Fact or Opinion/ Fallacious Reasoning

​Fact or Opinion/ Fallacious Reasoning

​What is Fact?

1. Fact: Something that is known to be true and/or can be proven.

Ex. a. Leaves on growing plants are usually green.

b. Some people keep dogs as pets.

c. 1 liter of water weighs 1 kilogram.

d. New York City is not the capital of New York State.​

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​Fact or Opinion/ Fallacious Reasoning

​What is Opinion?

​2. Opinion: A person's viewpoint about a person, place, or thing.

Opinions cannot be verified (proven).

Ex: a. He is childish.

b. To solve traffic, it is better to invest in subways and trains

than in road widening programs.

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Fallacious Reasoning

​What is Fallacious Reasoning?

​Fallacious Reasoning : reasoning based on too little/ unsound/

invalid and/or deceptive sources.

A person may engage in fallacious reasoning

intentionally or unintentionally.​

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"​Fallacious" comes from "Fallacy": unsound, invalid, deceptive...

Fallacious Reasoning

​Samples of Fallacious Reasoning...

1. People have been trying for centuries to prove that God exists, but no one yet has been able to prove it. Therefore God does not exist.

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2. ​People have been trying for centuries to prove that God does not exist, but no one has yet been able to prove it.

The 2 opposing arguments above are of fallacious reasonings.​

​ Fallacious Reasoning

​Samples of Fallacious Reasoning...

​1. "MacDougal roots for British football team. Clearly he is unfit to be a police chief in Ireland."

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2. John and Mandy are from Crete. They were charged in New York for perjury. Most people from Crete are liars, anyway​."

​Type of Fallacy: 1. Based on ignorance 2. Generalization

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Fallacious Reasoning

Is this fallacious reasoning? If so, why?

"Our website got a lot of new traffic last week. We also changed the font on our website last week. This leads me to believe that our new font is the reason we got more website views."

Fallacious Reasoning

​Is this fallacious reasoning? If so, why?

"Sydney learned a lot from our last company retreat. We need to spend a large portion of our budget sending our entire company on annual retreats so that we can all learn."

Fallacious Reasoning

Is this fallacious reasoning? If so, why?

"Yesterday morning, the main factory machines, in my department, had a few technical issues again. The tech department and mechanic returned to our department and fixed the issues. For the next few weeks, it may be wise to monitor the machines' condition."