If I were to say, “There are two kinds of people in Sandpoint – those who love the Reader and those who can’t read.” Just because someone can read doesn’t mean they will love the Reader. It’s basically an oversimplifying of options meant to manipulate and polarize the audience into two camps: those who agree and are heroized, and those who don’t agree, who are demonized.ĭon’t get me wrong – there are many instances where there are only two options to an issue.Īn example of a false dilemma fallacy: If I were to say, “Either the Sandpoint Reader is the best newspaper in town, or it isn’t,” that would be a true dilemma since there are really only two options to choose from – either the Reader is the best or it isn’t. And I will tell you, I will take care of ISIS.”Įxplanation: Instead of addressing the comments he made on the tape, Trump diverted the attention of the argument by changing the topic, quite abruptly, to how he would defeat ISIS.Īlso referred to as a false dichotomy, a false dilemma fallacy occurs when a speaker limits the options for an outcome to just two when there are more options to choose from. ISIS happened a number of years ago in a vacuum that was left because of bad judgment. Her son yells back, “I saw you smoking cigarettes in the kitchen last night! You’re not supposed to do that.”Ī real world example of a red herring: When asked about lewd comments Trump made on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, President Trump responded: “It’s locker room talk, and it’s one of those things. Trainers would drag a smelly smoked herring across the path of a dog to throw off its scent.Īn example of a red herring fallacy: A mom comes home from work and yells at her son to clean his room. The term comes from an antiquated technique for training or distracting hunting dogs. The tactic is useful as a form of distraction from the issue at hand. Red herring is a type of logical fallacy that misdirects an argument through the introduction of irrelevant information. This week, we’ll cover red herring, false dilemma, circular argument and hasty generalizations. Catch up at Red Herring

Last week we discussed slippery slope, ad hominem and straw man fallacies. This is the second part of the “How to Argue” series where we take a look at logical fallacies, which are errors in reasoning that undermine the logic of an argument.

Red herring logical fallacy trump