Your questions answered
Everything you might want to know about logical fallacies, why they matter, and how to get your kid to spot them.
What is a logical fallacy?
A logical fallacy is a really fancy way of saying, "That's a bad argument." Nerds like to call them "errors in reasoning", but they're really just arguments that sound convincing until you take a closer look - then you find the reasoning is flawed, misleading, or just not the full picture.
A classic example is the Slippery Slope fallacy. "If you eat one Tim Tam, you'll eat the whole tray and get sick." The claim is that eating one biscuit will inevitably lead to eating the lot. It jumps from a small step to a huge, unlikely result, ignoring everything in between. That leap is what makes it a fallacy.
Why should I learn them?
Here's the truth: you're being persuaded right now. Not by us - by someone. An advertiser. A politician. A friend. A workmate. Maybe even yourself.
It's not always sinister. Most people don't even know they're doing it. But whether they know it or not, the result is the same - you end up believing something, buying something, or doing something based on reasoning that doesn't actually hold up.
That's why you should learn them.
Spotting fallacies is one of the most useful life skills there is. If you can spot a bad argument, you're far less likely to fall into someone's trap. You can say, "Hang on, that doesn't add up - can you give me a proper reason?" That's not being difficult. That's thinking for yourself.
What are the most common logical fallacies?
The bad news: there are dozens of logical fallacies - some say over a hundred.
The good news: you don't need to know them all. You just need the ones that show up again and again in everyday life - the ones being used on you right now, whether you know it or not. Those are the ones worth knowing.
How do I get my kid (or little brother) into this?
Easily - as long as you don't do it the school way. Not the way where you split fallacies into "formal" and "informal" categories. Not the way where you memorise Latin names and draw diagrams to map their structure. Nobody wants that.
And yet whenever you look fallacies up online or pick up a fallacy book - even the kid-friendly ones - they make you want to hit snooze before you've finished the first page.
That's not how we do fallacies.
How young is too young?
Around ten is the sweet spot. That's when people start seriously questioning things - and once that switch flips, it never flips back. Worth encouraging.
Are there activities or games to help learn fallacies?
Yes, plenty - but most are either too academic to be fun or too gamified to be genuinely useful.
We may be slightly biased, but we made one that's neither. It's called What's That Fallacy? - you can see all 24 cards now, and the boxed edition is coming soon.
Cognitive bias vs logical fallacy: what's the difference?
It's easy to mix them up, because they sometimes overlap - the anecdotal fallacy sounds a lot like anecdotal bias, for instance.
A simple way to tell them apart:
A logical fallacy is a flaw in something we say. A cognitive bias influences how we see things - less a flaw, more a lens.
Can learning about fallacies be fun?
Yes - the moment you strip away the academic baggage that made fallacies appeal only to nerds.
Because that's exactly what happened. The nerds got hold of fallacies and wrapped them in Latin terms, formal logic and textbooks dry enough to sand timber. They made us think fallacies were some impossibly hard concept the rest of us could never grasp. They're not.
Can an argument with fallacies still have a true conclusion?
Yes - and this is the most interesting, most overlooked thing about fallacies.
Spotting a fallacy in someone's argument doesn't mean their conclusion is wrong. It means their argument hasn't proven it yet. Those are two very different things.
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