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Post hoc ergo prompter hoc- Usually abbreviated to just "post hoc", this fallacy happens when someone assumes that since two events occur in sequence, the first one must be the cause of the second one.

Example: "Luffy wore an afro when he fought Foxy. Luffy beat Foxy. Therefore, the afro gave him the power to win."

This argument ignores any other possible explanations for Luffy's victory, such as the fact that Luffy was simply stronger and tougher.

NOTE: I'm just using this as an example, I know that Afro Luffy is used as a joke, I'm not seriously commenting on that.



Slippery slope- This argument says that if you accept one thing, the chances become more likely that another thing would happen, and the second thing would have negative consequences, so the first thing is wrong.

Example: "If we don't ban trolls more often, then more people will think it's okay to get away with trolling, and soon everyone will be a troll!"

This argument assumes that since something might happen as a consequence of not banning trolls, then it will happen and therefore all trolls must be banned on sight.

Poisoning the well- This is similar to ad hominem, except it is directed against other observers instead of your opponent. You say that there is something objectionable about a person, therefore people shouldn't listen to their arguments.

Example: "Person A is known for being a biased One Piece fanboy, therefore you shouldn't listen to him when he says Luffy can beat Ichigo."

Whether or not this accusation is true, it has no merit on the actual arguments being presented.

Fallacy of accident This is when someone uses a general rule to justify something when that thing is in fact an exception.

Example: "In a fight, the faster character usually wins. Goku can move faster than the Flash by using Instant Transmission, therefore he will win."

This ignores the fact that instant transmission is a special case: While it does allow the user to arrive at a destination faster than the Flash would in a race (if both of them started at the same time), it ignores the fact that IT is teleportation, not true speed, requires locking onto a ki signature, needs time for thought to activate it, and cannot change destination or react to attacks in between the origin and destination point.

Reverse fallacy of accident- This is similar to the previous fallacy, except it works in reverse - a person attempts to use an exception to overturn a rule.

Example: "Logia characters in One Piece can't be harmed by physical attacks. Therefore all One Piece characters are immune to physical attacks."

This ignores that not every One Piece character reacts to physical attacks in the same was as a logia.

Ad hominem tu quoque- This is a variation of the ad hominem fallacy where a person dismisses his opponent's argument by claiming that his opponent engages in the same type of practice.

Example:

Person A: "It was never stated that Buu's power level was 5 billion, that's a lie."

Person B: "Well you lied when you said that Post - Crisis Superman moved the earth by himself!"

Even if person B is right and person A did lie about that, that doesn't mean that person's B's lie about Buu's power level should just be accepted. Two wrongs don't make a right, after all.

Loaded question- This is when someone asks a question that presupposes a conclusion, so no matter what yes or no answer the person gives, it will fit the agenda of his opponent.

Example: "Are you still making that retarded claim?"

If the person answers yes, they will admit that they are making a retarded claim, if they answer no, they will admit that the claim they made was retarded. Of course the fallacy is that the person asking the question hasn't demonstrated what is wrong with the claim.

Fallacy of composition- This is when someone states that if a certain condition is true for A, then it must also be true for any larger set that A is a part of.

Example: "Luffy can beat any given Naruto character. Therefore he can beat all Naruto characters at once."

Fallacy of division- This is the opposite of the previous fallacy, when someone asserts that since a system has a certain property, then all components of that system must also have this property.

Example: "The OPverse is stronger than the Narutoverse. Therefore any One Piece character can defeat the entire Narutoverse."

This argument ignores that the ability to defeat the Narutoverse comes from the combined powers of all the OP characters, not one property that they all share.

Argumentum ad verbosium- This is when someone makes a claim and writes a long, often repetitive essay in order to prove it, when they really do not have very strong evidence whatsoever and are just trying to make their opponent accept their claim by barraging him with long, drawn - out writing.

Example: "Naruto can beat Luffy, because Naruto has the Kyuubi, and the Kyuubi is really powerful, and you know, Luffy really isn't that strong, I mean he can stretch and stuff, but he'll die if he gets thrown in the water, and lots of Naruto characters can use water techniques, (which are known as suitons, which is Japanese for "water release"), and they also have Katons (Japanese for "fire release"), and Dotons (Japanese for "Earth release") and even Mokutons (Japanese for "wood release"), although the latter cannot be created by most ninjas, only ones with a Kekkai Genkai (That's Japanese for "Bloodline limit") can use them, by combining their elemental affinities, and Naruto beats Luffy... etc."

You can see the person is trying to just exhaust his opponent with tons of words and unnecessary verbosity instead of arguing the actual points.

Figure of speech- This is when a person confuses a saying which is not meant to be literal, with a literal meaning.

Example: "Mr. Popo said Goku could move faster than lightning. That means he could move at relativistic speed."

