10 Logical Lies

(Continued from EdWorld At Home)

1. Ad Hominem / Ad Populum

Ad Hominem means attacking the person, not the point the person is making.

"You can't talk about what to do about poverty because you've never been poor."

It may be true that you've never been poor, but, no, that doesn't mean you can't have a valuable opinion or an important idea about how to reduce poverty.

Ad Populum, which is the "flip side" of Ad Hominem, means saying that something is good because it's popular.

"What's wrong with smoking? – 40 million Americans still do it!"

Go Back to the List of Logical Lies

Education World®
Copyright © 2007 Education World