Analytical Skills

The position open in the accounting department should be given to Frank Thompson. Frank has six hungry children to feed, and his wife desperately needs an operation to save her eyesight.

• Fallacy of Accident

• Appeal to Pity

• No Fallacy

• Appeal to ignorance

Whoever thrusts a knife into another person should be arrested. But surgeons do precisely this when operating. Therefore, surgeons should be arrested.

• Appeal to Pity

• Argument against the person.

• Appeal to ignorance

• Fallacy of Accident

Animals and humans are similar in many ways. Both experience sensations, desires, fears, pleasures, and pains. Humans have a right not to be subjected to needless pain. Does it not follow that animals have a right not to be subjected to needless pain?

• Appeal to ignorance

• Appeal to Pity

• No fallacy

• Fallacy of Accident

Paula Anderson, spokesperson for State Farm Insurance, has argued that jury awards for pain and suffering should be severely limited. But this is exactly what you would expect her to say. After all, attorney fees come out of these awards, and if the awards are limited, no one will ever sue her company.

• Appeal to Pity

• Argument against the person.

• No fallacy

• Appeal to ignorance

No one has ever been able to prove the existence of extrasensory perception. We must therefore conclude that extrasensory perception is a myth.

• Appeal to ignorance

• Argument against the person.

• Appeal to Pity

• Fallacy of Accident