Week 4 - Post 2: Content Fallacies

The fallacy I chose to explore was Phony Refutation. In this case, a person acts in a certain way or says something that goes against what they believe or are arguing in favor of. This fallacy argues that if a person acts against the argument they were trying to make, they must not support their own conclusion. Thus, the argument they made would be considered a poor one. I remember a particular example of this fallacy when I was taking Public Speaking during my first year at SJSU. A girl in my class was doing a speech on the negative aspects of red meat. She spoke on every detail of the topic from green house gases to the negative effects of red meat on one’s health. When she finished her speech, I asked if she was a vegetarian or if she at least refrained from eating red meats. She reluctantly replied that she did eat red meats. The fact that she argued the negative aspects of eating red meat while continuing to consume it herself made her argument appear far less effective at the end of her speech. Perhaps if she were aware of this fallacy she would haven chosen a different topic to speak on that she could fully support.