Things you should not do when arguing

Here is a list of common fallacies or ways of arguing which you should NOT use in a serious argument. They make you look stupid and the other party will have a hard time taking you seriously.
This is far from a complete list but I've picked out a few I often see people use (in no particular order).


Appeal to Probability
When you appeal to probability you make the assumption that something will happen, because it might happen. An example of this would be someone saying:
"It doesn't matter if I get myself into debt by playing the lottery. If I win the jackpot then I can pay all my debts and bills".
Yes it might be true, but the chance of it happening greatly outweighs the risk of it not happening.


Argument from Fallacy
This is when you analyze an argument stated by someone, and then ignores the conclusion of the argument because the argument contains a fallacy. An example of this would be:
Person 1) OK - I'll prove I'm English - I speak English so that proves it.
Person 2) But Americans and Canadians, among others, speak English too. That means you are not English.
While Person 1's point is valid, other countries speak English as well, but that does not mean Person 2 isn't from England. All it means is that Person 2's way of proving he is from England isn't perfect.


You can't prove a negative
You can't prove a negative means that you can't make a statement and then expect the opponent to disprove it, without you posting any proof yourself. I have seen some Christians demand Atheists to prove a negative when discussing the existence of God. The Christian will say "can you prove that God does NOT exist?" to which the Atheist will reply "no", because he can't prove a negative, and the Christian takes this as a victory. In reality, you can apply this to basically anything. For example, can you prove that Santa Claus is not real? No you can't (because proving a negative is impossible), but that does not mean Santa is real. The burden of proof is on the one making the statement.


Taking Quotes out of Context
This one probably don't need to be exampled. This is when you, well, take a quote out of context. An example of this could be this quote:
"There is some evidence that homeopathic treatments are more effective than placebo"
-Source: US National Library of medicine National Institutes of Health
I am not twisting their words or anything like that. What I did however, was leave out a very important part of the quote, because it might not fit my belief.
Here is the part I left out by the way:
"however, the strength of this evidence is low because of the low methodological quality of the trials."


Kettle Logic
This is when the arguments are inconsistent and maybe even contradicts each other. The name originates from an example made by Sigmund Freud. His example goes like this:
A man gets accused by his neighbor for returning a kettle he had borrowed in a damaged condition. The man then gives 3 arguments why it was not his fault. His arguments were:
1) It was not damaged when I returned it.
2) I never borrowed it in the first place.
3) It was already damaged when I borrowed it.
The problem here is that the arguments are inconsistent and even contradict themselves.


Moving the Goalposts
This is one that really bothers me, because it is used waaaaay too much.
One example of this was when someone I was arguing with said that you could not program on the Surface Pro. This is a quick summary of the argument:
Him: You can't program on a tablet.
Me: Actually, you can. The Surface Pro has a Core i5 and runs the fully featured version of Windows 8. You can even use Visual Studio or other fully featured IDEs if you want.
Him: OK so you can program on it, but the screen is too small.
Me: The screen is 10.6" big and has a resolution of 1920x1080. You can literally fit as much things on the screen as I can on my 46" TV, or my main computer monitor.
Him: You could program on a 500x500 grayscale eink display with an on screen keyboard, but it would not be practical.
The goalpost was moved several time during this discussion. As soon as one argument was disproved, the goalpost was moved slightly and demanding even greater proof to disprove his claim.


Shotgun Argumentation
The shotgun argument works like this. If I make 100 claims against something, then people will take me more seriously than someone who only makes 1 or 2 claims. There more claims I make, the higher chance is it that at least a few of them are correct. The problem with this is that 99 of my claims might be false, and only 1 might be right, and the other side might make 2 or 3 valid arguments. That means that while I make more claims and pretend like I got lots of arguments on my side, their side actually has more valid arguments. The thing to remember is that the amount of claims does not necessarily show how right or wrong the person making those claims are. That's not to say that you shouldn't make multiple arguments, but you need to have done proper research on all of them.


Cherry Picking
Cherry picking is when you carefully pick out evidence which proves you right and avoid evidence which proves you wrong. A common example of this is when AMD and Nvidia fanboys argue about which GPU is more powerful. Let's take the GTX 470 vs Radeon 5870 as an example. The 5870 performs better when playing Skyrim, so the AMD side would show that benchmark to prove that the 5870 performs better. The Nvidia side however, might show a benchmark of Metro 2033, which is a game where the 470 performs better. If you look at the overall performance of the cards, they perform about the same, but each side picks whichever benchmarks that makes their card look superior.


