Carlo fallacy whereby the roulette wheel is spinning, 12 hasn't come up in the last 38 spins of the wheel, so you assume that 12 must be due to come up, but, of course, the ball doesn't have a memory. There's no reason to suppose that even if it had a memory it would be interested in helping you to win a lot of money, so this is a complete fallacy which you might not make if you weren't committed to the idea of winning. James Franklin : Sure, sure, we all have confirmation bias that we look for evidence for what we'd like to believe and against what we don't. Still, you have got to be serious about finding the evidence on both sides. Alan Saunders : On ABC Radio National you're with The Philosopher's Zone and I'm checking out some bad arguments, or let's be balanced and say allegedly bad arguments, with James Franklin and Peter Slezak, both from The University of New South Wales. Peter, there are various styles of bad argument, and one way of arriving at a bad argument is by way of a non sequitur , where you say, 'B follows from A', and really B doesn't follow from A, and another great 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes has been accused of this, hasn't he? Tell us about that. Peter Slezak : Yes, he has. One of his most famous arguments for the existence of his soul and the distinctness of his soul