Logical Errors

Logical Fallacies

Faulty Arguments

Relevance

Misused Truism

The fallacy of the misused truism invokes a broad statement that many people seem to accept as a fact and then applies it to justify a very specific conclusion. Advertisers abandoned the message "Everybody needs milk" after the Food and Drug Administration ruled that not everybody needs milk and that some people find milk harmful to their health because it stimulates allergic reactions and digestive disorders for them. Another example of the misused truism involves the justification given by some cigarette smokers for smoking in the presence of others. "It's a free country. Each person can do what he wants. I have just as much right to smoke as someone else has not to smoke." Bringing the argument down to specific features such as the effect on the health of others in the smoker's vicinity makes this proposition crumble.

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Map of Logical Errors