Ad Hominem
An ad hominem argument is when you try to counter an argument by pointing out negative things about the person who is making the claim. An example of this would be:
Person 1) I think pay more in taxes and spend less government money is necessary in order to reduce our national debt.
Person 2) But you're in big debt to your bank, so you obviously don't know anything about "spending less".
The problem here should be quite obvious. Person 2 does not actually counter the argument at all. He just tries to misdirect attention away from the real claim and make people take his side because the person he is arguing against have some negative characteristics or opinions relating to the subject.


Argumentum ad Populum
This can be summarized as "a lot of people think this is good, so therefore it is". A perfect example of this is the iPhone. A lot of people say that because it is the best selling smartphone, it is also the best. This is just flat out wrong. The iPhone has some great things about it, but "a lot of people like it so therefore it is good" does not mean anything.
A great example which proves how argumentum ad populum can be is the election which took place in Germany, 1933. 43.91% of the votes was on a man called Adolf Hitler. Popular does not always equal good.


Argument from Authority
This is when someone with a lot of knowledge regarding a subject says something, and people take it as infallible facts. Just because someone well known says something does not mean that person is right. We are all humans, and humans makes mistakes all the time.  This is why scientific reports and claims gets tested by multiple scientists. Just because, for example Steve Jobs, said that Android is a stolen product does not mean that it is. Just because someone with a PhD in aerospace engineering says the moon-landing was fake, does not mean it is true.
That's not to say that you shouldn't backup your claims with citations from famous people, but saying "this person said it, and therefore it is true" is not how you make a proper argument.


Appeal to Tradition
This is when you saying something is better, exclusively because it is older or tradition. For example:
Person 1) I don't think we need to abolish this law at all.
Person 2) Why not?
Person 1) Because it is almost 100 years old and no one has complained before, so it must be good.
The problem in this example is that society might have changed and the law is outdated.


Appeal to Novelty
This is the opposite of "appeal to tradition". This is when you say something is better, exclusively because it is newer. Example:
Person 1) How come you're using Windows XP instead of Windows 7?
Person 2) I have my reasons...
Person 1) Yeah but you should update to Windows 7. Windows XP is 10 years old you know.
While Windows 7 is better than XP at a lot of things, Person 2 might have good reasons to stick with XP. Just saying "but it is old" or "but X and Y are newer" does not mean the old thing is bad. Another example of this would be touch screen keyboards vs normal keyboards. The normal keyboard is older technology, but far superior at a lot of things.
Bottom line: Old does not equal bad.


Straw Man/Aunt Sally
There are quite a few different kinds of straw man arguments but the basics are the same. Think of it as two people dueling, but one guy runs away and starts hitting a straw man (practicing dummy) and then declares himself winner, while the real opponent just stands there looking very confused.
The most common variant of a straw man I see is when you take someone's opinion and basically tips it on its head, and it will confuse that person. For example:
Person 1) I don't like how PETA is trying to make us stop testing new medicines on animals.
Person 2) So basically what you are saying that you would be OK if some mad scientist broke into your home and fed your dog radioactive food, because it MIGHT save some random person in the future?
This is kind of hard to argue against as well, because it's so ridiculous and it throws you off balance a lot. The problem with the above example and argument is obviously that person 1 would not be OK with this, but animal experiments are made on animals which are bred for that specific purpose. They don't take someone's pet and then feed it radioactive things.

Another example of a straw man is when you oversimplifies your opponent's argument and then attacks that version. You might leave out details which are crucial to the argument. Again, you are not attacking your opponent, but you are attacking something similar and then declares yourself victorious when you've beaten the straw man.


Circular Argument
This is when your just going in circles with your arguments, and therefore ending up where you began. The classic example of this is Christianity, God and the Bible.
Person 1) Why do you believe in God?
Person 2) Because the Bible says he exists.
Person 1) Yeah but why do you believe what the Bible says?
Person 2) Because it is the word of God.
Person 1) But why do you believe in God?...
Etc... etc...
This one is pretty self explanatory why this is not something you should do in an argument. The conversion does not go anywhere, and you are not proving anything. Yes you do have an answer to all the questions, but they rely on each other in order to be true, and that's not how science and facts work.

Misuse of Statistics
There are lots of ways you can misuse statistics with. Asking biased people (for example only ask Apple fanboys in a poll about Android vs iOS) is one example of this. Another example of misuse of statistics would be to discard data which does not agree with your views. For example if I went out and asked 10 random people about something, and didn't get the answers I wanted then I might redo the study with new test subjects and completely ignore the other study.

My favorite example of misusing statistics is this one:
Person 1) We should have harsher laws against rapists.
Person 2) I disagree. Did you know that 4 out of 5 people actually enjoy gang-rape?


The Fallacy Fallacy
I found this amusing so I thought I'd mention it. The fallacy fallacy is when you discard your opponents argument because it is a fallacy. Just because they used a fallacy to get their point across does not mean their point is wrong.