“Thou shall not Commit Logical Fallacies”
Logical fallacies are tricks and illusions of thought. They are often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people into thinking in a specific way. There are a lot of ways that people make terrible and invalid arguments. Making a good argument is about using logic to prove a conclusion based on some given facts. In a valid argument, the conclusion actually does follow from the facts. Unfortunately, this can go wrong in many ways. Facts don 't always support conclusions in the way an argument 's author thinks he does. Those not versed in logic are blissfully unaware of how much our brain messes up the most basic of arguments, leading to the mess of random thoughts, white lies, misinformation,
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It is the bread and butter of political discourse throughout the world. The president uses it here to justify his executive actions. He freely admits that he doesn 't know whether or not the actions he is taking will cure the problem he is addressing, but he says that something must be done, so his executive actions are thus required. This is how many advocates for gun control like to frame the debate, because if something must be done, then they 're the good guys for proposing something, even if its benefit is …show more content…
Social media has become ever-present—which means there are more worldwide debates happening on different issues today than at any time in the past. A journalist suggests, “Because politicians and their campaign managers realize emotions often trump logic, they use numerous illogical and unpersuasive fallacies to appeal to the masses“(Campbell). Indeed, the most commonly found fallacy on Internet conversations is the appeal of emotion. For example, which do you think is the more important issue in India at present: rape or road deaths? According to the United Nations office on drugs and crime, the number of rapes per 100,000 people is 2 (UN). And according to a government research, the number of road deaths per 100,000 motor vehicles is 212 victims (Road accidents). Although the data implies the answer, some will still reply to the question with “rape”—which is an example of how emotionally susceptible we are as a species. A rape case is a story. A road accident is a number. Rape stories appeal to the public more than accidental road deaths. The media doesn’t report road deaths; there are too many of them to keep track of. Also, a headline that says “rape” would attract way more attention than a headline that says “accidental road
398).It is also stated that news divisions reduced their costs, and raised the entertainment factor of the broadcasts put on air. (p. 400). Secondly, the media determines its sources for stories by putting the best journalists on the case and assign them to areas where news worthy stories just emanates. (p.400). Third, the media decides how to present the news by taking the most controversial or relevant events and compressing them into 30 second sound-bites. (p.402). finally, the authors also explain how the media affects the general public. The authors’ state “The effect of one news story on public opinion may be trivial but the cumulative effect of dozens of news stories may be important. This shows a direct correlation between public opinions and what the media may find “relevant”. (Edwards, Wattenberg, Lineberry, 2015, p.
Therefore, I try to figure out a connection between those political controversy and human’s behavior. I don’t actually think different opinions are scary at all because speech is the right bestowed by the first amendment and what determines who we are. But by showing how misleading words can be through Planned Parenthood issue, I want to use this research to emphasize how important it is for an audience to think critically when faced with controversy and dissenting voices.
Political discourse has suffered because of this change. We no longer focus on the issues in politics but rather the relatability of a politician or on certain aspects of their personal lives. Even though the internet has subsumed television in today’s society there are still instances where we see this in both mediums. On the television politicians are still using their personal appeal to persuade their audience and on the internet the lives of these political figures are readily available, also influencing our choices. A possible course of action to navigating this world of false advertisement and excessive insight would be to educate people of these unconscious influences on their decision making and reinforce that it is the quality of one’s beliefs that should matter upmost and foremost. In the end, it would be entirely up to the people to decide how easily subjective they will
It is no secret that in society no matter where a person goes they will be surrounded by influences of news media and social media. There are televisions in restaurants, gyms, and homes, and on them there is a constant stream of twenty-four hour news. Often times what is being reported on television, or through news apps, is being presented primarily for an entertainment purpose. This is what George Saunders analyzes in his 2007 essay, “The Braindead Megaphone,” in which he criticizes not only the news media system, but also society as a whole, for the way news is received and accepted. He speaks to the fact that news media has an expectation that society doesn’t reflect, or have critism, for what is reported to them. Society accepts what they hear, because it is coming form a reliable source. He says, “Does stupid, near-omnipresent media
Fallacies, in terms of logic, are forms of flawed thinking. They are obstacles—weeds in the garden of the mind, which can be difficult to distinguish from the plants if not closely observed. The nature of fallacies falls in with our nature as human beings—they do not like to be discovered and plucked any more than we like to be the ones to admit that we are incorrect. Accepting responsibility for our actions, and in this case fallacies in our thinking, is the first step to change. Thus, if we can overcome our human pride and admit our flaws to ourselves, we are then empowered to correct them. Therein lies the value of examining these fallacies, which is an important component of studying critical thinking.
During the first week of class, we discussed informal fallacies. An informal fallacy is defined as a logical mistake. Five of the informal fallacies discussed were equivocation, ad hominem, straw man, appeal to authority, and secundum. Each of these fallacies is comparable to what happens in everyday life conversations. Through analyzing, one should be able to determine how these logical mistakes connect with our everyday lives.
