Top Ten Ways I Know It Isn't a Discussion. . .

[Originally offered for consideration to a middle school logic class in 2002.]

With Apologies to David Letterman.

Top Ten ways I know it is no longer a discussion, but soon about to become a conflict.

It is now an argument in the worst sense, not in the best sense. Reason has now given way to resentment. Perhaps best to walk away, offering all due respect, until cooler heads prevail!

As always, your mileage may vary. . .

1) Equivocation: You define a certain word, to mean a certain thing, and another then uses it in a completely different way. "You speak of justice for all men, so you deny it to all women!" Commonly united to The Red Herring.

2) Ad Hominem: Attacking the person instead of the argument. "What could an ignorant racist like you know about justice anyway?"

3) The Red Herring: Distracting from the matter at hand, and redirecting the question to something quite different. "Yes, you may say you want world peace, but what about that time you stole a cookie from your little sister back in kindergarten?"

4) Hasty Generalization: Coming to a universal statement from only limited particulars. "I've never met a cop I could trust!"

5) Appeal to Authority: Replacing evidence with the force of of institutional power. "How dare you! Don't you know our President told us that all the dolphins on Earth will die within three years?"

6) Appeal to Popularity:Replacing evidence with the force of whatever is commonly accepted. "Everyone believes that clowns are evil, so we should close all circuses!"

7) Appeal to Pity: Replacing evidence with sentiment. "Will somebody please think about the poor suffering children!" A form of the broader Appeal to Emotion at the expense of reason.

8) Appeal to Ignorance: Insisting, without any further argument, that nothing about the question can ever be answered. "Who's to say what's right and what's wrong?"

Often joined together with Begging the Question, assuming the conclusion in the premises. "Of course we can't know God, because God is unknowable!"

Absolutely most clever when also combined with Ad Hominem. "You clueless idiot! How can there be a moral law, or a God, if such foolish hopes are just the illusions of those who wish to crush us under their heels?" Ah, Good Stuff!

9) Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: After this, therefore because of this. "My Grandma died of liver failure, and that was just after she had a beer!" A favorite of statisticians and politicians, who easily confuse correlation with causation.

10) Straw Man: Claiming someone else said something they never actually said. "I am grateful to my opponent for saying that he supports imprisoning criminals, since he admits that he supports concentration camps and genocide."

Also works well with Hyperbole, the exaggeration of any claim, and Slippery Slope, the assumption that one seemingly innocent action will necessarily lead to far worse consequences.

There are many more, but these are the ones you may well run across most often in daily conversation.

In the end, though, nothing is worse all around than an invalid syllogism, using false premises: