Fallacies and Myths

Fallacies

Thinking from a logical fallacy perspective is one of the most common stumbling blocks to critical thinking. One common logical fallacy is confusing causation and correlation. Our brain has a tendency to try to link events. This is part of its pattern forming software. So whenever one event (B) follows another event (A) our brain has a tendency to presume A causes B even though something altogether different may have caused both or perhaps there is no relationship between A and B at all. For example, there is a very high correlation between shoe size and reading level. As your shoe size goes up so does your reading level. So, does one cause the other? Of course not; the confounding variable is age. As you get older, your feet grow bigger and your brain becomes more sophisticated and you become more educated. But these types of false correlations happen all the time.

There are all sorts of logical fallacies getting in the way of our rational mind. For this module’s assignment we will examine a number of fallacies. 

You are assigned the following logical fallacies: Tu-quoque- you too

For the assignment, you need to:

(1) research the fallacy

(2) post the definition of the fallacy

(3) post an explanation of how the fallacy works

(4) post an example of the fallacy either currently in the news or a pseudoscience example

Myths

For this assignment you must examine your assigned myth in a scientific manor.

Your assigned myth is: Flying rods

When you’ve completed the scientific study of your myth:

(1) post a brief summary of the “myth” followed by (2) a scientific explanation.

You must add information from an outside, cited source to one of the two posts (scientific, valid source – .edu, .gov, or peer reviewed journal).