Joel Berger
June 17, 2005
Weekly Web 2

The Five Common Thinking Errors in My Life

1) Non Sequiturs

During sixth grade I start hang out with a girl whom I thought liked me. She would always call me to see if we could go to the movies or something. After awhile I thought that she started to like me. In seventh grade I asked one of her friends if she liked me. Her friend said no. Given the facts that she always wanted to hang out with me I thought she started to like me but she only want to be friends with me.

2) False and Vague Premisses

I while back I told my brother to go get my keys. He asked me where they were. I said "On my head board in my bedroom." He came out a minute later saying that they were not on my head board. I got really frustrated and ran upstairs into my bedroom. I found them on my desk. I gave my brother false information about where my keys were. He came to the right conclusion by looking on the headboard though they were not there. I had given him false information about them be on my headboard.

3) Ad Hominem

Just the other day my brother, Ryan, and I got into an argument about who was better at the video game NFL Street 2. Eventually I knew that he was better than I so I started to say that he was stupid and need to shut up. In this case I called him stupid instead of conceding and say that he was better than I was.

4) Begging the Question

A lot of times my parents say that they can make me do things just because they are the parents. When they tell me to go wash the cars I ask why, they say "Because I told you so and I the parent."

5) Red Herring

One time I got into an argument with my dad about not cleaning up my room. We were both screaming at each other for about ten minutes. I knew that I was going to lose this fight so i said "Look at Ryan's room, it is always mess, get mad at him also." Here when I should have been focused on the argument with my father I committed a Red Herring tying to distract my father.