>> Hello, and welcome to
the third lesson from the module attribution.
In this lesson, we will discuss logical fallacies.
Let's go through the learning
>> objectives of this lesson.
>> We will start with a definition of fallacies.
Then we will see the classifications
of fallacies and we'll see
common examples of fallacies that
can be encountered in cyber threat intelligence.
A fallacy is defined as the use of
invalid or faulty reasoning or
wrong moves in the construction
of an argument or analysis.
Basically, it's an error in reasoning.
Fallacies may be created unintentionally,
or they may be created
intentionally in order to deceive other people.
The vast majority of
the commonly identified fallacies involve arguments,
although some involve explanations or
definitions or other products of reasoning.
Sometimes the term fallacy is used even more broadly
to indicate any false belief or cause a false belief.
Logical fallacies or logical gaps
that invalidate arguments aren't always easy to spot.
While some of them come in the form of
flout, glaring and consistencies,
other can easily fly under the radar,
sneaking into everyday meetings
and conversations undetected.
Having an understanding of
these basic logical fallacies can help you
more confidently pass the arguments
and separate facts from sharply dressed fiction.
We can define two types of fallacies.
The first one, or the formal fallacy,
also called deductive fallacy, or logical fallacy.
It is a flaw in the structure of a deductive
>> argument which renders the argument invalid.
>> The presence of the formal fallacy does not imply
>> anything about the argument's
>> premises or its conclusion.
>> Both may actually be true or
may even be more probable as a result of the argument.
But the deductive argument is still invalid because
the conclusion does not follow
from the premises in the matter it describe it.
In contrast to formal fallacy,
an informal fallacy originates in a reasoning error,
other than a flaw in the logical form of the argument.
Deductive arguments containing an informal fallacy
may be formally valid,
but still remain irrationally impersuasive.
Briefly, a formal fallacy can be detected
>> by examining the logical form of the reasoning.
>> Whereas an informal fallacy depends upon
the content of the reasoning
and possibly the purpose of the reasoning.
Let's dig more into each one of these fallacies.
In order to get a better understanding of
the formal and informal fallacies,
we will see common formal fallacies
and common examples of informal fallacies.
We will start with the common formal fallacies.
Here we will start with the example
of appeal to probability,
or appeal to possibility.
Which is a logical fallacy of taking something
for granted because it would probably be the case.
It is basically when a conclusion is assumed,
not because it is probably true,
or it has not been demonstrated to be impossible,
but because it is possible that it is
true no matter how improbable.
The second example of
formal fallacies is anecdotal evidence fallacy.
In place of logical evidence,
this fallacy substitutes examples
from someone's personal experience.
Arguments that rely heavily on
anecdotal evidence tend to overlook
the fact that one example cannot stand
alone as definitive proof of a great premise.
The anecdotal fallacy is also
known as misleading vividness.
What is most vivid in
our environment and most available to
us is what is first used to draw conclusions.
For example, one of our clients doubled
their conversions after changing
all their landing page text to bright red.
Therefore, changing all texts to
red is a proven way to double conversions.
Now, let's move to the informal fallacies.
We will start with the first type,
which is burden of proof.
If a person claims that X is true,
it is their responsibility to
provide evidence and support of that assertion.
It is invalid to claim that X is true
until someone else can prove that X is not true.
Similarly, it is also invalid the claim that X is
true because it's impossible to prove that X is false.
In other words, just because
there is no evidence presented against
something that doesn't automatically
makes that thing true.
Our second example of
common informal fallacies is argument by repetition.
This fallacy is also known as argument from nagging.
Basically, it means repeating an argument or
a premise over and over again
in place of better supporting evidence.
For example, let's say, "This is wrong."
"No, it isn't."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
"Yes, it is."
"No, it isn't."
"Okay, I give up. It isn't."
This is a real and common example
of argument by repetition.
Basically, this is all about fallacies.
We started the lesson with the definition of fallacies.
Then we moved to
fallacies classification to
formal and informal categories.
From each category, we've seen
some examples of formal fallacies,
such as the anecdotal evidence fallacy.
For the informal fallacies,
we've seen examples such as argument by repetition.
Now that we are ready to identify logical fallacies and
cognitive biases that we've
seen in the previous lessons,
how about managing them?
This is what we are going to see in the next video.