That is, an argument must be true if it cannot be proven false, and if it cannot be proven false, it must be true. This logical fallacy is based on the assumption that if we cannot prove something, it must be true or false. “Everyone is buying the new iPhone that’s coming out this weekend.It must be the best fast food restaurant.” “Mc’donalds has served 100 billion people in the world.For instance, people used to believe that the sun was orbiting the earth and not the other way around, but this obviously wasn’t true.įurthermore, the name “bandwagon” comes from the times when politicians used to ride through the streets as part of their political campaigns, and people who supported that politician would jump on their bandwagon. It’s a fallacy because it offers the appeal instead of making a valid argument it only shows that something is popular without taking into account that people may well be mistaken or deceived. 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. “Tree-huggers” are dumb because they think plants have feelings and are more important than humans.”. The straw man argument, like ad hominem, is a common occurrence in politics and debates on any controversial topic. The distorted version is unrelated or only remotely related to the original claim, and may be oversimplified, exaggerated, taken out of context, or focus only on a specific aspect of the argument. Person B attacks the distorted version. Person B creates a distorted version of the claim. In fact, they attack an argument the opponent doesn’t really hold in order to ridicule or disproof their claims. The straw man occurs when someone attacks a distorted version of the original argument that they have themselves created (i.e “the straw man”). Jim: “Well, you’re a thief and a criminal, so there goes your argument.”. Caitlyn: “All murderers are criminals, but thieves aren’t murderers, so they can’t be criminals.”. 
As such, ad hominem is considered a logical fallacy because, in reality, insults and other verbal attacks do nothing to disprove the substance of the actual being made.
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