A mistake in reasoning; an argument that fails to provide adequate logical support for the truth of its conclusion, yet appears convincing or persuasive in some other way Common examples include both formal fallacies (structural errors in deductive logic) and informal fallacies (efforts to persuade by non-rational appeals) Recommended Reading: Nicholas Capaldi, The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking (Prometheus, 1987) {at Amazon com}; T Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (Wadsworth, 2000) {at Amazon com}; and Douglas Walton, A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy (Alabama, 1995) {at Amazon com} Also see OCP, ColE, FF, noesis, and GLF
A fallacy is an idea which many people believe to be true, but which is in fact false because it is based on incorrect information or reasoning. It's a fallacy that the affluent give relatively more to charity than the less prosperous
A fallacy is an attractive but unreliable piece of reasoning, or argument It looks good but upon examination it turns out to be undependable They are often divided into two kinds--formal and informal Formal fallacies include affirming the consequent and denying the antecedent Informal fallacies include begging the question, composition, division, equivocation, false cause, false dichtomy, hasty generalization, personal attack, red herring, slippery slope, straw man, weak analogy There are many other examples of bad reasoning that have been identified by logicians, but these are enough to illustrate the idea of a fallacy