What's the difference between argument and fallacy?

Argument


Definition:

  • (n.) Proof; evidence.
  • (n.) A reason or reasons offered in proof, to induce belief, or convince the mind; reasoning expressed in words; as, an argument about, concerning, or regarding a proposition, for or in favor of it, or against it.
  • (n.) A process of reasoning, or a controversy made up of rational proofs; argumentation; discussion; disputation.
  • (n.) The subject matter of a discourse, writing, or artistic representation; theme or topic; also, an abstract or summary, as of the contents of a book, chapter, poem.
  • (n.) Matter for question; business in hand.
  • (n.) The quantity on which another quantity in a table depends; as, the altitude is the argument of the refraction.
  • (n.) The independent variable upon whose value that of a function depends.
  • (v. i.) To make an argument; to argue.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "Britain needs to be in the room when the euro countries meet," he said, "so that it can influence the argument and ensure that what the 17 do will not damage the market or British interests.
  • (2) It is entirely proper for serving judges to set out the arguments in high-profile cases to help public understanding of the legal issues, as long as it is done in an even-handed way.
  • (3) Environment groups Environment groups that have strongly backed low-carbon power have barely wavered in their opposition to nuclear in the last decade, although their arguments now are now much about the cost than the danger it might pose.
  • (4) Cameron had a legitimate argument, but the marines didn't want to hear it.
  • (5) This is not an argument for the status quo: teaching must be given greater priority within HE, but the flipside has to be an understanding on the part of students, ministers, officials, the public and the media that academics (just like politicians) cannot make everyone happy all of the time.
  • (6) Pathological changes may, thus, be initially confined to projecting and intrinsic neurons localized in cortical and subcortical olfactory structures; arguments are advanced which favor the view that excitotoxic phenomena could be mainly responsible for the overall degenerative picture.
  • (7) The legs of that argument were cut off by the financial crisis.
  • (8) These changes in the isozyme pattern of PK in aggressive fibromatosis may act as another argument to place them in the category of malignant fibroblastic tumors.
  • (9) This provides a compelling argument that the protein kinase function of p37mos is an intrinsic property of the protein.
  • (10) He always had a logical approach to his arguments and I would have described him as fair at the time.
  • (11) There are, however, plenty of arguments to be made about the Slim Reaper's supporting cast.
  • (12) The soldiers allegedly launched the attack after one of their comrades was killed when he became involved in an argument over a woman near Fizi hospital.
  • (13) In support of this argument, a case of erosive arthritis is reported in a skeleton from Kulubnarti, Republic of the Sudan (c. 700-1450 A.D.).
  • (14) Mallon's finance and resources director, Paul Slocombe, thinks Pickles's argument is "slightly disingenuous" because the funding was part of the last spending review, which ends on 31 March.
  • (15) Since the four determining coefficients may change over evolutionary time-scales, the mathematical results together with a natural selection argument proves that virulence gamma 2 attenuates.
  • (16) It seeks to acquaint them with 'ethical' arguments against their work which, because they are simple and plausible, persuade many people.
  • (17) The IFS gave this argument an airing today, and produced figures to show that – on such a basis – the VAT rise was a fair tax after all.
  • (18) Questions are raised as to the validity of arguments that crossover positions have been demonstrated to be normally established only during pachytene (after synapsis is maximal).
  • (19) The rioting began on Wednesday after a deadly argument between a Muslim gold shop owner and his Buddhist customers in Meikhtila.
  • (20) However, to insist that those who advise an IUD with the motive of contraception cannot herefore object to, say, intrauterine saline aimed at the destruction of a moving 27-week fetus is, in my view, stretching his argument.

Fallacy


Definition:

  • (n.) Deceptive or false appearance; deceitfulness; that which misleads the eye or the mind; deception.
  • (n.) An argument, or apparent argument, which professes to be decisive of the matter at issue, while in reality it is not; a sophism.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In March, the Tories reappointed their trusty old attack dogs, M&C Saatchi, to work alongside the lead agency, Euro RSCG, and M&C Saatchi's chief executive, David Kershaw, wasted no time in setting out his stall, saying: "It's a fallacy that online has replaced offline in terms of media communications."
  • (2) Once availed of the fallacy that athletes are role models, there’s a certain purity that feels almost quaint in an era of athlete as brand.
  • (3) It's a fallacy, because there is no such thing as 'the people'.
  • (4) In 2 experiments, representativeness was pitted against probability combination to determine the contributions of each to the fallacy.
  • (5) It is argued that Western science reductionist approaches to the classification of "mass hysteria" treat it as an entity to be discovered transculturally, and in their self-fulfilling search for universals systematically exclude what does not fit within the autonomous parameters of its Western-biased culture model, exemplifying what Kleinman (1977) terms a "category fallacy."
  • (6) Attempts have been made to avoid the fallacies with the introduction of quadrilateral and Wits analyses.
  • (7) Greater efforts to verify the characteristics of apparently discordant pairs than to verify those of apparently concordant pairs can result in the 'unequal ascertainment' fallacy.
  • (8) It's pure ad hominem (in the classic sense of the logical fallacy): "who is "Cornell [ sic ] West" to think that anything he says should be even listened to by "national security professionals"?
  • (9) For example, the fallacy is committed when a study contains the conclusion that TV advertising increases preference for sugar-based foods, but the reader later believes that the study concluded that TV advertising should be controlled.
  • (10) Typically, people get honours for their charity work, and I've never even agreed with that, since it tends to mean donations, which tend to proceed from wealth, and all it does is lock down and make flesh the fallacy that rich people are more honourable than everyone else.
  • (11) In our response, we place special emphasis on the fallacy of using nondiscriminating similarities between groups (e.g., suicidal ideation) as a basis for positing disease homogeneity.
  • (12) This is a good example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “after this, therefore because of this” – fallacy.
  • (13) The author discusses the fallacy in the orthodox interpretation of Wolff's law, and suggests that a "resolution length restriction" be imposed on the trajectorial theory to avoid interpretations that lead to the fallacy.
  • (14) Simulation can validate a proposed policy, uncover fallacies of a proposal, or determine the sensitivity of the response to a policy change.
  • (15) being involved is the idea – and it is a core capitalist idea – that if you provide people with perfect information about a market you will be able to make perfect decisions, which is just fallacious in the context of higher education.
  • (16) The Lib Dem deputy leader, Simon Hughes, told the BBC that the no camp had conducted a "fundamentally fallacious campaign" which would affect the coalition.
  • (17) It is fallacious to assume that the conditions were worse in the past as it is fallacious to assume that they were better.
  • (18) Of course the polarisation of old and young rests on a fallacy, if not a downright lie: that all young people possess perfect skin and gleaming hair, have non-stop sex, are bursting with energy and are never lonely.
  • (19) Amniotomy followed by oxytocin infusion is advocated to simulate the progress of normal labour unless this is evident from an early stage.Oxytocin, the dose of which is limited only by foetal distress, cannot be used effectively unless three popular fallacies are rejected.
  • (20) While the error of indulging in fantasies such as the " Twitter revolution " and the collapsing Islamic Republic may be understandable, I wonder if the flawed logic that allowed for such fallacies is.