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What Is Confirmation Bias: Examples and Dangers

May 31, 2020

confirmation bias, ignorance, reason, relationship, thought, truth

Do you know what’s the biggest obstacle to your finding the truth? You are! Each one of us must overcome their own preconceptions to discover what lies beneath. And confirmation bias is among the most insidious hurdles blocking our path.

Confirmation bias is when you favor indications or cases that support your existing viewpoints, while you disregard others that would force you to reconsider.

One typical confirmation bias example is superstition: You tend to remember the one time you had an accident after you saw a black cat, and conveniently forget the untold thousands you didn’t have an accident after seeing a black cat.

In this post we’ll take a closer look at confirmation bias: We’ll see how it works and why. I’ll offer you some typical examples of confirmation bias, and we’ll also see why it’s insidious.

I’ll even share a literary example!

confirmation bias examples — Confirmation bias means you’re blinded to your own prejudices

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Post Hoc Fallacy Examples

January 20, 2019

Philosophy

fallacy, ignorance, logic, post hoc, reason

The post hoc fallacy is a widespread logical fallacy. Post hoc fallacy examples abound everywhere around us, and especially on the internet – where all fallacies are exposed sooner or later!

The full name of this fallacy is post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means “after this, therefore because of this” in Latin. In simple terms, a post hoc fallacy is one where when two events happen soon after each other, the occurrence of the second is attributed to the first.

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Appeal to Hypocrisy: the Tu Quoque Fallacy

December 27, 2018

Philosophy

fallacy, hypocrisy, idiocy, ignorance, reason, society

Articles on fallacies are popular on the Home for Fiction blog. We’ve talked about the Appeal to Nature fallacy, the Bandwagon fallacy, and the Only Game in Town fallacy. Today I’ll talk to you about the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy, also known as “Tu Quoque”. The term is Latin and means “You, too”. I will use the terms interchangeably in this article, they mean exactly the same thing.

As with all fallacies, the Appeal to Hypocrisy is an attempt to ameliorate one’s argument with parameters that do not stand the test of argumentation and logic. Generally speaking, a person committing a fallacy might do it inadvertently; that is to say, without intent. Here’s an example:

Everyone at the office agrees, the boss is stupid.

This feels like a very natural thing to say. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, right? And yet, though the statement might still be true, it’s not argumentatively solid. The mere fact that every employee agrees, doesn’t prove that the boss is indeed stupid. This is an example of the Bandwagon fallacy.

Conversely, it is uncommon that a person would commit the Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy unknowingly. The nature of this fallacy is such that the person deploying it in an argument is usually fully aware that his/her argument is weak, and the fallacy is committed precisely to create distraction.

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