A red herring is a piece of information that’s meant to distract people from something important in a misleading manner. Red herrings are usually used either as a literary device, such as when an author uses a side character to divert attention from another character, or as a rhetoric technique, such as when someone responds to a question with unrelated information in order to hide their refusal to answer the original question.| Effectiviology
A false dilemma (or false dichotomy) is a logical fallacy that occurs when a limited number of options are wrongly presented as being mutually exclusive or the only available options. For example, a false dilemma occurs when someone says that we must choose between options A or B, without mentioning that we can pick both or that option C also exists.| Effectiviology
The appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy that involves manipulating people’s emotions to strengthen their support for the conclusion of an unsound argument (e.g., one that’s misleading or baseless). For example, a person using an appeal to emotion in a debate might encourage the audience to ignore certain, by trying to make the audience angry at their source.| Effectiviology
The fallacy fallacy (also known as the argument from fallacy) is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone assumes that if an argument contains a logical fallacy, then its conclusion must be false.| Effectiviology
The overkill backfire effect is a cognitive bias that causes people who encounter a complex explanation to reject it in favor of a simpler alternative, and to sometimes also reinforce their belief in the simpler alternative.| Effectiviology
The principle of charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the principle of charity, you should not attribute falsehoods, logical fallacies, or irrationality to people’s argument, when there is a plausible, rational alternative available.| Effectiviology
A logical fallacy is a pattern of reasoning that contains a flaw, either in its logical structure or in its premises.| Effectiviology
Cherry picking is a logical fallacy where someone focuses only on evidence that supports their stance, while ignoring evidence that contradicts it. For example, a person who engages in cherry picking might mention only a small selection of studies out of all the ones available on a certain topic, to make it look as if the scientific consensus matches their stance.| Effectiviology
The appeal to the stone is a logical fallacy that occurs when a person dismisses their opponent’s argument as absurd, without actually addressing it, or without providing sufficient evidence in order to prove its absurdity. For example, a person using the appeal to the stone in a debate might simply laugh off all of their opponent’s claims and calls them ridiculous, with no justification.| Effectiviology
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from rationality, which occurs due to the way our cognitive system works. Accordingly, cognitive biases cause us to be irrational in the way we search for, evaluate, interpret, judge, use, and remember information, as well as in the way we make decisions.| Effectiviology