Examples of logical thinking errors

You distort others' opinions and make it easier for you to attack others.

You exaggerate, distort and even create other people's views out of nothing to make your own views more reasonable. This is an extremely dishonest behavior, which not only affects rational discussion, but also affects the credibility of one's own views.

Because if you can distort other people's views negatively, you may distort your own views positively.

Xiao Zhang said that the state should invest more budget to develop education. Xiao Wang replied: "I didn't expect you to be so unpatriotic and want to reduce defense spending so that foreign powers can take advantage of it." Xiao Wang committed the scarecrow fallacy.

2. Wrong attribution

You can draw the conclusion that one thing is the cause of another from the possible connection between two things.

When you see two things exist at the same time, you will feel that one of them is the cause of the other. Your mistake is that two things that exist at the same time may not have a causal relationship. Maybe they have a common cause, or there is no causal relationship at all. Their direct coexistence is just a coincidence.

Just because one thing happens before another does not mean that there must be a causal relationship between the two things.

Example: Xiao Zhang pointed out that in the past few centuries, the number of global pirates has decreased and the global temperature has increased, which leads to the conclusion that the decrease in the number of pirates causes climate change and pirates can reduce the global temperature. Xiao Zhang made the attribution fallacy.

3. Appeal to emotion

You try to replace a strong argument by manipulating other people's feelings.

The emotions you manipulate may include fear, jealousy, pity, pride and so on. A logical and rigorous exposition may cause other people's emotional fluctuations, but if you only use emotional operation instead of logical exposition, you will make the mistake of appealing to feelings.

Everyone who is mentally healthy will be affected by feelings, so this fallacy is very effective, but this is also why this fallacy is a low-level dishonest means.

Example: Xiao Zhang saw Xiao Wang eating dog meat in a restaurant and scolded him: "How can you eat dog meat? The puppy is so cute, just like a child. Do you have the heart to hurt a child? " Xiao Zhang committed the fallacy of appealing to feelings.

4. From argumentation to conclusion

When you see that the level of others' argument is very low, or that others' argument is fallacious, you think that others' views must be wrong.

Many times, the winner of the debate is not because of the correct point of view, but because of better debate skills. As a rational person, you can't think that other people's views must be wrong just because they are fallacious or wrong.

Example: An advocate of healthy diet published an absurd diet theory on TV to promote the concept of healthy diet. After reading it, Xiao Zhang felt that healthy eating was deceptive, so he began to overeat every day. Xiao Zhang made the mistake of drawing conclusions from the argument.