Misrepresenting or Presuming that a real or Manipulating an emotional Presuming that because a exaggerating someone’s perceived relationship response in place of a valid or claim has been poorly argued, argument to make it easier between things means that compelling argument. or a fallacy has been made, to attack. one is the cause of the other. that it is necessarily wrong.

Asserting that if we allow Attacking your opponent’s Avoiding having to engage Saying that because one finds A to happen, then Z will character or personal traits with criticism by turning it something dicult to consequently happen too, instead of engaging with back on the accuser - understand that it’s therefore therefore A should not happen. their argument. answering them with criticism. not true.

Moving the goalposts or Asking a question that has an Saying that the burden of proof Using double meanings making up exceptions when a assumption built into it so that lies not with the person or ambiguities of language claim is shown to be false. it can’t be answered without making the claim, but with to mislead or misrepresent appearing guilty. someone else to disprove. the truth.

Believing that ‘runs’ occur to Appealing to popularity or the Using the opinion or position Assuming that what’s true Making what could be called Judging something good statistically independent fact that many people do of an authority figure, or about one part of something an appeal to purity as a way to or bad on the basis of where phenomena such as roulette something as an attempted institution of authority, in has to be applied to all, dismiss relevant criticisms or it comes from, or from wheel spins. form of validation. place of an actual argument. or other, parts of it. flaws of an argument. whom it comes.

Where two alternative states A circular argument in which Making the argument that Using personal experience or Cherry-picking data clusters Saying that a compromise, are presented as the only the conclusion is included in because something is ‘natural’ an isolated example instead of to suit an argument, or finding or middle point, between two possibilities, when in fact more the premise. it is therefore valid, justified, a valid argument, especially to a pattern to fit a presumption. extremes is the truth. possibilities exist. inevitable, or ideal. dismiss statistics.

A logical fallacy is often what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It's a flaw in reasoning. They're like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians, the media, and others to fool people. Don’t be fooled! This poster has been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head. If you see someone committing a logical fallacy online, link them to the relevant fallacy to school them in thinky awesomeness e.g. yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman. More in-depth explanations and examples of these fallacies can also be found at the website.

This poster is published under a Creative Commons No Derivative Works license 2012 by Jesse Richardson. You are free to print, copy, and redistribute this artwork, including printing and selling for profit, with the binding proviso that you reproduce it in full so that others may share alike. This poster can be downloaded as a high resolution pdf from the website for printing at various sizes.