Bigfoot Fallacies - Raines

Fallacy	Definition	Example	Comment
Appeal to Ignorance	Something is true because there is no evidence for it	“…from at least 3 different sources that for the life of me, sounded like they were communicating so I ruled out gunshots.”	There was no evidence to this writer that the sounds were gun shots, so what they heard were not gun shots.
Wishful Thinking	Something is true because I want it to be.	“…a couple of friends and I went camping/Bigfoot hunting…”	The writer went camping with the hopes/ intentions of finding evidence of Bigfoot, so any thing that may allude to Bigfoot means that there was a sasquatch.
Unrepresentative Sample	A conclusion is drawn from an insufficiently representative sample.	“…my buddy told me that he had heard the grunts too…” “… both my skeptical buddy and I saw the thing run across the road, the other 2 were behind us and didn't see it…”	Two out of the four people that went camping heard the grunts and saw the figure. For both instances it was the same two people. These two sleep deprived campers saw and possibly heard bigfoot, so the legend, so it must be true.
Slippery Slope	A series of steps in a casual chain and the support/ probabilities for each is omitted in an argument that A basically causes Z.		Because there were knocking and grunting noises coming from the woods and a creature ran across the road in under a second, then Bigfoot is real.
Accident	A sweeping generalization of a fact or a rule, presented as if it has no exception.	“We got out and I climbed the small incline that it had come down to investigate and after 30 min or so found a barefoot track 18” long x 7½” wide…”	Because there was a track found, this must belong to the creature that they saw earlier… Even though they were searching in a general area and found it 30 minutes after the “sighting”.
Emotional Appeal	Something is true because it makes us feel good or untrue because it doesn’t.		The writer was on a hunt to see Bigfoot, and so all the occurrences that lead him to the conclusion that not only is Bigfoot real, but he saw one is all true because it makes him feel good to be one of the few people to ever see a Bigfoot.
Appeal to Misleading Authority (w/ Appeal to Celebrity & Appeal to Tradition)	Using an authority to affirm a conclusion when the authority is not expert enough, in the context, to assure the conclusion.	“Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Scott Taylor: ‘I must conclude that… they actually had a brief sighting of a sasquatch…’”	Using this man who is apparently a Bigfoot expert to confirm that what they had seen and heard was a sasquatch.

https://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=24882