Neo-Oscurantism Unmasked

Fallacies

In order to give their beliefs an appearance of rationality, pseudo-rationalists often resort to a fake logic consisting of slogans that might sound rational to a naive audience, but find no justification in actual logic, and in part of principles that might have a true rational basis, but are misused in an intentionally dishonest/fallacious/out-of-context way.


Mass-conspiracy argument

"It is impossible to involve such a high number of people into a conspiracy and keep them silent for such a long time."


Default denial

"What's stated without proofs can be denied without proofs"


Unprovable negative

"You cannot prove a negative."


Appeal to laziness

"It takes more energy to debunk a statement than to come up with it."


Appeal to career

"Only the experts' opinions should be listened because they have years of study behind them."


Facts vs opinions

"Science cares about facts, not opinions."


Democratic analogy

"Science is not democratic."


Equivocation of value

"Opinions are not all equal, so they shouldn't be treated equally."


Paradox of tolerance

"Tolerance requires not tolerating the intolerant."


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