It is sometimes called “appeal to popularity” or “argumentum ad populum” (which is Latin for the appeal to the people). In other words, if most people do or believe something, it cannot be wrong or incorrect. The bandwagon fallacy, which is especially common in the world of advertising, is based on the assumption that the opinion of the majority is always correct. “Legalizing prostitution would cause more marriages to break up, which would cause the breakdown of families, which would finally result in the destruction of civilization.”.“If we legalize gay marriage, next people will want to legalize polygamy.”.The conclusion of the argument, or the culmination of the chain of events, is seen as unacceptable and therefore it is argued that the first decision or action must be rejected. The first, seemingly unimportant event is suggested to lead to a more significant event, which leads to an even more significant event, and so on. The slippery slope fallacy, also known as “absurd extrapolation”, works by moving an argument from a sensible premise to an undesirable or extreme conclusion via a number of steps. “Three out of four yoga teachers say that stretching makes your life meaningful.”.“An environmental scientist, who has been studying climate change for several years, says that global warming is not real.Practically any celebrity endorsement in advertising could be considered as an appeal to false authority: For example, a commercial claiming that a specific brand of cereal is the best way to start the day because Tiger Woods has it for breakfast would be logically fallacious since Tiger’s expertise lies in a completely different field. As the name suggests, it refers to the use of incompetent or irrelevant authorities. If all someone does to support their arguments is to appeal to a figure of authority, and without providing sufficient evidence that the authorities are correct, it quickly becomes fallacious.Īppeal to false authority is a more specific variation of this fallacy. Andy: “We’ll go bankrupt if we spend all our money on customer support.”Īppeal to authority works by claiming that something must be true because it is backed up by someone who is (at least allegedly) an authority on the subject.Īlthough an appeal to authority is by no means always unfounded, it can be misused. It is clearly lacking behind other areas.” Jim: “I think our company should allocate a larger portion of the budget to customer support.
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