Consider the text below. Then submit your response(s).
Although many people would find the observation fallacious, most of us are guilty of fallacious reasoning. Because we tend to think “enthymematically”—that is, with skips and leaps instead of in some sort of linear progression—most of us will fail at the cultural rules of logic, even on a daily basis. We are most prone to fallacious reasoning when following a pattern or script we have learned on a position we hold (for example, the main “talking points” issued by political parties).
With a group assigned by your instructor, locate a school newspaper, either in print or online, and see if you can find examples of the fallacies discussed in this chapter: ad hominem, bandwagon, either-or, non sequitur, red herring, and slippery slope. The most obvious place to look would be on the editorial page or in the letters to the editor, because these are the pages devoted to explicit argument and persuasion. You may find these fallacies in news stories as well.