The person in this example is ignoring the fact that "lightning speed" or "faster than lightning" are very common figures of speech that rarely ever denote actual speed of that level.

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Originally posted by Violent2Dope
MK fighters are actually pretty weak, but that's off topic. Onaga could probably beat someone lke Sakura from SF, but loses to Akuma.

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Originally posted by BlaxicanHydra
post pictures of old naked people.

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Originally posted by FortressXRuler
So what to do about them? If they can't be stopped, what to do?

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Argumentum ad nauseum- or argument from repetition. This is when someone keeps making a claim over and over again, but either does not provide actual evidence, or provides evidence which is later debunked, but keeps making the claim. Eventually (or so he hopes), his opponent will get tired of arguing and he can declare victory.

Example:

Person A: "Goku has VAST senses! He would easily sense the Flash and beat him. Goku's senses are BEYOND those of the Flash."

Person B. "That is too vague, Goku has trouble sensing someone with normal human ki, even if we assume the Flash has ki (which is not necessarily true), then since he uses the Speedforce for his powers and not ki, his ki would not be any greater than that of a normal human. Goku cannot sense beings too far away in space if he does not recognize their ki, and even if he does he still cannot sense them if they are too far away (he had to get King Kai's help to locate the new planet Namek, even though he knew what a Namekian ki signature felt like). Furthermore, he often loses track of his opponents when they move around him, and these opponents usually have kis as large or larger than his. There's no way he'd sense the Flash, who only has normal human - equivalent ki, and is moving way faster than any DBZ character, and even if he did, he wouldn't be able to react in time to stop him."

Person A: "You're chatting garbage! Goku has VAST senses! He can sense people light - years and dimensions away! He can easily sense the slow - ass Flash right in front of him!"

Person B: I already explained this to you, he has trouble sensing people even with strong, familiar kis if they are too far away, and the dimension thing isn't really quantifiable, especially considering it was harder for him to sense the Nameks in his own dimension than it was to sense King Kai in the afterlife. Furthermore, he loses track of his enemies when they are moving fast around him, and they have very large kis. He would never sense someone moving at FTL speed with only average human ki.

Person A: "Stop chatting crap! Goku can sense anything anywhere. The Flash is alive, he has spirit! Goku has VAST senses, he would easily sense the Flash and beat him."

Person B: "You know what? I give up. I've already explained this to you a million times but you're just not listening."

Person A: "Ha! Concession accepted! I win!"

Here person B has refuted all of person A's arguments, but person A ignores the refutations and evidence and simply keeps stating his arguments over and over again.

Golden Mean fallacy- This kind of argument supposes that when there are two opposing viewpoints, the truth must lie somewhere in - between, ignoring the possibility that one of the viewpoints is simply wrong.

Example: "Some people think that Galactus can beat Itachi, and some people think that Itachi can beat Galactus. Therefore, it's most likely that Itachi and Galactus are about even in strength."

This ignores the empirical evidence that the person who claimed Itachi can stand a chance against Galactus is simply wrong.

Style over substance fallacy- This has two forms: First, when a person ignores the valid points in an argument because of the way it is presented.

Example:

Person A: "You ****tard! How can you possibly believe that Goku stands a chance against the Lord of Nightmares! She's an omnipotent being, just lending her power to a human can give them the ability to destroy the universe by accident! Are you really that dense?"

Person B: "Wow, you're rude! I'm not going to debate with someone as rude as you!"

Person B is ignoring person A's valid arguments and instead concentrating on his language, as if that provides an excuse to ignore his points and evidence.

Alternatively, person B's response is often stated in the following forms:

"You seem a bit upset. You should cool down a bit and then I'll get back to you."

Or

"If you're insulting me, that's a clear sign that you know you've lost the argument."

Both of these are equally fallacious as the first.

The second form of the style over substance fallacy occurs when someone prefers one entity over another due to the way it is presented, as opposed to any actual facts.

Example: "In DBZ, all the battles have flashy afterimages, speed lines, blurs, and other effects. This obviously means that they're faster than the Silver Surfer, who rarely ever leaves afterimages or has any of those effects in his comic."

This argument simply takes the way the material is presented as objective evidence, even though there are no true facts attached to it and it just a matter of drawing style.

False analogy This is when someone attempts to use an analogy to prove a point, but the conditions of the analogy differ from the original scenario enough to render the point from the analogy invalid.

Example: "A fight between KN4 Naruto and Hollow Ichigo would be a lot like a fight between a bear and a fly - one big, hulking monster against a small, fast, maneuverable enemy. A fly obviously can't hurt a bear, and eventually the bear would swat it out of the sky. So Naruto beats Ichigo".

The person in this example is ignoring the comparative power difference between a fly and a bear and Naruto and Ichigo. A bear has much more power than a fly, whereas Hollow Ichigo, though he is smaller, faster, and more maneuverable, has much greater relative attack power and durability than a fly compared to a bear.

