Fallacy

## Ad Hominem

This means "argument against the debater, not the point". It is when you rebut an opponent's argument by insulting them instead of their argument.

**Note:** There is a difference between an ad hominem and a plain insult. Saying "Your arguments are wrong because you're a fanboy" is an ad hominem, but simply saying "You're stupid" is not a fallacy.

## Straw Man

This is when one person corrupts an opponent's argument into something different, a "straw man" that they set up just to knock it down.

**Example:**

1. **A:** Xeno Goku is so fast, he would easily blitz Rimuru.
2. **B:** Goku isn't even light speed bro.

A never said Xeno Goku was light speed, B is making that up to make Person A's argument look dumb.

**Note:** This is a very simple example, usually straw men are much harder to spot than this.

## Burden of Proof Fallacy

This is when someone attempts to make someone else prove a claim when the burden of proof is really on them to prove it. The burden of proof is always on the positive claim, and the person who makes the claim.

**Example:** "Creative Mode Steve solos fiction because you can't prove he's not!"

In this case, the person in the example makes a claim (Steve solos fiction), and without providing evidence for it himself, he asks his opponent to prove him wrong. In reality, the person who made that claim would be the one required to prove it.

## Appeal to Motive

This is when someone attempts to rebut an argument by speculating on what ulterior motives the person making the argument might have, instead of addressing the argument itself.

**Example:** "You think Crimson-Masked Saiyan could easily kill Ultimate Madoka because you hate lolis + you're Zamasu fanboy!"

In this case, the person is not actually debating and is only attempting to invalidate his opponent's argument based on a possible motive.

## Appeal to Popularity

This is when someone claims that if more people think one thing than another thing, then the one supported by the majority is correct.

**Example:** "Saitama has more vote than the One Above All, so Saitama is stronger".

The person in this example is ignoring any actual evidence and facts and just basing his reasoning on what the majority of people said.

## Circular reasoning

This is when someone's conclusion is buried in their premise.

**Example:** "Luffy is faster than Gai because One Piece characters are faster than Naruto characters".

The premise here (One Piece characters are faster than Naruto characters) is simply stated as if you should be expected to just accept it, and the conclusion is only true if the premise is true.

## Non-Sequitur

This is when someone's conclusion is not implied at all by the premise.

**Example:** "Goku leaves afterimages, therefore Goku is faster than light".

The person in this example starts with a true premise (Goku leaves afterimages), but then jumps to a conclusion which is in no way implied by that premise (Goku is FTL).

## Red Herring

This is when someone attempts to rebut an argument by bringing up a completely unrelated point, a "Red herring", to lure his opponent away from the real point of the argument.

**Example:** "Even though Ichigo deflected over a million of Byakuya's Senbonzakura petals using his Bankai speed, he still couldn't really beat Byakuya."

This argument's claim (Ichigo didn't really defeat Byakuya, it was more like a tie) is true, but that is irrelevant to the point of the opponent's argument (to show Ichigo's speed). Therefore it's not a real refutation of the argument.

## Association Fallacy

This is when someone claims that since A has certain qualities, and B is in some way associated with A, then B has those qualities as well, without actual proof of this.

**Example:** "Many Naruto ninjas use genjutsu. Therefore Gai knows genjutsu as well."

While this could be possible, there is no confirmation, and merely because other ninjas know it doesn't mean he does.

## Argument from Ignorance

This is when someone states that since there is insufficient evidence of something, it cannot possibly be true.

**Example:** "I've never heard of an anime characters who is stronger than Goku, so therefore Goku must be the strongest character in all of anime."

The person in this example states that since they do not know of something personally, it cannot exist.

**Note:** This fallacy is often invoked improperly, because there's a big difference between stating "There is no evidence of A, so A cannot possibly be true" (which would be a fallacy) and "There is no evidence of A, so we cannot assume A to be true" (which is correct logic).

## Argument from Incredulity

This is similar to the argument from ignorance, except it is based on the fact that the person in question cannot personally believe something.

