For this Critical Thinking exercise, you will find a minimum of two examples of logical fallacies on the news, on the internet, or any other outlet of communication (citing the source of this fallacy as appropriate); you could even make up your own hypothetical example if necessary. As you present the fallacies to the class, you will also analyze them: in other words, explain what the specific name of your fallacy is, and why your example is a logical fallacy. Other things to consider in your main post: What can we imply about a speaker or writer whose arguments contain logical fallacies?
Does the presence of a logical fallacy in someone’s argument immediately invalidate their general position on an issue? Why or why not?

The fallacy examples below are hypothetical examples:

1. Although I learned the theory of natural selection in biology classes, my church minister said that this theory is false and therefore I believe it should not be taught in schools.

2. We cannot believe that vaccines are good for our bodies, as they are created in the laboratory and not created by nature. Nothing that comes from outside nature can do the organism any good.

Explanation:

The first example presents a fallacy called an appeal to authority and occurs when an individual uses the opinion of an authority, or the behavior of an authority, to justify incorrect reasoning on a particular issue. As we can see from this example, the narrator believes that the theory of natural selection should not be presented in schools, because the church minister does not agree.

The second example presents a fallacy known as an appeal to nature. In this type of fallacy, the speaker claims that anything that was not created by nature is bad and must be fought, even if there is concrete evidence to the contrary. As we know, vaccines are safe, this is a scientifically proven fact, but because they are not natural, many people claim that vaccines are harmful.

When a speaker or writer uses fallacies in their work, we can consider that speaker or writer to be someone with little capacity for logical reasoning and little insight into the subject they are addressing. In this case, we can conclude that this person needs to prepare more and research more before approaching this subject.

The presence of a fallacy in an argument does not invalidate the speaker's position, but it does invalidate the argument. This is because the fallacy represents the speaker's position on the subject and shows the speaker's opinion, but this is an incorrect opinion, which must be respected, but not validated.

i decided to stay late in the laboratory to continue my experiment with the lightbulb. at midnight, thomas edison opened the door and walked in with his head held high.

1. he leaned on the wall and observed me carefully.

2. his harsh scrutiny made me self-conscious of my skills in the lab.

3. perhaps it was just me, but the air in the laboratory began to thicken as i found myself having difficulty to breathe.

4. i turned to look at him fully as i mentally prepared myself for what my very first words would be to thomas edison.

5. the next couple of seconds shocked me. it wasn't me who spoke, but rather him and with diction i could never think of using in a simple sentence.

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hey, sorry if this was bad, i really didn't know what to write but i wanted to you. is there anything that you had to include within the excerpt?