| Fallacy | Affirming the consequent |
|---|---|
| Definition and Examples | if A, then B; B, therefore A. -If there were a patriarchy (conspiracy) controlling society, we would see women not able to get equal pay, mass marketing campaigns sexualizing women, rape occurring across society--instilling fear in women, etc. -We do see all these iniquities/injustices happening to women, so there must be a conspiratorial patriarchy pulling the strings. If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then he is rich. Bill Gates is rich, therefore Bill Gates owns Fort Knox If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat. I have a sore throat.Therefore, I have the flu. If taxes are lowered, I will have more money to spend. I have more money to spend. Therefore, taxes must have been lowered. If the mill were polluting the river then we would see an increase in fish deaths. And fish deaths have increased. Thus, the mill is polluting the river. Another example: If I have the flu, then I have a sore throat. I have a sore throat. Therefore, I have the flu Formally, the logic goes: If P, then Q. Q. Therefore, P. This is a fallacy because P was never asserted as the only sufficient condition for Q; other factors could also account for Q. You might have a sore throat because you smoked forty cigarettes last night, so you’d be wrong to conclude that you had the flu on the basis of your inflamed throat. I realised, as I’m sure many have before me, that the logic can be represented with the following circles: According to the logic of this diagram, someone with the flu will always have a sore throat (as you can see by the flu circle being fully contained within the sore throat circle), but someone with a sore throat may—or may not—have the flu. Omitted from this picture are the infinitely many other sore-throat causing circles, such as “having smoked forty cigarettes”, and “swallowing cheesy pizza before it was cool”. You can also envisage that if a flu sometimes caused a sore throat but sometimes didn’t, then a proportion of the flu circle would not overlap with the sore throat circle. |
Tags: fallacies, logic
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