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RED HERRING
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.
Examples of Red Herring
"We admit that this measure is popular. But we also urge you to note that there are so many bond issues on this ballot that the whole thing is getting ridiculous."
"OK you are right that BB messenger is not a killer app, but Samsung is going to buy BB and put it on thier Galaxy phone."
EXERCISE 1
1. Can you think of any recent forum threads where a Red Herring was introduced? Name the forumite and the discussion.
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because merely changing the topic of discussion hardly counts as an argument against a claim.
Examples of Red Herring
"We admit that this measure is popular. But we also urge you to note that there are so many bond issues on this ballot that the whole thing is getting ridiculous."
"OK you are right that BB messenger is not a killer app, but Samsung is going to buy BB and put it on thier Galaxy phone."
EXERCISE 1
1. Can you think of any recent forum threads where a Red Herring was introduced? Name the forumite and the discussion.