LOGIC ASSIGNMENT #7

Name______

Identify the fallacy of relevance in the examples below. Choose among the following: Ad Hominem, Ad Populum, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Ignorance, Appeal to Pity, Tu Quo.

1. Why are you bothering to read Bertrand Russell’s writings on ethics? Don’t you know that he’s an atheist?

2. I can certainly understand why you’re so opposed to pornography, Mary. After all, nobody wants to see you in Playboy!

3. I don’t believe in evolution. My pastor says that evolution is refuted by the gaps in the fossil records.

4. How can you tell us that it’s wrong for us to plagiarize on our term paper when you plagiarized in the second chapter of your dissertation?

5. People shouldn’t be allowed to live a homosexual lifestyle because it offends the sensibilities of all right-thinking Americans.

6. Of course gun ownership helps to reduce crime. The N.R.A.’s been telling us this for years.

7. How can you support animal experimentation? Just think of all those adorable puppies and bunnies that get brutally tormented.

8. I don’t see anything wrong with eating meat. Sure, I’ll admit that the animals suffer some, but eating meat is natural. People have been eating meat for millennia.

9. You can say what you like, but I still think that there’s life on other planets. You can’t prove that there isn’t.

10. I don’t believe a word that Martin Luther says. I mean, he fornicated with nuns! How can I believe what he says about God and faith?