In an era of “post-truth” and “truthiness,” it can be hard to defend the common-sense belief that reality exists independently of how people think about it. Skepticism about reality comes in many ...

A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. It can undermine your case. Therefore, it is important to examine your own planned written and oral presentations. Also, carefully consider opposing presentations ...

Yuri Arcurs peopleimages.com / Getty Images/iStockphoto When I was in college, I remember naively signing up for a course called “Introduction to Logic.” It turned out to be one of the greatest ...

When I was young, I was transfixed by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! As I viewed and reviewed the drawings that appeared in the newspaper, I learned about a great many jaw-dropping oddities. But of all ...

In the heat of political argument, each side is sure of its position and convinced that the opposing one is illogical. Often the opposing side is defined as if it were simply illogical. But as ...

So goes a fallacious argument from ignorance. The fallacy can occasionally be massaged slightly into a much more palatable and seemingly wise saying: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

Way back in 1988, in my first quarter at Cal Poly, I took a lower-level English class whose lessons have proved broadly useful over the ensuing years. It was a course on critical thinking, and it ...

As a marketer, I can tell you that logical fallacies are used in advertising all the time. You find them in a variety of messages that bombard you daily. As a matter of fact, you’re probably so used ...