How do I learn to detect logical fallacies in a conversation?

It is difficult for me to ascertain when the person I am communicating is using a logical fallacy to trick me into believing him or doubting my judgement, even when I realise it hours after the argument.

I have seen countless arguments in Reddit threads and I couldn’t figure out who was in the right or wrong unless I looked at the upvote counts. Even if the person is uttering a blatant lie, they somehow make it sound in a way that is completely believable to me. If it weren’t for those people that could exactly point out the irrationality behind these arguments, my mind would have been lobotomised long ago.

I do want to learn these critical thinking skills but I don’t know where to begin from. I could have all these tips and strategies memorised in theory, but they would be essentially useless if I am not able to think properly or remember them at the heat of the moment.

There could be many situations I could be unprepared for, like when the other person brings up a fact or statistic to support their claim and I have no way to verify it at the moment, or when someone I know personally to be wise or well-informed bring up about such fallacies, perhaps about a topic they are not well-versed with or misinformed of by some other unreliable source, and I don’t know whether to believe them or myself.

Could someone help me in this? I find this skill of distinguishing fallacies from facts to be an extremely important thing to have in this age of misinformation and would really wish to learn it well if possible. Maybe I could take inspiration from how you came about learning these critical thinking skills by your own.

Edit: I do not blindly trust the upvote count in a comment thread to determine who is right or wrong. It just helps me inform that the original opinion is not inherently acceptable by everyone. It is up to me decide who is actually correct or not, which I can do at my leisure unlike in a live conversation with someone where I don’t get the time to think rationally about what the other person is saying.

Breno,
@Breno@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Probably not entirely related but I like Judge Judy’s comment: If something doesn’t make sense, it probably isn’t true.

001100010010,
@001100010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Well, Time Dilation doesn’t fucking make sense to me. How can time be different based on velocity and gravity? Einstein must be a liar.

/s

Breno,
@Breno@lemmy.fmhy.ml avatar

Lol I get your point. Again, the context of the quote probably isn’t relevant but it was the first thing I thought of. Time dilation makes sense to me after much research. There was certainly an aha! moment with that one.

C4d,

Ditto magnets. How do they work?

AnalogyAddict,

Human behavior isn’t nearly as complicated as time dilation. And not making sense TO YOU doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense to someone with over 30 years in the relevant field.

masterspace,

Human behavior isn’t nearly as complicated as time dilation

Human behaviour is far more complicated than time dilation. Time dilation is one weird phenomena that can be described and predicted with a handful of equations, human behaviour is inherently complex to the point of being chaotically unpredictable

AnalogyAddict,

I used to think human behavior was complex, too, but it’s really not. Definitely not in the sense of small claims court.

masterspace,

The problem with Judge Judy’s quote though is that time dilation doesn’t make sense to most people, that doesn’t mean most people should live lives assuming it’s not true. Conversely if it just means that it has to make sense to someone but not you then it’s meaningless because there’s someone crazy enough to believe everything.

bionicjoey,

Science is a liar sometimes

jrs100000,
@jrs100000@lemmy.world avatar

First off, Reddit (and Lemmy) is not a good place to learn about logical arguments and debate. The whole voting system is designed to filter popular opinions to the top and bury things that people dont like. If you sound authoritative and match your argument to the tone and biases of the community, your statements go to the top. If you get defensive or your answer doesn’t match the subreddit you get dog piled with down votes. If there are any topics you are genuinely an expert in just go hang out in the appropriate subreddit and watch all the complete bullshit, half truths and personal opinions that get recycled over and over as gospel truth.

VisualCicada,

I’ve noticed this when I used to lurk in subreddits related to what I’m most knowledgeable about. So much misinformation getting upvoted because it’s said confidently

wifixmasher,

Started noticing this when it comes to other forms of media too.

Mubelotix,
@Mubelotix@jlai.lu avatar

Except that saying things confidently isn’t enough. I have been downvoted so much for saying the truth on fields I’m an expert in

DrQuint,

I HAVE seen people turn around discussions when they have evidence of being more in the know than the established flow of Karma. Hell, I’ve seen it happen with people who only managed to produce complex evidence hours in and that I myself had commented in disbelief they could be right.

But it’s a rare occurrence even among discussions that do have a person who’s such. Often, post scores pre-dispose the new people coming in into choosing who to agree and disagree on, and even the actual expert who objectively “wins the fight” will continue to get downvotes just because the other downvotes were there. This often leads to the whole “Highschool America is asleep, it’s okay to post X” mentality you’d see in some communities.

Personally, I think that scoring systems have a useful place. Even downvotes. Sorting things is useful. But I see no reason to actually show the numbers. If scores were hidden, we’d have no more and no less benefits. But that stuff is instance-admin policy and I don’t really feel like fighting for it. Right now, Lemmy isn’t having enough issues like that that I’m bothered, and I don’t know if it’ll ever grow to the point it will.

iByteABit,
@iByteABit@kbin.social avatar

This is why critical thinking is such an essential skill. So many people out there are convinced about things with bullshit arguments, just because the person talking is charismatic/confident or popular and influential.

Note: Critically thinking doesn't mean denying everyone and everything and holding controversial beliefs in order to feel smarter than others, it often starts with admitting your very own mistakes first. Just like with other's arguments you should be applying the same checks to your own thinking and notice your own fallacies to correct them.

bitcrafter,

Yeah, I’ve had enough bad experiences with this that I actually ended up unsubscribing from many of the science subreddits.

Fenriswolf,

lemmy and reddit are great places to learn about debate, but their systems are not set upnto foster genuine debate. if you want to see real debate, with threats, strawmen, logical fallacies, trolls and street rules you’re in the right place.

OP is just asking for some help taking the wool away from over their eyes so they can see the truth behind the strawmen, anecdotes, fallacies and misdirection.

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