A Red Herring is a diversionary tactic. It is an argument brought up in response to another argument which does not address the real issue. There are many types of Red Herring arguments. Sometimes this can be a deliberate attempt to divert the argument and other times it might be done in ignorance. Usually this is an appeal to emotion as well.
The term comes from fox hunting. They used smoked red herrings dragged across the path of the fox to distract the hounds from the fox's trail.
This is Part 7 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I'm going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there's a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.
Types of Red Herring Fallacies: (from Wikipedia's list)
Showing posts with label red herring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red herring. Show all posts
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