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4. Equivocation. Equivocation confuses an argument by using a single word or phrase in more than one sense. For example: “Only man is capable of religious faith. No woman is a man. Therefore, no woman is capable of religious faith.” Here the first use of “man” is generic, intended to be gender neutral, while the second use is decidedly masculine.

5. False analogy. A false analogy misrepresents matters by making a comparison between two things that are more unlike than alike. The danger that arguing analogically can pose is that an inaccurate comparison, usually one that oversimplifies, prevents you from looking at the evidence. Flying to the moon is like flying a kite? Well, it’s a little bit like that, but … in most ways that matter, sending a rocket to the moon does not resemble sending a kite into the air.

An analogy can also become false when it becomes overextended: there is a point of resemblance at one juncture, but the writer then goes on to assume that the two items compared will necessarily resemble each other in most other respects. To what extent is balancing your checkbook really like juggling? On the other hand, an analogy that first appears overextended may not be: how far, for example, could you reasonably go in comparing a presidential election to a sales campaign, or an enclosed shopping mall to a village main street?

When you find yourself reasoning by analogy, ask yourself two questions: (1) are the basic similarities greater and more significant than the obvious differences? and (2) am I over-relying on surface similarities and ignoring more essential differences?

6. False cause. This is a generic term for questionable conclusions about causes and effects. Here are three versions of this fallacy:

a. Simple cause/complex effect. This fallacy occurs when you assign a single cause to a complex phenomenon that cannot be so easily explained. A widespread version of this fallacy is seen in arguments that blame individual figures for broad historical events, for example, “Eisenhower caused America to be involved in the Vietnam War.” Such a claim ignores the cold war ethos, the long history of colonialism in Southeast Asia, and a multitude of other factors. When you reduce a complex sequence of events to a simple and single cause—or assign a simple effect to a complex cause—you will virtually always be wrong.

b. Post hoc, ergo proctor hoc. This term is the Latin for after this, therefore because of this. The fallacy rests in assuming that because A precedes B in time, A causes B. For example, it was once thought that the sun shining on a pile of garbage caused the garbage to conceive flies.

This error is the stuff that superstition is made of. “I walked under a ladder, and then I got hit by a car” becomes “Because I walked under a ladder, I got hit by a car.” A more dangerous form of this error goes like this:

Evidence: A new neighbor moved in downstairs on Saturday. My television disappeared on Sunday.

Conclusion: The new neighbor stole my TV.

As this example also illustrates, typically in false cause some significant alternative has not been considered, such as the presence of flies’ eggs in the garbage. Similarly, it does not follow that if a person watches television and then commits a crime, television watching necessarily causes crime; there are other causes to be considered.

c. Mistaking correlation for cause. This fallacy occurs when a person assumes that a correlation between two things—some kind of connection—is necessarily causal. Philosopher David Hume called this problem “the constant conjunction of observed events.” If you speed in a car and then have a minor accident, it does not follow that speeding caused the accident. If an exit poll reveals that a large number of voters under the age of 25 voted for candidate X, and X loses, it does not follow that X lost because he failed to appeal to older voters. There is a correlation, but the candidate may have lost for a number of reasons.

7. False dilemma. When the