(Drawing a conclusion from insufficient data)

"Every one of my three boyfriends has treated me badly. Men are scum."

"I saw a study that said red meat caused cancer in mice, so I'm going to be a vegetarian from now on."

(Drawing a conclusion from exceptional cases or biased data)

"I don't care how few guns are used in crimes; cases like those kids who shot their classmates mean that we ought to ban all guns."

"A psychologist who's been disputing The Bell Curve just published a study showing that genetics plays even less a role in intelligence than was previously thought, so I guess The Bell Curve was completely wrong."

"We know exactly how Americans think about sex because we've studied literally thousands of college students."

(Assertion based on belief that a lack of negative evidence constitutes positive evidence for the complementary position)

"If you can't disprove what I say, then you have to accept it as true."

"All the people I work with support affirmative action. I know, because I've never heard any of them say anything against it."

"All the people I work with think affirmative action does more harm than good. I know, because I've never heard any of them say anything good about it."

(Assertion based on assuming that which isn't the case could have been so under different circumstances)

"I deserve my allowance even if I didn't make a C average, because I would have if Tommy hadn't been talking to me in class."

"If not for the Civil War, Lincoln would have been a nobody, the Republican party would have faded away, and you'd be a Democrat, so you should vote that way."

(Assertion based on offering a cliche in place of evidence)

"Why shouldn't I date nine women at once? 'The more, the merrier!'"

"We should have nuked Saddam. 'The best defense is a good offense.'"

(Assertion that a thing is whatever its label claims it to be)

"New and Improved!"

"I'm pro-choice."

"He says he's a progressive, and I think progress is good, so I'm going to vote for him."

(Using unwarranted precision in stating evidence to give it strength it would not otherwise possess)

"99 and 44/100ths percent pure"

"Most of us use only 10 percent of our brain."

"Nearly seventy percent of respondents prefer Candidate X!" (In other words, two out of the three people asked.)

(Assertion based on making an exception to a general rule or principle for a particular favored person or group)

"I know quotas are bad, and affirmative action really means quotas, but they're worth it to compensate for decades of oppression."

"Why should I have to cook supper? I have to work all day."

(Assertion which fails to provide required evidence, even if other evidence is provided)

"I'm voting for X; she was very polite to me when I met her." (This fails to provide required evidence: What are X's professional qualifications for the position in question?)

"I want a new TV . . . so I'm going to get one." [Do I have the money? Is there something else more important that I need?]

(Assertion which assumes that some personal experience is the norm instead of relying on broad objective data)

"No one I know voted for Reagan . . . so how'd he win?"

"Of course women only earn 74 cents for every dollar a man earns--that's how it is where I work."

(Assertion which needs to be true for a conclusion to be true, but isn't also shown to be all that's necessary for that conclusion to be true)

"OK, so I skipped class. But I still got a C average, so why can't I go to the lake?"

"I've read books by Feynman and Hawking, so how come I'm not a famous physicist like them?"

(Assertion does not include enough of the relevant causes of an observed result to support conclusions addressing that result)

"The root cause of crime is poverty."

"Kids don't show respect for their elders today because they watch too much TV, and TV kids are all disrespectful."

(From post hoc, ergo propter hoc ["after it, therefore because of it"]; the assertion that because event Y followed event X in time, X must have caused Y)

"I walked under a ladder yesterday, and today the value of my utilities stocks dropped twenty percent! No more ladders for me!"

"The crime rate went up after we instituted the 'Great Society' programs, so I guess welfare causes crime."

(Assertion which mistakes the order of events)

"We built highways, and now look how many cars there are! Obviously building roads made people want to drive."

(Assertion which tries to relate an observed effect to a cause when the possibility exists that both cause and effect are themselves produced by some other, broader force)

"The movie industry in Hollywood is responsible for the moral turpitude in our society today."

"Because of the actions of my Administration, unemployment is down to the lowest it's been in 23 years!"

(Assertion that a particular event will initiate a chain of events which lead inexorably to some negative end result (sometimes called the "slippery slope" argument); the problem is that each link in the chain of the argument must be supported by its own evidence and logic)

"Once we start start letting more immigrants in, they'll bring their families, and their families will bring their families, and the next thing you know, we're all speaking Chinese."

"If they're allowed to cut one red cent out of the assistance programs we fought so hard for, people will go hungry, they'll be forced to turn to crime, and then the people who said 'let them find jobs' will get what they deserve."

(Assertion based on belief that unconnected events really are causally connected)

"My last few dates were really terrible. I'm giving up dating forever!"

"I've been playing lotto for three years now; it's just a matter of time before I hit the jackpot, right?"