The Republican response was a rehearsal of the same arguments they have trotted out time and again. Speaker Paul Ryan declared that Obama's "words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty." Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama denounced
Fallacies are all around us. Every time we turn on a TV, or a radio, or pick up a newspaper, we see or hear fallacies. According to Dictionary.com, a fallacy is defined as a false notion, a statement or an argument based on a false or invalid inference, incorrectness of reasoning or belief; erroneousness, or the quality of being deceptive (www.Dictionary.com). Fallacies are part of everyday and become a staple in certain aspects of life. Political campaigns and reporters would be lost without the use of fallacies. Fallacies can be divided into two broad groups: fallacies of relevance and fallacies of insufficient evidence. Fallacies of relevance occur because the premises are logically irrelevant to the conclusion. Fallacies of insufficient evidence occur because the premises fail to provide sufficient evidence to support the conclusion, even though the premises may be logically relevant to the conclusion (Bassham, 2000). In this paper I will define three fallacies, explain their significance to Critical Thinking, and discuss their general application to Decision Making. The three fallacies I will discuss are Ad Hominem (attacking the person), Two Wrongs Make a Right, and Slippery Slope.
In the world today, logical fallacies pertain to an immense amount of current society issues. Whether it be personal attacks, racism, or peer pressure logical fallacies are noticeable in many of todays’ global issues.
First to understand what a fallacy is, it is imperative to comprehend what an argument is. In a few words, an argument consists of a premise (one or more) and a conclusion. A premise is a statement that is either true or false, and is made in support of the claim being made, which is the conclusion.
The purpose of this essay is to develop a further understanding of the impacts of social media in regards to the political debate. By looking at the topic of social media and the use rhetoric in response to politics in the 21st century, a deeper understanding of the issue can be established. Social media has become a primary source for the discussion of politics by the average citizen; whether through the sharing of articles, “memes”, advertisements or personal expository statements. As a result, large sums of information and ideas are spread rapidly to a wide variety of subjects. However, much of this information may not be accurate and could be misinterpreted. Consequently potentially misinformed citizens may not be able to make a properly
Social media is a quick and easy way to spread news and information across the world. However, the common saying, “you can’t believe everything you see on the internet,” is true. Social media allows the spread of unreliable and false information. A study done by the American Press Institute found, “64% of people who use Twitter for news say that they have encountered something they "later discovered wasn't true," and 16% of Twitter news users say that "they had retweeted or posted a tweet they later discovered to be false” (API). This can have various effects as people are falsely educated which can lead to some bad or unnecessary decisions.
In trying to attract new audiences, news media have begun to transition from reporting to becoming a form of entertainment. With the meteoric rise of social media’s role as a news source, the fight for an increase of diversity in the media, and the ever-growing desire of immediate content, the future of responsible journalism is more important than ever. Ask yourself, why do I think the way I do? Where do my political views originate? How do I prove them? Most likely, it is due to the biased portrayal of issues in the media and the politicization that accompanies what we consume. Now, compare your views to your preferred news reporting entity. More than likely, they are the same.
In society, social media seems to be the birthplace of most fake news. “ It makes everyone look bad when outlets fall for fake bait. Over the holidays, a heartwarming story about a Santa Claus who visited a child’s deathbed went viral. Three days later, the Knoxville News Sentinel, which originally published the story, retracted it, but not before it had spread to CNN, Fox, USA Today and more.” (Borcel). This quote not only provides evidence, of how harmful fake news is, but how believable the story was and how even news outlets like CNN fell for the false article. Lies and misinformation have been around for a very long time but recently, lies about serious topics, otherwise known as fake news, have snaked their way into social media, advertising, and potentially influenced our most recent election (Wendling). The speed in which the news passed along, was caused because of the way people interact with social media. Fake news workers recruit people called trolls, which are someone paid to go onto social media networks and websites and repeatedly hashtag or spread the news about a certain thing that actually false. These articles, are typically bias, and attempt to change people’s view point based on one topic, such as the election (Timberg). In short, there are many things that revolve around it, which can be very misleading, but by taking the correct safety
According to Mehrotra (2011), media sensationalism is defined as “style of reporting news to public which involves use of fear, anger, excitement and crude thrill undertaken by the media to increase the viewership, ratings and lastly profits”. Moreover, this technique is used for two reasons: first to increase the rate of the viewers, and the second is to persuade the viewer that the solution for the suggested fear will be demonstrated in the news story. (Serani, 2011) .Additionally, the key to the success of sensational based news is in presenting the news in a sensational - fearful anecdote format instead of scientific facts. Thus, the media is promoting inaccurate news as the reports are aired without fact checking and based on sensationalism rather than on accurate facts. Hence, this style of reporting inaccurate news has hazardous effects on ...