Fallacies are naturally-occurring reasoning failures. They're loopholes in our minds. They're considered undesireable because they can lead us to make wrong conclusions about things.
We can learn to recognize them as we make them, and thus avoid acting on them, through more formal exposure, such as this website. In fact, fallacy recognition is the main purpose of critical reasoning, and therefore this website.
There are hundreds of fallacies. However, some are more common than others, so I won't discuss obscure ones. Also, they fall into some general categories, so I'm lumping some slightly different varieties under one name.
premises that may or may not be true, but regardless, are not related to the argument:
red herring,
abusive ad hominem,
bandwagon,
burden of proof,
poisioning the well,
circumstantial ad hominem,
tu coque,
genetic argument,
guilt by association,
naturalistic fallacy,
relativist argument,
appeal to common practice,
appeal to pity,
appeal to force,
appeal to questionable authority,
appeal to populatiry,
appeal to tradition,
appeal to novelty,
appeal to ridicule,
appeal to ignorance,
appeal to wealth or poverty,
appeal to provincialism.
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premises that are relevant, but dubious:
sweeping generalization,
vagueness,
ambiguity,
confusing necessary and sufficient criteria,
question begging,
loaded term,
black and white thinking,
inconsistency,
no true scotsman.
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conclusions that do not follow from the premises:
gambler's fallacy,
hasty generalization,
strawperson,
faulty analogy,
middle ground,
neglect of relevant evidence,
sample bias,
selection bias,
confirmation bias,
corrupt continuum,
reasoning from correlation to cause,
confusing necessary with sufficient criteria,
confusing cause and effect,
oversimplification,
post hoc reasoning,
neglect of common cause,
slippery slope.
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