Fallacy Summary and Application Paper

Running head: FALLACY SUMMARY AND APPLICATION PAPER

Fallacy Summary and Application Paper

Nicole Thompson

University of Phoenix

Critical Thinking: Strategies in Decision Making

MGT350

William B. Rankin, II AAE

January 24, 2005

Fallacy Summary and Application Paper

What do you see when you look at Begging the Question, Hasty Generalization, and Appealing to Emotion? When you initially look at these three categories they may not seem to have too much in common. However, when you look deeper you will see that in fact, they are all different types of logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are errors of reasoning, errors that may be recognized and corrected by prudent thinkers (Downes, 1995). The following quote helps explain why logic is important to us in today's society. "Logic is not everything. But it is somethingÐ'--something which can be taught, something which can be learned, something which can help us in some degree to think more sensibly about the dangerous world in which we live (Fischer, 1970, p. 306)."

Begging the Question is a type of fallacy that is used quite a bit. It is considered to be a fallacy of assuming when trying to prove something. One of the main things to remember with the use of this fallacy is that the term "Begging the Question" has a very specific meaning. This means that if someone was trying to prove something to us but they are not being specific and leave room for there to be more questions asked then there is a good chance this is an example of a begging the question fallacy. According to Whitman, "The fact that we believe pornography should be legal means that it is a valid form of free expression. And since it's free expression, it shouldn't be banned (Whitman, 2001)" is an example of begging the question.

When you are confronted with something that could be a question of Begging the Question you need to think it through and see if what you are seeing or hearing is actually true. Or if it is just an interpretation of what the artist, speaker, or author wants you to believe when exposed to the form of media.

An example of Begging the Question is an ad where there are a lot of arms with fingers pointing to a bottle of Pepcid Complete and the arms are clothed in what appears to be medical jackets. Under the picture are the words "Pepcid's the #1 choice of pharmacists. Get the point?" This ad is implying that we get the point that Pepcid is the #1 choice of pharmacists because there are a bunch of pharmacists pointing at it. However, another bigger question could be are these people really pharmacists or just a bunch of models since all they show in the picture are a bunch or arms and hands.

Hasty generalization is a fallacy that is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough (Downes, 1995). Small samples will tend to be unrepresentative. The general idea is that small samples are less likely to contain numbers proportional to the whole population.

Since Hasty Generalization is committed when the sample is too small, it is important to have samples that are large enough when making a generalization. The most reliable way to do this is to take as large a sample as is practical. If the population in question were not very diverse then a very small sample would suffice. If the population were very diverse then a fairly large sample would be needed. The size of the sample also depends on the size of the population. A Hasty Generalization, like any fallacy, might have a true conclusion. However, as long as the reasoning is fallacious there is no reason to accept the conclusion based on that

People often commit Hasty Generalizations because of bias or prejudice. People also commonly commit Hasty Generalizations because of laziness or sloppiness. It is very easy to simply leap to a conclusion and much harder to gather an adequate sample and draw a justified conclusion. Therefore, avoiding this fallacy requires minimizing the influence of bias and taking care to select a sample that is large enough.

A great example of this fallacy that everyone has probably experienced is when a teenager is talking to their parent and says, "But why can't I go to the partyÐ'...everyone else is allowed to go" when in actuality she or he is referring to just one of their friends but they use the term "everyone" to sound more influential to their parents.

There was an ad for hair texturizer in a magazine in which an African American male was lifting a weight in his hand and it stated, "Ladies love DukeÐ'...and you'll