Talk:False analogy

Poor example

"You are the star of my life! You bring light and joy to my existence. (Is this person also a hot ball of gas who is destined to one day explode?)"

This is not an inductive argument, this is poetry. This person is not trying to argue anything; they are merely using a metaphor in a poetic sense, not in a rhetorical sense. It resembles something you would see in a love letter. I recommend that it be removed and replaced with something better.

"Candles are like stars. You should not look at them directly” Here is some rhetoric that lacks substance, a much better example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.68.136.5 (talk) 06:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

You should really do better with the examples' formatting. I had to think about it for a while because it looks like it reads equivalently to "Love is like a spring shower BECAUSE it brings refreshment to a person's body", which I was having a hell of a time finding a fallacy in. The way you set it up makes it sound as if you are telling us that love is like a spring shower, and then explaining to us WHY it is like a spring shower in the next sentence. It's not at all intuitively obvious that its supposed to be the other way around and that when you say "it brings refreshment to a person's body" it is supposed to be derived from "Love is like a spring shower", with the two things having already been linked by some other, unmentioned property. IF that is indeed what you were trying to say, or maybe I'm still confused, in which all analogies would be categorized as, apparently, fallacious? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.178.33.18 (talk) 07:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Fruit fallacy

Is this the fallacy commonly referred to as "comparing apples with oranges" (as I like to call it, the "fruit fallacy")? Chris talk back 07:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes. see apples and oranges. -- Dave (talk) 04:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

False analogy vs. logical fallacy

"False analogy," is not a logical fallacy, because logical fallacies consist of errors in reasoning. But a false analogy consists of an error in the substance of an argument. The logic is perfectly sound. What renders an argument containing a false analogy erroneous is not any property of the reasoning it uses, but whether or not its analogy is correct and relevant to the claim. I've replaced the words, "logical fallacy," with "fallacy." This page's content appears to have been taken largely from Stephen's Guide to fallacies which is partially incorrect. Robocracy 01:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. It is a logical fallacy, however it is an informal, not a formal fallacy. --Gligeti 23:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I just realized that there is a mess here about the meaning of the term Logical Fallacy. One school uses it in a strict sense to mean formal fallacy, the other, less academic meaning is all fallacies (formal and informal). Wiki is really inconsistent in its usage. Informal fallacies are categorized under Logical fallacies as in the less strict sense, but then it is defined in the main article in the strict sense. Major cleanup is needed. Either way, avoiding references to Logical fallacy and using the Formal fallacy in this context avoids the confusion. In the article about fallacy, it should be mentioned that Logical Fallacy is used in both meanings. Therefore I leave this distinction referencing formal, not logical fallacy in contrast to informal fallacy. --Gligeti 08:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Problematic paragraph deleted

The entire last bullet-point (referencing Paley and intelligent design) struck me as unnecessary. The previous bullet-point deals nicely with the relevant features of the watchmaker analogy; this one delves deeper into its bearing on intelligent design and the teleological argument. If this were one of those two articles, that would be appropriate given better NPOV; here, and phrased thus, it isn't. I've deleted the problematic paragraph. -- Zalmaki 16:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the second Watchmaker analogy to demonstrate the fallacy is rather a bit of a straw man considering the argument it's making. After all, the argument is not that a "watch has a watchmaker" just that things that are incredibly complex are man-made, are DESIGNED, like transistors. I don't subscribe to that argument, or any, for the existence of god, but it's a little absurd to claim that this article makes a very powerful reductio ad absurdum. -- 24.196.64.214 20:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarification needed

The definition needs clarification of the sentence: "one could not conclude that they are the same size, but they are not the same size.". Clearly, one of the 'not's causes confusion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.51.255 (talk) 14:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The description would be better said if A and B have property X but property Y is concluded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rendezvous123 (talk • contribs) 09:18, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

domestic analogy

I removed the following example from the Examples section:

In the field of international relations theory, the fallacy known as the 'domestic analogy' is committed when relationships between political communities (nations) are treated as analogous to relations within political communities (between individuals), such that familiar morals and remedies for interpersonal issues are projected onto foreign policy narratives. To the extent that relationships are different at the local and international level, such analogies are invalid (Hidemi Suganami, The Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals, CUP, 1989).

Neither the article on the domestic analogy, nor Amazon's description of the cited book treat this as a fallacy; to the contrary, they say that this is an analogy that has been used and explored by political theorists. -- Joriki (talk) 04:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Argument by analogy

Why should this redirect here? Not all arguments by analogy are fallacious. Perhaps having such a page, with a broader scope and this redirecting there, would be better? (cf. ad hominem fallacy, if I may make an analogy). Richard001 (talk) 04:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Richard: I have made this argument before and been swatted down with the full wrath of Wikipedia police. Minaker (talk) 22:23, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Watchmaker analogy

As a false analogy fits right in with Wikipedia's overall agenda. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.111.36.194 (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think we can find something a little less obviously motivated by some sort of agenda.  —Peco! Peco!^TALK 05:12, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

"Gay Marriage" analogy

I'm removing the gay marriage analogy. It is not correct to say that "If we legalize gay marriage, what's stopping us from legalizing polygamous marriages?" and a quick check of the history shows that somebody put this in to push for their agenda. However, just removing it and leaving the original analogy is (subtly) pushing for an agenda as well. Removing the analogy completely and replacing with some neutral ones. (Not to mention the fact that it currently says examples (plural) and then gives one example). 72.93.72.210 (talk) 07:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)