Five Fallacious Follies
1) Overgeneralizations: Generally Speaking
Overlygen’ralized
by a brain undersized,
beset by tsetse flies
most of the time,
meant he would only see,
stereotypically,
vague generality;
logic subprime.
2) Straw Man: A Load of Bull
“Straw Man, Straw Man, have you any wool?”
“No ma’am, no ma’am, just some bull.
But, if you tell me that’s what you need,
I’ll argue fervently this point, indeed:
‘Sheared sheep can’t sleep—don’t you hear their cries!’
I’ll pull the wool over both your eyes.”
3) Ad Hominem: When You Don’t Have Sticks and Stones
Add hominem grits to your argument’s bits
(instead of attacking with facts when they’re lacking)
to sink the foundation of someone’s creation,
of what they believe when they hope to achieve
your agreement with truth when they tell you “Forsooth,
there is nothing more true—it’s too bad that your view
has gone gangly awry. You’ll agree, by and by,
that your thoughts are mistaken; the road you have taken
is not the right path and is worthy of wrath.
Attend to my pleas and you’ll soon find with ease
my position, once taken, can never be shaken.”
Such confidence hastens advance of your caissons,
artillery carried ensuring they’re buried
with onslaughts well-aimed so opponents are maimed,
but if armory parries each arrow which carries
the poisonous darts of your oration’s arts,
strike not at their notion, don’t test their devotion,
but take a new tack in your form of attack:
consider their vanity, hamstring their sanity,
use the occasion to bring your persuasion
to challenge their person, see countenance worsen!
Don’t counter their claims, but instead, call them names.
4) Post Hoc: Wherefores and Therefores
Because of random circumstance,
statistics may appear to dance
not only by mere happenstance
but post hoc, ergo propter.
Hence unrelated incidents,
though often just coincidence,
may be declared as evidence:
eventualities.
So let false argument advance,
to put opponents in a trance—
that this occurred not just by chance;
ipse dixit opter.
Oil imported from Norway
will chart like deaths by railway.
No connection, not hearsay—
just strange realities.
So, when explaining facts you use
take extra care so you’ll confuse
those who use truth to disabuse
your argument impropter.
5) Red Herring: Misdirect to Best Effect
(after “When The Foeman Bares His Steel”
by Gilbert and Sullivan in “Pirates of Penzance”)
When opponents bare their steel,
and their logic makes you reel,
then perhaps the wisest thing
is to misdirect the sting.
When you fear that you have lost
and your argument’s been tossed,
there’s nothing brings you round
like a loud and raucous sound
that makes people run around.
Send them after misplaced clues;
give them unrelated news,
gently redirect their views
in the hopes they won’t accuse
any faulty argument,
what it might misrepresent,
because when your case is weak,
you should never let it speak,
but just give the facts a tweak.