Nguyễn Thị Bốn

E
Entry 4: Argument Errors

Full name: Nguyen  Thi Bon

 Item 1:

 “John says I should quit smoking because it is bad for me. But he is practically an alcoholic so who is he to give me advice about my health”

® Analyze: Fallacy of relevance (personal attack): The arguer criticizes his friend, John that John is an alcoholic in stead of indicating his argument.

Item 2:

Source: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/post-hoc.html

Bill purchases a new PowerMac and it works fine for months. He then buys and installs a new piece of software. The next time he starts up his Mac, it freezes. Bill concludes that the software must be the cause of the freeze.

® Analyze:

The situation is a fallacy with the following form:

A occurs before B.

Therefore A is the cause of B.

Software occurs before freeze. (the PowerMac still works fine until installing the software)

Therefore software is the cause of the freeze.

This case is a fallacy of post-hoc

Item 3:

    Women earn less than men earn for doing the same work.

    Oprah Winfrey is a woman.

    Therefore, Oprah Winfrey earns less than male talk-show hosts.

® Analyze: “Women earn less than men earn for doing the same work” is an obviously false premise which causes the unsoundness of the argument.

 Therefore it is a fallacy of content.