Today's Logical Fallacy is... Blood is Thicker than Water!

(Favoritism, Compadrismo, "For my friends, anything," Reverse of Ad Hominem)   

The reverse of the “Ad Hominem,” this fallacy argues that a position/idea/argument must be true/good because of a particular individual who is involved. A classic example is investing in a friend’s business even though your friend may not have the skills or knowledge necessary to successful run a business. It isn’t a fallacy if the individual from whom you are basing your claim is actually qualified and you are basing your opinion on their qualifications; it’s only a fallacy when you base it on who the person is.

Today's Logical Fallacy is... Name-Calling!

(personal abuse/attacks, damning the source, a variety of the Ad Hominem)

A form of the Ad Homienm (which occurs when you dismiss what an opponent says because who they are), this fallacy takes it a step further by adding insult to the dismissal. Instead of attacking their position, you attack the person, even though the person making the claim is irrelevant to the claim itself.

Today's Logical Fallacy is... False Analogy!

(apples and oranges)

This fallacy occurs when two things are incorrectly compared so as to draw a false conclusion. No two scenarios or ideas are exactly the same, nor do they so different that there is nothing similar about them. Therefore, all analogies are flawed in some way because otherwise the two objects would be identical and thus the same object. However, the mere presence of similarities does not justify equal treatment. If, in comparing two objects, we focus on superficial similarities while ignoring fundamental dissimilarities, then we are committing this fallacy.

Today's Logical Fallacy is...The Continuum Fallacy!

(Fallacy of the Beard, Line Drawing Fallacy, Bald Man Fallacy, Fallacy of the Heap, Fallacy of the Grey, the Sorites Fallacy)

This fallacy occurs when someone claims that just because a concept exists on a continuum that there really is no difference between the two ideas at the ends of the continuum. A type of equivocation fallacy (where two different things are presented as the same thing), it is often used as a means of dismissing entire positions by arguing that since not all experts agree or because there is no “100%” consensus, no valid conclusion can be drawn. This is a very common tactic used by science deniers who use outliers in data or misrepresented information as an argument against overwhelming evidence (e.g. global warming, evolution/creation, anti-vaccination) – which is also another fallacy: slothful induction.