Frequent fallacies

Lists of logical fallacies usually have many entries. Similarly for textbooks on the topic. That can create the misleading impression that there’s a great variety of fallacies out there. But in practice, a few simple ones dominate greatly. My hunch is that fallacies are heavy-tailed, just like so many other things.

Here are some fallacies that seem particularly common to me, based on anecdotal impressions from argument-checking:

Bare assertion: a boring but common fallacy. You simple assert something without any evidence or argument, even though that’s clearly needed.

Cherry picking: selective use of evidence. You point to evidence that confirms your claim, whilst disregarding contrary evidence.

Straw man: attacking an implausible view that no one holds. Instead of criticising your interlocutor’s view, you criticise a subtly different view they don’t hold.

Ad hominem: attacking the person giving the argument, instead of criticising the argument itself.

Motte and bailey: making a claim with two interpretations, the one interesting but indefensible, the other one defensible but uninteresting, and going back and forth between them to make it seem like the claim is both interesting and defensible.

I’m sure there are other frequent fallacies I’ve missed. It would be good to study it more systematically.

But at any rate, I think the overall picture is right. It might seem that fallacies and errors are incredibly diverse and varied. But in reality, we’re to a large extent making the same small number of simple fallacies over and over again.