Fallacy Series

I've decided that the first thing that will come up onto this forum will be extremely simple; information about fallacies. Fallacies are the bane of those who wish to debate well, because they are common, sometimes cleverly disguised, sometimes are the rare ones that you can't spot. But, right now, we're going to try and help you stop the fallacies. You may miss a few on the way, and you'll have the occasional miserable fail, like many people have, but you'll be stronger for it. You'll be able to spot them faster, stronger, quicker, we can rebui--

*ahem*. Let's begin.

I shall create the contents following, so people understand what each topic is.

1 -- QI -- What is a fallacy?

2 -- The likely lads -- Ad populum, Ad hominems, False Dichotomies, slippery slope fallacies and others

3 -- Only fools and horses (use these fallacies) Arguments to tradition, Band wagons, poisoning the well

4 -- Law and Order -- Poe's Law, Godwin's Law, and others

5 -- Whatever happened to the likely lads? -- There shall be more coming soon.

Anyway, let's get on with QI

What is a fallacy? Well, we need to say what an argument is first, before we say what a fallacy is. We need a solid foundation, after all. An argument consists of a (series of) premises, followed by evidence, followed by a conclusion. If the premise is true, as it is supported by the evidence, the evidence is reliable, and the logic is true, then the conclusion is factual. Simply, if your premise is true, and your logic is not flawed, your conclusion is correct.

A fallacy is when your logic is flawed. To be more specific, a fallacy is an "argument" in which the premises given for the conclusion do not provide the needed degree of support. There are many different fallacies, at least 50 common ones, some of them are obvious, some of them are subtle, and some of them are just plain crazy once you can find them.