Welcome to the Logical Fallacy Podcast, presented by Dr. Bo Bennett, author of Logically Fallacious. This is podcast where we look at logical fallacies in everyday use. Join the Logically Fallacious community at logicallyfallacious.com.
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This is a crash course, meant to catapult you into a world where you start to see things how they really are, not how you think they are. The focus of this course is on logical fallacies, which loosely defined, are simply errors in reasoning. As you complete each lesson, you can make significant improvements in the way you reason and make decisions. Your ability to recognize bad arguments will be enhanced as well as your ability to articulate why an argument is bad. This is the audio version ...
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Welcome to the wonderful world of psychology! This podcast is the audio segment of the course at http://www.introtopsych.com. It comprises the topics found to be most important based on a survey of 761 introductory psychology teachers at 490 schools (Miller & Gentile, 1998). These topics include introduction/methods, neuroscience, sensation/perception, learning, memory, thinking/intelligence, developmental psychology, personality, social psychology, and abnormal psychology. In addition, I ha ...
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When I was a teenager, I had an unquenchable thirst for motivational material. I listened to these motivational gurus on cassette tapes, many of which were hilariously warped from sitting in my hot car that when played, sounded like demon-posessed chipmunks. Although I have many, many criticisms of the self-help movement in general, I did manage to…
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People like to make rules to justify their positions. This can be a form of rationalization, but more often it is an honest and conscious attempt to provide a good reason for one’s position. The problem is, very often, the rules that one creates lead to less-than-desirable consequences. To be clear, this isn’t the appeal to the consequences fallacy…
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Recently, science-fiction writer Patrick S. Tomlinson posted a question on his Twitter feed that he said he has been asking the "Life begins at Conception crowd" for decades. Ben Shapiro, American conservative political commentator, columnist, author, radio talk show host, and a lawyer, along with thousands of keyboard warriors around the world, of…
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The interesting thing about conspiracy theories is that some of them are actually true. This gives all conspiracy theories a hint of legitimacy in that no matter how ridiculous a theory might sound; there is a chance that it could be true. But as I have said before, reason is not about possibility; it is about probability. It is not about the outco…
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I received this question a while back, and thought it was worth reviving it.How do I respond to presuppositionalist’s claim that circular logic is not fallacious? Because presuppositionalists say that since every worldview commits this fallacy. It leads to the absurd conclusion that every worldview is invalid (I am applying the principle of charity…
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I remember a bit from one of my favorite comedians, Eddie Murphy, in his video titled Raw. Without getting nearly as graphic as Eddie or being nearly as funny, I will paraphrase the joke: he talks about how a woman gets to be so enamored with a man that she can catch him in bed with another woman "butt-naked," then storm out of the room. When she c…
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A question was asked recently about women, rape, and responsibility. Paraphrasing, the argument went something like this:Women have some responsibility in doing things to prevent rape. Women are (or at least should be) responsible for doing things that make them less of a target (being out with friends instead of being alone, not wearing extremely …
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There is a disturbing trend in the social justice movement where science, data, facts, and reason are sacrificed for ideology. Critics of the social justice movement often reject the overall ideas of social justice because of these reasoning flaws (which is problematic in itself‚Äîsee Argument from Fallacy). If you are a supporter of social justice…
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Often people form their beliefs with strong emotions. One of the best examples of this is how the anti-vaccine campaigns win support by connecting autistic children to vaccine use. Beliefs have both emotional and logical components. The more emotion is used, the less evidence is required for the belief to hold. This is why the appeal to emotion is …
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From an evolutionary perspective, beliefs and knowledge should be seen as the same thing‚Äîjust on different ends of the spectrum. So in this sense, knowledge can be seen as beliefs where the confidence level is very high. In this regard, we can see how beliefs would help us survive and procreate. It is important to note that the beliefs don’t have…
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If you have come across the fundamental attribution error, actor-observer bias, and the self-serving bias, you should rightfully be confused. So here is my attempt to clear these up.The fundamental attribution error is an observer bias where the actor-observer bias is an actor bias. So imagine I see you trip. Because of the fundamental attribution …
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I often see people call "fallacy" when someone makes a probabilistic statement rather than coming to a definitive conclusion based on a questionable source. For example:Person 1: I read on ConspiricyBlogs.com that our government comprises many lizard people!Person 2: That is an extremely unreliable source. Pardon me if I don’t believe in lizard peo…
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How do psychologists classify thinking and behavior as “abnormal”? In this chapter we discuss just that by looking at the. . .
