Identify the fallacies committed in the following passages:

1. This flower must be poisonous. The cat was nibbling on it when it died.
2. Either support the board’s plan or find another job.
3. The microwave oven is the single most important technological advance of this age. Just think how unhappy you would be if you still had to cook everything on a stove top.
4. The legislators voted unanimously to limit monopolies in business; so clearly it is the correct course of action.
5. Industrialization has developed swiftly in the past century, and there have been more and more wars. Clearly, we need to return to nature.
6. You are nothing but a brain in a vat of fluids.

How do you know this?

Well, you don’t know that you are not, so maybe you are.

7. Are you a progressive who believes in changing the whole system, or are you a conservative who wants to go back to the old ways?
8. You only support the casino project, because your wife is one of its main investors.
9. Despite what everyone says, American steel companies are highly efficient. Look at Nucor.
10. The end or goal of a thing is its perfection. But the end of life is death. Therefore death is the perfection of life.
11. War can never be eradicated. After all, do you seriously think there will ever come a day when people agree about everything?
12. Capitalism is the best system of government because it promotes the freedom of the individual. This in turn raises their productivity, without which we could never maintain the free enterprise system.
13. The average rent for an apartment in Boston is much higher than elsewhere. We’ll never find one we can afford there!
14. Pornography disgusts me. There should be a law against it.
15. The music of today’s youth simply doesn’t stimulate the mind. I listened to your kids’ favorite radio station for a few minutes the other day. The three songs I heard were entirely lacking in intelligent lyrics.