A good analogy is a compromise between two conflicting goals: familiarity and representativeness. Good analogies are familiar. They express an abstract idea in terms of a familiar one. But a good analogy doesn’t need to be concrete, it only needs to be expressed in terms of an idea you already know deeply.

For example, “Life is a box of chocolates.” An analogy is saying something is like something else to make some sort of explanatory point. For example, “Life is like a box of chocolates—you never know what you’re gonna get.” You can use metaphors and similes when creating an analogy.

A weak analogy occurs when a person draws a comparison between two concepts, situations, or things to link them together in an argument, even though the connection between the two is not strong enough to make the case. It’s a type of fallacy or flaw that can damage an argument.

15 Common Logical Fallacies

• 1) The Straw Man Fallacy.
• 2) The Bandwagon Fallacy.
• 3) The Appeal to Authority Fallacy.
• 4) The False Dilemma Fallacy.
• 5) The Hasty Generalization Fallacy.
• 6) The Slothful Induction Fallacy.
• 7) The Correlation/Causation Fallacy.
• 8) The Anecdotal Evidence Fallacy.

Table of Contents

• Ad Hominem.
• Strawman Argument.
• Appeal to Ignorance.
• False Dilemma.
• Slippery Slope Fallacy.
• Circular Argument.
• Hasty Generalization.
• Red Herring Fallacy.

Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim.

6 Logical Fallacies That Can Ruin Your Growth

• Hasty Generalization. A Hasty Generalization is an informal fallacy where you base decisions on insufficient evidence.
• Appeal to Authority. “Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.”
• Appeal to Tradition.
• Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
• False Dilemma.
• The Narrative Fallacy.
• 6 Logical Fallacies That Can Ruin Your Growth.

This fallacy consists in diverting attention from the real issue by focusing instead on an issue having only a surface relevance to the first. Examples: Son: “Wow, Dad, it’s really hard to make a living on my salary.” Father: “Consider yourself lucky, son.

Fallacies are fake or deceptive arguments, arguments that may sound good but prove nothing. Ad Hominem Argument: Attacking the person instead of the argument. Appeal to Closure: The argument that the issue must be decided so that those involved can have “closure.”

In myriad ways, but for the sake of brevity we’ll examine seven examples of logical fallacies that should be avoided.

• Hasty Generalization.
• Ad Hominem.
• Appeal to Ignorance.
• Argument from Authority.
• Appeal to Tradition.
• Red Herring.
• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.

Circular arguments are the most well known of the so-called fallacies of reasoning or argumentation. The fallacies are traps for unwary reasoners: They might fool the inexperienced into finding them persuasive, but they do not provide sufficient reason for a claim.

One widely accepted definition defines a fallacious argument as one that either is deductively invalid or is inductively very weak or contains an unjustified premise or that ignores relevant evidence that is available and that should be known by the arguer.

Something fallacious is a mistake that comes from too little information or unsound sources. Fallacious comes ultimately from the Latin fallax, “deceptive.” The word fallacious might describe an intentional deception or a false conclusion coming from bad science or incomplete understanding.

Person A: The children’s winter concert at the school should include non-Christmas songs too. Person B: You won’t be happy until Christmas songs are banned from being played on the radio. This example of a straw man argument is related to slippery slope reasoning.

Ad Hominem (Personal Attack or Attacking the Person) The fallacy of responding to an opponent’s argument by changing the subject to the person who gave the subject, introducing the false assumption that a person of this sort cannot offer an argument worth considering.

A red herring is “an attempt to shift debate away from the issue that is the topic of an argument” (Groarke & Tindale; p. 66). Basically, a red herring is an objection to a position that doesn’t address the actual argument.

A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important question. It may be either a logical fallacy or a literary device that leads readers or audiences toward a false conclusion.

Generalization, in psychology, the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. For example, a dog conditioned to salivate to a tone of a particular pitch and loudness will also salivate with considerable regularity in response to tones of higher and lower pitch.

The term non sequitur refers to a conclusion that isn’t aligned with previous statements or evidence. For example, if someone asks what it’s like outside and you reply, “It’s 2:00,” you’ve just used a non sequitur or made a statement that does not follow what was being discussed. …

Examples of Oversimplification. Here is an example of oversimplification that atheists often hear: School violence has gone up and academic performance has gone down since video games featuring violence where introduced. Therefore, segregation should be reintroduced, resulting in school improvement.