Anecdotal fallacy
Occurs when a vivid personal story, testimonial, or isolated case is treated as stronger evidence than broader, better, or more representative evidence.
EvidentialPerceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Teaching path
Most often confused
A comparison path for near neighbors that students and readers regularly collapse into one another.
Recommended sequence
Use the order below as a lesson sequence, review set, or comparison track.
Appeal to authority
Occurs when someone treats an authority's endorsement as if it settled the issue, even when the authority is unqualified, the field is divided, or the claim still require...
EvidentialEmotional
Foundational
Middle school+
Correlation is not causation
Occurs when someone treats a correlation, coincidence, or time pattern as if it already established that one factor caused the other.
Causal
Foundational
Middle school+
False analogy
Occurs when one thing is treated as sufficiently like another even though the comparison breaks down at the point the argument depends on.
Conceptual
Intermediate
High school
False dilemma
Occurs when someone presents a limited set of options as if they were the only live possibilities, while reasonable alternatives are ignored or suppressed.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
False equivalence
Occurs when two things are treated as equivalent in seriousness, meaning, or explanatory weight despite relevant differences that make the comparison misleading.
ConceptualEvidential
Foundational
Middle school+
Faulty generalization
Occurs when an inductive conclusion reaches further than the available evidence can reasonably support, or ignores information that should limit the generalization.
ConceptualEvidential
Intermediate
High school
Hasty generalization
Occurs when someone draws a broad conclusion from too little evidence, too small a sample, or a badly skewed sample.
EvidentialMathematical
Foundational
Middle school+
Poisoning the well
Occurs when negative framing is introduced in advance so that whatever a person says next will be dismissed before it is fairly heard.
Tactical
Foundational
Middle school+
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Occurs when someone infers that because one event happened before another, the earlier event caused the later one.
Causal
Foundational
Middle school+
Ad hominem
Occurs when someone treats an attack on a person's character, motives, class, or biography as if it were a refutation of that person's argument.
TacticalEmotional
Foundational
Middle school+
False attribution
Occurs when support for a claim is borrowed from a source that is fabricated, misquoted, unqualified, anonymous in the wrong way, or otherwise not what it is presented to...
EvidentialTactical
Foundational
Middle school+