**Example:** "Females are weaker than males so no anime girl characters can defeat Son Goku"

The person in this example asserts that since he personally does not believe something, then it cannot be true.

## Argument from Belief

This is when someone states that they personally believe something to be true, without providing any actual evidence.

**Example:** "It's my opinion that Saitama solos fiction, you can not debunk that haha."

The person in this example states that because he believes something, it should be assumed to be true, without any actual evidence.

## Appeal to Emotion

This type of argument takes many forms, but the general idea is that it works on a person's feelings to try to make them see one choice as preferable over another.

**Example:** "Naruto ninjas can obviously dodge bullets, what kind of fantasy shounen characters would they be if they couldn't?"

This is an appeal to wishful thinking. The person says a claim must be true because it's what he wants to be true.

There are more forms of this argument, but that's all I'll cover for now.

## Appeal to Tradition

This is when someone claims that an argument must be true because it's the way things have always been done previously, or the thing that people always believed before.

**Example:** "There can't be a Naruto character that can beat Luffy, because it's always been known that Naruto characters are no match for him."

The person in this example doesn't actually try debating the Naruto character vs. Luffy, he just says that Luffy wins because he's always won previously against Naruto characters.

## Equivocation

This is when someone uses two different meanings of a word to imply something that isn't necessarily true.

**Example:** "Touhou follows String Theory because the Brane Cosmology is mentioned."

This argument assumes that the word "brane" in the context means the Brane Cosmology, when that is not necessarily true.

## No Limits Fallacy

This is when someone states that because something has not demonstrated any limits (or only certain limits) then it has none (or only the ones demonstrated).

**Example:** "Rimuru is immune to all forms of physical attack, energy based attacks and all spiritual attacks so Xeno Goku has no way to even harm him."

The person in this argument holds Rimuru's ability to be absolute truth, ignoring the possibility that Xeno Goku can seal his ability or his AP is far higher than Rimuru.

## Undistributed Middle

This is a fallacy where someone makes an argument of the following form: "All contents of set A are also contents of set B. X is in set B. Therefore X is in set A." The opposite would be true, though.

**Example:** "Beerus said Hakai did not work against immortals, so Beerus can not kill any immortals."

This argument ignores the fact that Beerus just stated Zamasu's immortality, not other immortalities.

## The Fallacy Fallacy

This is when people assume that because their opponent has committed a logical fallacy, their argument must therefore be wrong.

**Example** "Your argument looks like Appeal to Motive Fallacy so the argument is false"

## Argument from Anecdotal Evidence

This is when someone tells a story of something that happened to them or another person, and it cannot be confirmed, but they expect it to prove something.

**Example:** "I once watched a nature show where a lion killed a pack of hyenas, therefore a lion could beat a pack of hyenas in a fight".

This argument simply recounts a story that may or may not be true, and the person in question expects it to count as evidence of their point of view. Even if the story was true, it does not necessarily mean that that is the way it will always happen, it could have been a statistical anomaly. In addition, there may have been other factors in play that the person neglected to mention (for example, the Hyenas may have been sick or injured before the fight started).

## Proof by Example

This type of fallacy involves someone citing one example of something as proof of a general rule.

**Example:** "Deidara defeated the Sanbi Bijuu, therefore he will always win a fight against a Bijuu, even the full nine - tails Kyuubi."

The person ignores the fact that this could have been a statistical anomaly, and that it doesn't necessarily hold true all the time.

## Affirming the Consequence

This fallacy takes the form of presenting a conclusion that would logically follow from a premise, and then asserting that since the conclusion is true, the premise must be true also.

**Example:** "If One Piece characters could move faster than sound, then it would be difficult for people to see them move. Since fast One Piece characters seem to disappear, then they move faster than sound."

This argument ignores the possibility that characters could be difficult to track even if they moved below sound speed.

## Denying the Antecedent

The opposite of the previous fallacy, this is when someone presents a conclusion that logically follows from a premise, and then asserts that since the premise is false, the conclusion must also be false.

**Example:** "In *Death Battle!*, Reverse-Flash easily killed Goku Black, so Goku Black is fucking weak"

This argument ignores the fact that while Goku Black is strong, Reverse-Flash is simply faster than him.

