Different fallacies in the news Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Different fallacies in the news - Essay Example But before finding fallacies in the news, one should be aware of the different forms of fallacies being used. A common type of fallacy is a slippery slope fallacy in which the writer suspects that they need to continue the topic which they don’t like if they have once opened it. That is why, in slippery slope fallacy, the results of actions specified are overstressed in order to alarm the reader of the message. It is called slippery slope fallacy because once the writer has taken a step in a certain direction, he cannot then stop and close the topic simply. So, the writer exaggerates the arguments in order to pave way to close the topic. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican Congressman, giving interview to Fox News said â€Å"the people are not interested in starting new businesses because they are not certain that they will gain access to the capital funds that they will require for their businesses. Moreover, there is also doubt about the tax rates. So, the people are not much in clined towards businesses.† However, the premise was just a fallacy as where the taxes that worth 700 billion dollars are being utilized by the banks if they are not lending monies to businesses. He also exaggerated the uncertainty and doubts about the tax rates which are not doubtful to this level and also not much fluctuating. Another form of fallacies is hasty generalization fallacy. Sometimes, the writer is incapable of obtaining complete information about the subject of his interest. He, despite of bothering himself to obtain complete information, makes haste and write about the topic on the basis of information he contains. The scenario becomes worse when the writer also makes conclusions on the basis of insufficient and limited evidence he holds. The hasty generalization fallacy is very common in the sense that in many cases, some people in a group are observed and then it is assumed that all the members of that particular group will behave in the manner as observed. Th e third, and rather worse, type of fallacy is ad hominem fallacy. The writer when disagreeing with the argument of an individual criticizes and pinpoints the character of the writer in spite of the argument presented by him. The intention behind this fallacy is to destroy the writer’s credibility. Once the credibility is lost, how stronger the argument is, it will lose its importance and significance. The main problem with this fallacy is that it sometimes weakens the correct argument also. A classic example of ad hominem fallacy is the discussion that took place between Michael Moore and Bill O’Reilly, a television reporter. The topic of the discussion was the necessity of war against Iraq. Moore did not discuss the topic clearly. However, he pointed out that the President Bush lied to the nation. He also said that it did not suit to the president to lie. By saying this, Moore did not specify his point of view. He only attacked the honesty and integrity of the preside nt Bush. Thus, Moore indirectly opposed the war of Iraq but did not say this directly. Another type of fallacy is the fallacy of relevance which causes flaws in the interrelation of premises and information with the conclusions. This is same to some extent to ad hominem fallacy. In ad hominem fallacy, the integrity f the person is attacked falsely while in fallacy of relevance the information and conclusions are interrelated wrongly. So, both these fallacies include the interrelation of information and c