If you allow your kids to stay up past their bedtime tonight, they’ll stay up late every night.

Real Americans eat meat. If you don’t, you’re not American.

This healing herb that I grow in my backyard is obviously better than any synthetic medicine.

The above arguments are all examples of informal logical fallacies - slippery slope, no true scotsman and appeal to nature, respectively.

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning in which the premise doesn’t passably support the conclusion. Whether appealing to emotion, shooting down a strawman or begging the question, you’ve probably heard these debate shortcuts used by friends, family, politicians, and (if you can admit it) yourself.

We want to hear from you. Which logical fallacies do you hear most often? Are you guilty of relying on any logical fallacies? Which of these flaws in reasoning bothers you most?

Here is a graphic of various logical fallacies:

From: yourlogicalfallacyis.com by Southern California Public Radio on Scribd

Guest:

Foad Dizadji-Bahmani, professor of philosophy at Cal State Los Angeles; his areas of research are the philosophy of science and physics; he also teaches logic and critical thinking