Critical Thinking & Fallacies

A fallacy is an argument that feels convincing but is logically broken. Learning to name the common ones — and the habits of clear thinking that beat them — is the most practical self-defense there is against being misled.

1. What a Fallacy Is (and Why They Work) A fallacy is an argument that's persuasive but logically broken. Formal fallacies break the structure; informal ones smuggle in irrelevance or emotion. They work because they exploit how human brains take shortcuts.
2. The Fallacies You'll Meet Most A field guide to the fallacies you'll actually encounter — ad hominem, straw man, false dilemma, slippery slope, appeal to authority/emotion, hasty generalization, circular reasoning, and post hoc (correlation isn't causation).
3. Thinking Clearly: A Practical Toolkit The habits that beat fallacies and bias: steelman instead of strawman, separate the claim from the evidence, ask 'what would change my mind?', check the source, and remember that fluent isn't the same as true.