FAULTY CONSTRUCTION: ILLOGICAL OR UNSOUND WAYS OF ARGUING

Some arguments and positions have basic weaknesses in their
construction. We should be able to identify them clearly. Here are
some of them:

HASTY GENERALISATION

Generalisations, based on much learning and research, are what allow
great civilisations to flourish: people are able to built upon each
others work. If we make a generalization on a representative sampling,
we are likely to make a sound generalisation.
However, generalisations based on a few unrepresentative sampling are
likely to be faulty. If someone says, " both billy and Terry Walsh
were on the first string basketball team; therefore both of their
younger brothers will probably also be stars" this person has jumped
into conclusion. The generalisation is based only on two examples.
Besides, human beings are too complex to be reduced to many
generalisations: they often differ as much as within family as not.
By hasty generalisations, then, we mean arguing that what is true for
one or more particular cases is true for all cases without exception.

MISTAKING THE CAUSE

When two things happen at the same time, we sometimes say one caused
the other. While this is correct in some cases, in others it is not.
For ex., if a skin outbreak disappears after a young person has used a
certain product advertised to eliminate skin blemishes, is it *
necessarily* the product that has cleared up the skin? What about
special attention she/he may be paying to other important factors
( diet, exercise, sleep, frequent changes of bed linen, etc)? Each of
these things may be major or minor causes for the effect that has been
produced.
Cause-effect relationship can explain many things but it can be
dangerous to ascribe cause to an effect without serious and careful
examination.

FALSE ANALOGY

An analogy is relationship between two things which are similar in
many, though not in all respects. In logic, one assumes that if two
things are similar in one or more respect, they will be similar in
other respects. Arguing by analogy can sometimes quickly clarify a
question or heighten our awareness of issue, but false analogies can
be hard to pinpoint and often difficult to refute.
Because analogies often catch the imagination, they can be very
persuasive devices. If however, an analogy is not useful in furthering
discussion, you need not refute every point using terms of the
analogy- it may be that analogy was false one to begin with.

IGNORING THE QUESTION

Ignoring the question is avoiding or missing the real matter to be
discussed. If the question is ; Resolves, that the students should
receive credit for participation in the camera club; and the debater
spends all his/her time proving that extra curricular activity is
valuable to students and improves their ability to get along with each
other, this person is ignoring question, since many extra -curricular
activities can be valuable to students _ basketball, organising dance,
part time jobs, etc.
The historian Macaulay criticise this fallacy of arguing beside the
point when he says, " Th e advocates of Charles I, like the advocates
of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced,
generally decline all controversy about the facts, and content them
selves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private
virtues!...A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for
fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood ! "
Another common way of ignoring question is cracking jokes instead of
dealing with argument seriously. This can often distract listener, or
make other person look stupid or pedantic for sticking to the point.
Appealing to tradition or prejudice are other ways of ignoring the
question.

BEGGING THE QUESTION

When people beg the question they are assuming the truth or falsity of
what they are trying to prove. When person argues that someone is not
a great blues singer because there are no great blues singers alive
today, s/he is assuming the truth or validity of larger statement
which includes the one he started to prove. and hence is begging the
question. When editorialist says, " The disgraceful and pointless
practice of strikes must be put to an end," s/he is assuming strikes
are disgraceful and pointless, instead of trying to prove them to be
so, and therefore is begging the question. One to go almost unnoticed.
For example, "Rightly or wrongly, the company has threatened to pull
out of the area if it does not get concessions from government.
Therefore we should pressure Members of Parliament to see that company
gets them"
The way it works, in grammatical terms, is to place major assumption
in a minor part of the sentence: the question being begged (namely,
whether company will pull out) is a dependent clause and the principal
clause, the main focus (that is, we should pressure government to give
company what it wants) remains uncontroversial.

ATTACKING THE PERSON NOT ARGUMENT

Also known as ad hominem arguments, these statements attack the person
rather then arguments s/he presents. They are not reasoning
statements.
For example, " When you are a little older, you'll get little less
idealistic and little more realistic"

POINTING TO AN ENEMY

A successful technique often used by skilled politicians is to deflect
criticism from themselves by pinpointing an enemy. In this way they
can claim to be *for* something and *against* something else (the
enemy)In the extreme, the rise of Fascism and Nazism in 1920 and 30s
was in large part due to manipulative skills of it's leaders, who
blamed the real hardships of people on unreal, or fabricated 'enemies'
- Jews, Gypsies or other political parties.

MISUSING STATISTICS

Disrael once said, " There are lies, there are damned lies, and there
are statistics" People often use statistics to "prove" statements that
the figures do not prove at all: this may be a cause of carelessness,
simple inaccuracy, or yet again downright dishonesty. Though they can
be very useful, statistics must be used carefully and in moderation.
Even the most painstakingly done statistics surveys must be examined
closely, because it is not always possible to describe reality
accurately by reducing it to numbers. A survey or opinion poll should
never be the sole basis on which you make a decision.

MESHING FACT WITH OPINIONS

Sometimes fact is presented with the same emphasis as opinion, so that
opinion takes on some credibility of the fact. This is related to
Begging the question and other categories, but deserves special
attention.
What is fact and what is opinion in the following sentence?
"South Africa is being overrun by communists"
What does the verb canote? What do the nouns denote?

Next: TRICKS OF TRADE: INTETIONAL DISTORTIONS

Source: ' Between the Lines" Eleanor MacLean