## Biased Sample

This is when a statistical survey only takes into consideration a sample of people or entities that are biased towards the conclusion. This only applies to matters of opinion and subjectivity, because even if the sample wasn't biased, this would not be an effective argument for an objective claim due to the appeal to popularity fallacy.

**Example:** "Everyone on that forum says that the PS3 is way better than the Wii."

What the person in the example is neglecting to mention is that the forum he's referring to is a Sony - centric forum populated mainly by Sony fans.

## Half - Truth

This is when someone presents a piece of evidence, but only presents some of it, ignoring critical factors that would cast the evidence in a whole different light, and would not necessarily support the person's conclusion.

**Example:** "Xeno Goku was beaten by Goku, so he is far weaker than Zeno".

What the person in this example fails to mention is that Goku is in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, not Dragon Ball Super.

## Hasty Generalization

This is an argument where someone takes an insufficient amount of evidence and attempts to form a conclusion from it, while ignoring or not being aware of contradictory evidence.

**Example:** "Flash has been tagged by people without super - speed in the past. Therefore, anyone, even if they don't have super speed, can tag him."

This person ignores all the times people both with and without super speed were unable to tag the Flash, or were defeated by him.

## Misleading Vividness

This argument is similar to proof by example, but instead of simply citing an example, it describes the example in vivid detail, which makes people more likely to pay attention to it and think it is significant.

**Example:** "Flash isn't fast! He was tagged by Grodd, who grabbed his leg from behind, pulled him away, and bit into his leg!"

All of those details weren't necessary, and they don't do anything to logically advance the argument, but they do play on people's emotions to make them think this is a more significant occurrence.

## Package Deal

This is when someone claims that since A is true, and A is usually (but not necessarily) associated with B, then B is also true.

**Example:** "Samurai Deeper Kyo characters can move faster than light. That means they can also travel through time."

This argument assumes that since FTL speed and time travel are often interrelated, then they must be in this case, even if there is no evidence of this.

## False Dichotomy

This is when someone claims that there are only a certain amount of options, and if all but one are false, then the other must be true. This ignores the possibility of other options.

**Example:** "Lightning travels at relativistic speed. If lightning is heading towards you, either you can't move that fast and you'll be hit, or you can move that fast and you can block or dodge it. Nami blocked Enel's lightning in the Skypeia arc, so therefore Nami can move at relativistic speed."

The person in this example ignores the possibility that Nami could have seen Enel powering up his attack before he actually fired it and set up her defense in advance.

## Correlation Implies Causation

This type of argument claims that since A is associated with B, then A causes B.

**Example:** "Afterimages, blurry images, and speed lines usually are used in manga and comics to denote speed. Therefore, anything drawn with afterimages and blurry effects must be moving very fast."

This argument ignores the possibility that the said effects were added for some other reason, or that they are simply there to exaggerate the object's movement rather than to imply vast supernatural speed.

## Post Hoc Ergo Prompter Hoc

Usually abbreviated to just "post hoc", this fallacy happens when someone assumes that since two events occur in sequence, the first one must be the cause of the second one.

**Example:** "Luffy wore an afro when he fought Foxy. Luffy beat Foxy. Therefore, the afro gave him the power to win."

This argument ignores any other possible explanations for Luffy's victory, such as the fact that Luffy was simply stronger and tougher.

## Poisoning the Well

This is similar to ad hominem, except it is directed against other observers instead of your opponent. You say that there is something objectionable about a person, therefore people shouldn't listen to their arguments.

**Example:** "Person A is known for being a biased DBS fanboy, therefore you shouldn't listen to him when he says DBS Goku is Low Multiversal."

Whether or not this accusation is true, it has no merit on the actual arguments being presented.

## Fallacy of Accident

This is when someone uses a general rule to justify something when that thing is in fact an exception.

**Example:** "In a fight, the faster character usually wins. Goku can move faster than the Flash by using Instant Transmission, therefore he will win."

