Critical thinking

Arguments must be convincing and, in order to convince, they must be valid—the minimum requirement of persuasion.

When one wants to justify the harm one has done by saying that others have done the same or that this evil was only a reaction to the harm done by someone else, they commit the logical error of appealing to hypocrisy.

When we consider that a conclusion is founded only if a lot of people consider it true, we fall into the trap of the argumentum ad populum or the appeal to popularity.

It is crucial to realise that while words can be seductive and magnetic, they can also put us in great danger if we let ourselves be carried away by their charms, driven by emotional impulses without reason.

The false analogy or the faulty analogy consists of the incorrect use of the analogy argumentative scheme without first meeting the requirements of a correct comparison.

"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US President)

Needing to process a multitude of complex information in a short amount of time can lead to erroneous reasoning. When a conclusion is supported by weak or irrelevant arguments, the reasoning falls into the category called non sequitur—does not follow, or irrelevant argument.

In everyday life, whether we like it or not, we rely on the information provided by experts or specialists. However, no authority deserves blind trust. When we take someone's word for granted simply because that person is an authority, we make the logical mistake called "appeal to authority."

We live in a polarised world where conspiracy theories proliferate, but some people are more inclined than others to consume and propagate these theories rather than ignore or demystify them.

We use our experience and knowledge to understand what is unknown or inaccessible to us. We are attracted to patterns and judge the world in terms of what is already familiar to us. However, out of a desire to understand some things more quickly, we often draw conclusions without sufficient evidence. Thus we fall into the trap of the sophism called hasty generalization.

Conspiracy theories and fake news are not the same thing, although the two categories have much in common.

A few years ago, the American Statistical Association carried out research on the history of statistics, tracing their use throughout the course of human society’s development. The results of the study are displayed in the form of a chart called the Timeline of statistics, available on the association's website.

By their very complexity, situational moral decisions demonstrate that there is an absolute good that we seek. Moral principles work together for the absolute good.

Even the most rigorously researched statistics are not immune from misinterpretation, and they can often be used in a way that obscures the truth.

What we call an “irrelevant conclusion” is an argument that gives the impression of having something to do with an idea it aims to support, but which actually shifts attention to something else.