Logic Lessons: Appeal to Ridicule
This logical fallacy is difficult to classify in some ways because of the huge potential for blending and overlapping with other fallacies (especially ad hominem ). Appeal to Ridicule is a form or subclass of the Appeal to Emotion fallacy, and is often used as a kind of Red Herring to distract the opponent from the topic under discussion. This fallacy is something that I encounter very frequently and in various forms: Creation science is stupid . This is the "purest" form of the fallacy, where the topic is directly ridiculed. You must be an idiot fascist because you believe in God, and religion is stupid. Now you can see an ad hominem attack mixed with the ridicule. Intelligent design is stupid and unscientific because it's just "Goddidit". A Straw Man fallacy is mixed with the ridicule. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. The emotional aspect of an Appeal to Ridicule can be powerful. If you are not on guard against it, y