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Social psychology is the study of humans as social animals, that is the way that we influence one anothers’ behavior and th. . .
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While psychologists cannot entirely agree on one definition of personality, this text uses the definition most people think o. . .
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The scientific study of biological, cognitive, social, and personality development throughout the life span is known as devel. . .
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Building on sensation and perception, learning, and memory, this chapter discusses how we think, that is how we process infor. . .
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Cognitive biases are tendencies to think in certain ways that can lead to systematic deviations from a "standard of rati. . .
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Memory is essential for life as we currently experience it, allowing us to use what we know to interpret the world. This stud. . .
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In this chapter we look at how psychologists have studied learning and what we know about how humans learn looking at how bot. . .
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To understand and live in the world around us we must first gather (sense) and then interpret (perceive) the information pres. . .
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In this chapter we look at just how the brain and nervous system are able to control nearly everything we do by starting with. . .
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In this lesson, we will go over an introduction to the course. I will give an introduction to psychology, and a summary of th. . .
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Rather than focusing on what we traditionally think of as psychology, therapy, this text seeks to highlight psychology as a s. . .
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In this final lesson, we briefly cover many different fallacies that are worthy of mention based on the frequency of their us. . .
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In this lesson we explore fallacies related to the concepts of nature and the natural, including Naturalistic Fallacy, Morali. . .
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In this lesson we will look at fallacies related to the analogy, including Weak Analogy, Non Sequitur, Extended Analogy, and . . .
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In this lesson we will look at Special Pleading. Special Pleading is applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other p. . .
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In this lesson, we focus on the Slippery Slope argument or fallacy, also known as: absurd extrapolation, thin edge of the wed. . .
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In this lesson, we cover the fallacy of the Red Herring. The Red Herring is also know as: beside the point, misdirection [fo. . .
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In this lesson, we cover fallacies associated with creating impossible standards. These include Moving the Goalposts, Nirvan. . .
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In this lesson, we cover the fallacy known as Black and White Thinking, or by its other common name, the False Dilemma. We d. . .
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In this lesson, we cover seven fallacies that are related by the use and abuse of statistics: Multiple Comparisons Fallacy, L. . .
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In this lesson, we cover three fallacies that are related: Begging the Question, Circular Reasoning, and Complex Question Fal. . .
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In this lesson we will cover the Argument From Ignorance fallacy in detail, also known as: appeal to ignorance, absence of ev. . .
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In this lesson, we cover five fallacies that are directly related to emotion: Appeal to Ridicule, Appeal to Pity, Appeal to F. . .
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In this lesson, we cover five fallacies that are directly related to authority: Anonymous Authority, Blind Authority, Just Be. . .
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In this lesson we will cover the Ambiguity Fallacy, Equivocation, and the Use-Mention Error in detail. These fallacies invol. . .
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In this lesson we will cover the Appeal to Common Belief fallacy in detail, also known as: appeal to accepted belief, groupth. . .
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In this lesson, we cover four fallacies that are directly related to religion: Appeal to Faith, Appeal to Heaven, Magical Thi. . .
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In this lesson we will cover the Ad Hominem fallacy in detail, including five common forms: Ad Hominem (Abusive), Ad Hominem . . .
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While this course is written for the layperson, I do need to introduce some concepts which may be new to you but play an impo. . .
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