Not A Blog™

Graham gave me this idea. He recently started his own blog, and the first post was hilariously fantastic. It also got me thinking along a similar line, perhaps less funny, but still interesting to myself. It turns out that by using nothing more than the “sandwich”—a useful and common enough object—it is possible to demonstrate a wide range of errors of logic. This is pretty cool. I decided to expand on it.

You probably already know that I’m interested in informal logic and its fallacies. It’s fun, if not somewhat depressing, to find these things all over the place in everyday life. However, the actual study of informal fallacies can be quickly derailed due to the pedantic and dry nature of logic texts. This does a disservice to everyone.

In order to bring informal logical fallacies to the masses, I’ve illustrated the most common using the sandwich. In this way, you can get a fast, concrete grasp of the fallacies in question. There is no boring explanation of why these things are fallacious. I’m kind of hoping the humor in them shows why they’re not actually proving anything to anyone, and are therefore errors in reasoning. Of course the fact that there’s any humor in this at all is debatable. So it goes.

Informal Fallacies (with sandwiches)

Appeal to Authority
You should eat sandwiches because Bob says so. After all, he is an expert sandwich maker.

Appeal to Belief
Most people think this is a sandwich.

Appeal to Character
Hitler ate sandwiches.

Appeal to Emotion
Sandwiches make us happy.

Appeal to Fear
Eat sandwiches or die!

Appeal to Flattery
You look great, holding that sandwich.

Appeal to Novelty
This is a brand new, state of the art sandwich.

Appeal to Pity
I don’t know what I’ll do if you can’t find it within yourself to eat this sandwich.

Appeal to Popularity
Everyone loves a sandwich.

Appeal to Ridicule
Sandwiches? Don’t be absurd.

Appeal to Tradition
We have sandwiches every year.

Appeal to Wealth
Bill Gates eats sandwiches.

Ad Hominem
Bob says we have to eat to live, but he’s just saying that because he’s a sandwich maker.

Composition
I have a loaf of bread, a block of cheese, a head of lettuce, a tomato, mayonnaise and a pig. That’s a sandwich.

Cause and Effect
Wherever there’s a sandwich, there’s bread. Obviously bread comes from sandwiches.

Division
This sandwich has lettuce on it, so it’s green.

False Dilemma
You can either eat this sandwich, or die of starvation.

Hasty Generalization
Bread? Meat?? Sandwich!

Fallacy of Moderation
Man cannot live by bread alone, and eating too much meat is unhealthy, so split the difference with a sandwich.

Poisoning the Well
You have your choice between this delicious, healthy, fantastic sandwich, or this disgusting, greasy, fattening burger.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
The bread for a sandwich comes from a loaf, therefore loaves of bread cause sandwiches.

Red Herring
Sandwiches are alright but you really should try it with red herring because, after all, you don’t want to find yourself having gone through life without once eating a red herring sandwich.

Slippery Slope
If we keep growing wheat, we’ll have to keep making bread. If we have to keep making bread, we have keep using more and more of that bread. Pretty soon the world will be overrun with sandwiches.

Straw Man
“I’d rather have tacos than a sandwich.”
“Why do you hate sandwiches so much?”

Weak Analogy
Tacos have hard shells. Since sandwiches and tacos are both eaten for lunch, sandwiches have hard shells, too.

I think some of these would look good on a T-shirt, or maybe I could put them on a poster. Whatever it takes to get the general populace to stop being ignorant of basic reasoning skills.

-Ted