(n.) The practice of a sophist; fallacious reasoning; reasoning sound in appearance only.
Example Sentences:
(1) But too often, those who deploy the argument, are borrowing from the Bill Clinton school of sophistry: "I did not have racist relations with that religion".
(2) Whatever the mechanisms of the drug-induced carcinogenesis, it is clear that there is a toxicologic hazard, which must be assessed rationally and not by means of sophistry.
(3) It has been their policy for the last 10 years and the commitment could not have been clearer in the Queen's speech that followed the general election (even if the wording of the coalition agreement allowed for some sophistry by opponents of reform).
(4) This sort of sophistry neatly inverts the actual benefactor-beneficiary relationship: for-profit companies are attempting to save money on entry level positions by extracting unpaid labour from a population of vulnerable young people, many of whom are unaware that these arrangements are often illegal.
(5) The Union now host their affiliate team Harrisburg in the quarter finals - prompting a little bit of sophistry from US Soccer as to why the two teams aren't technically affiliated .
(6) Though this is not explicit, it will help slice through the banalities and sophistry that party and campaign spin doctors on both sides seem unable to shake off with the referendum campaign.
(7) What Wisconsin does offer is a transparent illustration of the ideological sophistry and political mendacity driving these attacks.
(8) At best, these arrangements are advantageous legal sophistry.
(9) How can they approve this through the normal processes?” The chair of the London assembly’s budget and performance committee accused Johnson of “sophistry”.
(10) The possibility of exposing the mendacious speeches, populism and sophistry of politics, economics and culture is thrilling.
(11) "For all the sophistry and rhetoric about avoiding violence, how can they reconcile that with being ok with evictions?
(12) People think we just chuck it out there, but there's a huge amount of data sophistry into how we design the campaigns."
(13) This fiasco over PIP eligibility ultimately reveals the sophistry behind the government's disability agenda.
(14) The remainers in the audience saw the sophistry, but no matter.
(15) But it’s precisely this veil of classiness, this veneer of BBC2 sophistication, that brings on the sophistry.
(16) At best this is sophistry and at worst this is misleading, because the NAO report says the Department for Work and Pensions is actively considering a delay to this too.
(17) But he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them … Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection.” When these contradictions are rooted in history this sophistry can be neatly buried under time.
Specious
Definition:
(a.) Presenting a pleasing appearance; pleasing in form or look; showy.
(a.) Apparently right; superficially fair, just, or correct, but not so in reality; appearing well at first view; plausible; as, specious reasoning; a specious argument.
Example Sentences:
(1) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
(2) Photograph: Da Capo Lifelong Books This is why I have no patience for anyone who insists that women must learn self-defense moves and memorize lists of specious advice to prevent our own victimization.
(3) To start with, despite my son's diagnosis, the local authority did what a lot of local authorities do, and refused to assess him, on the most specious of grounds.
(4) Please, get rid of the gimmicks – the faux-concerned and impersonal feedback loop and the specious “choice” paradigm designed to soften us up for privatisation – and listen to your frontline staff.
(5) And when you ask someone who’s passed along some specious “don’t get raped” tips or suggested a self-defense class to a woman concerned about rapes in her neighborhood what they were thinking, they’re likely to respond with something like “Better safe than sorry!” Translation: Even if what I’m telling you to remember is a pile of stinking horseshit, you should still engage in this ritualized expression of anxiety with me, because it makes me feel slightly better about things I can’t control.
(6) Roger Jones, editor of the British Journal of General Practice David Colquhoun's critique of my journal's peer review and editorial processes is based on a single table lifted from the main research paper, in which the detailed numerical data tell a somewhat different story, rendering his analysis partial and his conclusions specious.
(7) Dolezal’s specious claims to black ancestry and faux black identity could not have been sustained and she would not have been able to pass if black womanhood were seen and understood as more than skin – or weave – deep.
(8) On Monday, two Conservative chancellors, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, accused Downing Street of publishing a Treasury document that amounted to propaganda , while one MP, Marcus Fysh, described it as “specious bollocks”.
(9) These two findings together predict that individuals known to have a marked PMR may have the diagnostic risk associated with these specious artifacts reduced by receiving diazepam before clinical ERG studies are begun.
(10) There is a creeping sense that this is turning into a cash cow for the private sector, a get-out-clause for the government ("we've spent all this money, if people can't get jobs despite our help, it's because they are inadequate"), and unemployed people will be left at the bottom, ceaselessly harassed by a totally specious narrative in which their laziness beggars a try-hard administration.
(11) Superficially it looks like the rightwing press falling into yet another fit of specious morality.
(12) Retrospectively applying the rubric of terrorism is specious.
(13) Boris Johnson trails his quest to return to the Commons – and obviously to become Tory leader – with the specious claim that the UK could have a “great and glorious future” outside the EU .
(14) P+ strains of serotypes 1b (two strains), 4b (seven strains), and untypeable (one strain) were isolated from nine Apodemus specious and one Apodemus argenteus.
(15) Asked about the attempt to destabilise his leadership, Clegg said: "I think it's odd, to put it very mildly, that any fellow Liberal Democrat should spend time and good money while the rest of us were out campaigning for these tough elections instead surreptitiously trying to come up with specious claims on the basis of polls, which were in any case entirely confounded by the election results.
(16) A number of arguments as to why aggregation produces spurious correlations are considered and shown to be specious.
(17) Further, as Prof Dimitro Godzinsky, of the Ukranian National Academy of Sciences, states in his introduction to the report: "Against this background of such persuasive data some defenders of atomic energy look specious as they deny the obvious negative effects of radiation upon populations.
(18) Four specious combinations of the mosquitos were distinguished as anthropophilic, sylvatic, meadow and marsh ones.
(19) It should reflect the seriousness of the crime committed and the magnitude of the harm suffered by the victim, and it is specious to argue that the child is not damaged most by the sexual abuse that took place in order for the image to be created.
(20) Ag-Gag laws have passed or are pending in nearly a dozen states , with Idaho's powerful dairy industry now the latest to use these specious legal arguments to hide unsavory practices.