater’s attention to another irrelevant point instead of answering to the original question. Of course, as it is built of straws so it won’t be that strong, and one can easily break it. When we hear the word ‘straw-man,’ the image of a person (dummy) built of straws comes to our mind. Examples of the Slothful Induction Fallacyįallacy Examples in Real Life 1.Example of Personal Incredulity Fallacy.Examples of the Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy.Examples of Appeal to Hypocrisy Fallacy.Examples of Hasty Generalization Fallacy.Examples of Correlation/Causation Fallacy.

Examples of an Appeal to Ignorance Fallacy.

Examples of Appeal to Authority Fallacy.

Examples of a Circular Reasoning Fallacy.

Red herring fallacy examples in politics