This ignores the fact that instant transmission is a special case: While it does allow the user to arrive at a destination faster than the Flash would in a race (if both of them started at the same time), it ignores the fact that IT is teleportation, not true speed, requires locking onto a ki signature, needs time for thought to activate it, and cannot change destination or react to attacks in between the origin and destination point.

## Reverse Fallacy of Accident

This is similar to the previous fallacy, except it works in reverse - a person attempts to use an exception to overturn a rule.

**Example:** "Logia characters in One Piece can't be harmed by physical attacks. Therefore all One Piece characters are immune to physical attacks."

## Ad Hominem tu Quoque

This is a variation of the ad hominem fallacy where a person dismisses his opponent's argument by claiming that his opponent engages in the same type of practice.

**Example:**

Person A: "It was never stated that Buu's power level was 29 billion, that's a lie."

Person B: "Well you lied when you said that Post-Crisis Superman lifted many planets by himself!"

Even if person B is right and person A did lie about that, that doesn't mean that person's B's lie about Buu's power level should just be accepted. Two wrongs don't make a right, after all.

## Fallacy of Composition

This is when someone states that if a certain condition is true for A, then it must also be true for any larger set that A is a part of.

**Example:** "Naruto can beat any given One Piece character. Therefore he can beat all One Piece characters at once."

## Fallacy of Division

This is the opposite of the previous fallacy, when someone asserts that since a system has a certain property, then all components of that system must also have this property.

**Example:** "The Dragon Ball verse is stronger than the Narutoverse. Therefore any Dragon Ball character can solos Narutoverse."

This argument ignores that the ability to defeat the Narutoverse comes from the combined powers of all the OP characters, not one property that they all share.

## Argumentum ad Verbosium

This is when someone makes a claim and writes a long, often repetitive essay in order to prove it, when they really do not have very strong evidence whatsoever and are just trying to make their opponent accept their claim by barraging him with long, drawn - out writing.

**Example:** "Ultimate Madoka solo Dragon Ball include Xenoverse and Heroes, because Madoka became the entire Multiverse which is infinite, and you know, Zeno is just High Universal at best, also the lack of hax in DBVerse make them so weak... etc"

You can see the person is trying to just exhaust his opponent with tons of words and unnecessary verbosity instead of arguing the actual points.

## Figure of Speech

This is when a person confuses a saying which is not meant to be literal, with a literal meaning.

**Example:** "Mr. Popo said Goku could move faster than lightning. That means he could move at **FTL** speed."

The person in this example is ignoring the fact that "lightning speed" or "faster than light" are very common figures of speech that rarely ever denote actual speed of that level.

## Golden Mean Fallacy

This kind of argument supposes that when there are two opposing viewpoints, the truth must lie somewhere in - between, ignoring the possibility that one of the viewpoints is simply wrong.

**Example:** "Some people think that Galactus can beat Beerus, and some people think that Beerus can beat Galactus. Therefore, it's most likely that they are about even in strength."

This ignores the empirical evidence that the person who claimed Beerus can stand a chance against Galactus is simply wrong.

## Invalid Proof

This occurs when someone uses calculations to attempt to prove something, but there is an error in their math.

**Example:** "This bomb is said to have a yield over a billion times that of the nuke that was dropped on Hiroshima. The Hiroshima nuke was around 15 kilotons, so this bomb would have a yield of 15 petatons!"

The error in math here is that he skipped a prefix. It would really only be 15 teratons.

## Fallacy of Exclusive Premises

This occurs when someone makes an argument with two negative premises.

**Example:** "No Bleach characters are faster than light. Some Bleach characters cannot perform a speedblitz. Therefore, some characters that are faster than light cannot perform a speedblitz."

## Area of Effect Fallacy

This is when someone uses a Destructive Capacity feat to counter an Attack Potency feat.

**Example:** "Moro's swollen energy just can obliterate the entire galaxy, so he is galaxy level at best".

The person in this example is ignoring the definition of attack potency, which states "A character with a certain degree of attack potency does not necessarily need to cause destructive feats on that level, but can cause damage to characters that can withstand such forces."