"Logical Fallacies" - An In-Depth Look at the "Red Herring" (Week 5)

Logical fallacies come in many forms, each having its own name and certain parameters that each type fits into. According to the article, “Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate,” one type of logical fallacy is called a red herring. A red herring occurs when the speaker or an author argues a point by, “…introducing irrelevant facts or arguments to distract from the question at hand” (Whitman, 2001). An example of this type of logical fallacy would be if an author was writing a paper arguing for the legalization of marijuana and within the argument they wrote, “Marijuana is grown naturally all over the country, therefore it should be legalized.” This fact alone is in no way providing any sort of evidence that marijuana should be legalized; it is instead just being used to distract the reader with a fact that does not support the argument.
The author of this blog was recently found guilty of using a logical fallacy in the rough draft of their Position Essay. The essay was about the effects of accelerated glacier recession upon the global community of the earth, and toward the end of the essay the author dedicated a paragraph to pointing out the opposition’s point of view. However, when the author did this they inadvertently used a red herring by talking not about the people that do not believe that the effects of accelerated glacial recession is an important issue, but instead by talking about the people that believe glacial recession is just a natural cycle of the world, and that accelerated glacial recession is not real. For this particular paper, and for the argument that was set forth by the author, whether or not glacial recession is being accelerated by man or is just a natural occurrence was not the issue being argued, it was the importance of the effects that this accelerated glacial recession will have upon the earth and its people that was being argued; therefore the author inadvertently committed the sin of logical fallacy. This fallacy was pointed out during a very good peer workshop by Xia Baker, which can be found on her blog, Xia’s English 213 Blog. After realizing the mistake that had been made, the author revised the paper during the final draft so that the opposition’s point of view was stated in reference to the argument given in the thesis of the paper.

Whitman, G. (2001). "Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate." Debate. Retrieved February 25, 2008 from http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html.

Baker, X. (2008). "Work shop: Position Essay (Comments for Cary English)." Xia's English 213 Blog. Retrieved February 25, 2008 from http://xia-xia08.blogspot.com/.