False attribution- This is when someone cites a source out of context, or a source that does not even exist, to support their argument.

Example: "Akira Toriyama said in an interview from issue 299 of Super Otaku Magazine that DBZ characters move faster than lightspeed."

The problem here is that investigation has failed to confirm that "Super Otaku Magazine" ever even existed, no matter how thoroughly you search for it. That's rather peculiar for a periodical which supposedly had almost 300 issues, there should have been a record somewhere. Furthermore, no pictures or scans of this magazine or the interview have ever been seen, only a transcription of the supposed interview in text form is floating around the internet. So it seems that this evidence was fabricated.

False premise- This is an argument that uses a faulty premise to draw a conclusion. The conclusion logically follows from the premise, but since the premise is false, the conclusion can be in error.

Example: "If rocks fly upwards and craters are formed spontaneously around something, it must be increasing the power of its own gravitational field. DBZ characters do this when they power up, therefore they must be creating massive gravity wells."

The premise in this case (Rocks flying upwards and craters spontaneously forming means the object at the center is increasing its own gravity) is false, since not only could there be many other explanations for these effects, but if the gravity of the characters was increasing, it would pull rocks toward them, not lift them up towards the sky, and if the gravity was really strong enough to counter the earth's own gravity by lifting the rocks, it would tear the earth apart.

Genetic fallacy- This is when someone evaluates the merit of an argument based on its origin, or where it comes from, instead of the actual logic and evidence it contains. In this way, it is similar to an ad hominem fallacy.

Example: "You copy - and - pasted that info from another website, instead of writing it yourself. I'm not going to respond to an argument if you don't even do the work of making it yourself."

The person in this example dismisses his opponent's argument based on the fact that his opponent did not write it personally, ignoring any evidence or points it may contain that would be valid.

Incomplete comparison- This is when someone makes a claim that is too vague to be proven or disproven.

Example: "Dark Schneider is really powerful."

Powerful compared to what? Something powerful compared to an ant is hardly in the same league as something powerful compared to an exploding star. This example is merely a vague statement that carries no real meaning without a point of reference.

Inconsistent comparison- This is when someone compares something to multiple other things, but picks and chooses which things to compare it to so it seems superior to all of them, when it really is just slightly better than the ones with the lowest values in that field.

Example: "Goku will easily beat American comic characters! He's faster than Hercules, stronger than Spider-man, smarter than the Rhino, and a better tactician than Thor!"

What the person in this example neglects to mention is that Hercules is not really very fast, Spider-man, though much stronger than a normal human, is far from the top tier of physical strength for Marvel and DC, Rhino is a complete idiot, and Thor is usually not a very good tactician. So what they're really saying is simply that Goku is not slower, weaker, dumber, and a worse tactician than every American comic book character.

Invalid proof.- This occurs when someone uses calculations to attempt to prove something, but there is an error in their math.

Example: "This bomb is said to have a yield over a billion times that of the nuke that was dropped on Hiroshima. The Hiroshima nuke was around 15 kilotons, so this bomb would have a yield of 15 petatons!"

The error in math here is that he skipped a prefix. It would really only be 15 teratons.

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Special pleading This is when someone tries to explain away a piece of evidence against him by saying that extra considerations apply, ignoring the point of how these extra considerations would actually affect the evidence.

Example: "Yes, Goku was tagged by Uub, who has no speed feats whatsoever, but Uub is the reincarnation of Majin Buu, the most powerful villain in the series!"

While the extra consideration (Uub was the reincarnation of Buu, and Buu was the strongest villain in the series), is true, it ignores the fact that Uub never demonstrated any of the other capabilities of Buu, such as his speed, transmutation, ki blasts, amorphous body, absorption, etc.

This fallacy consists of a situation when there are two possibilities, and if one is known to be true, claiming that the other one is false, when in fact they both could be true.

Example: "The Flash is fast, but he either has fast travelling speed, or fast combat speed. We've seen him travel long distances in a short time, so he has fast travelling speed. That means he can't have fast combat speed."

Obviously the person in this example is ignoring the possibility that the Flash has both fast travelling and combat speed.

Existential fallacy This is when someone makes a syllogistic argument that relies on the existence of a set that is not known to exist.

Example: "In One Piece, the Cipher Pol units grow progressively stronger as their numbers increase. CP10 is a higher numbered Cipher Pol unit than CP9. Therefore, the members of CP10 must be even stronger than the members of CP9!"

The fallacy here is that, as far as we know, there is no CP10.

Fallacy of exclusive premises This occurs when someone makes an argument with two negative premises.

Example: "No Bleach characters are faster than light. Some Bleach characters cannot perform a speedblitz. Therefore, some characters that are faster than light cannot perform a speedblitz."