The Five Common Thinking Errors
By Greg Powell

Non Sequiturs
In the Latin Non sequtor means "it does not follow." A Non Sequitor uses completely valid and often times logically related Premises. However in Non Sequitors the independently valid premises are incorrectly combined to arrive at a false conclusion.

Premise: Cholate ice cream is a popular flavor.
Premise: Cholate ice cream is my favorite flavor.
Conclusion: Cholate ice cream is everyone's favorite flavor of ice cream.

Non Sequitur Comics

False and Vague Premises

False and vague Premises are just what they sound like, factually incorrect premises. Though the Premises may logically arrive at a conclusion, the conslusion will be incorrect because it is built on wrong Premises.

Premise: All SLUH boys are arrogant.
Premise: All of St. Louis male teenagers are SLUH boys.
Conclusion: All of St. Louis male teenagers are arrogant.

Basic Logic and Fallacy

Ad Hominem

Ad Hominem in Latin translates to "against the person." Especially in emotionally heated arguments many people are susceptible Ad Hominem. Ad Hominem is the attacking of a person instead of judging their argument independently of how that argument makes you feel.

Premise: John is pro-choice.
Premise: John is liberal.
Conclusion: John is an America hating Socialist.

Ad Hominem and Global Justice

Begging the Question

Begging the question is when one uses what they are trying to prove in its proof. These instances often appear not blatantly, but in the implications of the premises.

A linear pair of angles have an angle sum of 180 degrees, because the angles are supplementary.

Examples of Begging the question

Red Herrings

Red Herrings reference a way to train hunting dogs by throwing off their sense of smell with fish smell. Red Herrings are pieces of an argument that are unrelated to the essential point but throw off the opposer to one's argument.

Charlie: The Honda Accord is the most feul effecient cars on the market. The smaller enginge and lighter frame require less work to run.
Tim: Toyota Camry statistically has better highway and city gas mileage.
Charlie: The exterrior and interrior of the Camry can't compete with the Accord though.

More Information on Red Herrings

Here are some helpful sites that I looked at.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html
www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html#Red%20herring (this site contains more than just Red Herrings.)