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While we wait for more responses on the earlier set of statements, here are a few more. I'm posting them in this board because many of the fallacies below are due to human cognitive dissonance, rather than fallacies of logic. So here goes.

1. Truth is subjective. What is true for me need not be true for you. Therefore, everyone should be allowed to practice what they believe as truth.

2. I don't agree with what you say, because the great philosopher Socrates has said exactly the opposite.

3. Everybody says that corruption is rampant in India, therefore corruption is rampant in India.

4. If I agree with what you say, it means that I will have to do certain things that I don't want to do. Therefore what you say is wrong.

5. You are a thief. But I am reasonable. If you prove that you are not a thief, I am willing to accept it.

6. I don't agree with you. What you say goes against centuries of beliefs and practices of this place. What you say is nothing short of sacrilege.

7. I have talked to a lot of my friends who live in different parts of US and Europe. They all agree that life in India is bad. Therefore life in India is bad.

8. Person A: Answer either yes or no for this question. Is it true that you have stopped stealing for the past six months?
   Person B: No, but...
   Person A: Well, that's enough proof that you are a thief.

9. Only people who don't find an industry job, join academics. Therefore even though I am interested in academics, I am going to look for an industry job.

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Let me answer the first one.

1. Truth is subjective. What is true for me need not be true for you. Therefore, everyone should be allowed to practice what they believe as truth.

If truth is subjective, meaning that each one has the right to practice whatever they believe as truth; then accordingly I should be allowed to believe that truth is objective and hammer this idea down everyone else until they accept it.

"Truth is subjective" is a self contradictory statement as it is asserting itself to be an objective truth. In fact, such an argument can be used as proof by contradiction to show the objective nature of truth.

The objective nature of truth is both unsettling and liberating at the same time. It is unsettling because, it says that there are things like right and wrong (based on their consistency with truth) and all forms of diversity are not equal.

However, the realization that truth is objective is also liberating because, it sets truth as the supreme idea to guide us. In social settings, supremacy of ideas is often sought to be established by appealing to cues like "I am elder than you, therefore I am right" or "I am your teacher, therefore I am right" or "Might is right", etc. But the objective nature of truth reassures that truth alone is supreme. No matter how elder, mightier I may be than you, I cannot (for example) create a machine that violates the laws of physics.

In an argument or in times of confusion, all we need to ask is, "what is the element of truth in here?" and base our actions accordingly. (How do we check whether something is true, is subject for a big post in itself.)

In fact, India's motto is based on the same argument: Satyameva jayate or "Truth alone triumphs". Note the use of the term "alone". Note the absence of any assurances for the holder of the truth. If one speaks the truth, there is no guarantee about the safety of that person, but an idea that is truthful will eventually triumph.

Also note that the notion of supremacy of truth is not borne out of some kind of "faith" or "belief". Even if we are skeptical about the supremacy of truth and assert the opposite, we see that we end up in a contradiction. The assertion "truth is not supreme" will be true only if it is itself a supreme truism; which cannot be possible according to the statement itself.

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Ok another one.. I really hope someone will attempt some more..

5. You are a thief. But I am reasonable. If you prove that you are not a thief, I am willing to accept it.

This is what is called the "burden of proof" fallacy. If someone is making an accusation, then the burden of proof is on them to prove their point, and not on the accuser to refute it.

In Europe of the medieval ages, there was often this social malaise called "witch hunting." Many times, the witch hunting was so simple that someone called someone else a witch and it was on the accused to prove that she was not a witch.

Proving things is hard and subjects the person to enormous mental turmoil. I certainly don't want to be thrust with theorems that I don't want to prove.

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I'll add just 2 more for now. I too hope that others will add more. It'll be good to see how different people see and analyse these statements.

2. I don't agree with what you say, because the great philosopher Socrates has said exactly the opposite.

This is what is called the 'appeal to authority' fallacy. The truth of a statement/argument is either self evident or can be established through a series of logical steps. Invoking an 'authority' or a great person cannot be considered a logical step in the argument. Something does not become true or false just because a person of high statures says so. If people had believed and accepted without questioning what the high and mighty professed, we would still be living on a flat earth around which the sun and all other planets revolved, or some such thing.

Having said that, we should also be mindful that appeal to authority can at times be part of a valid argument. Obviously, statements like 'According to Einstein's theory...' are valid. Further, statements like the following can also be valid: 'Sir Don says Tendulkar reminds him of himself, therefore, ....' or 'Hardy said that on the basis of pure talent, on a scale of 0 to 100, he would give Ramanujan 100; ...'

3. Everybody says that corruption is rampant in India, therefore corruption is rampant in India.

Similarly, something is not true just because a majority believes in it. I had once read a quote which was something like this - No theorem has ever been proved by voting. And one should always be sceptical of the "surveys", "research conducted by such and such magazine" and, of course, "opinion polls". Judging the "best musical talents in the universe" through SMS polls might be great commercially, but such efforts are moot. (Okay, I wont get into this )

What one should note here is that the problem in many cases may not be with the truth of the conclusion itself. It is rather with the reasoning that one uses to reach that conclusion.

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Some more notes on the objective nature of truth.

Usually, when I make this argument, I am encountered a question whether I am arguing against our culture that promotes diversity or tolerance. Well, the answer is no. We just asserted that truth is subjective and encountered a contradiction to realize that truth is objective. But it does not say anything about how to discover the objective truth in any given situation.

That is where diversity and tolerance towards other ideas comes in. A diverse society increases the probability of encountering objective truth of any given issue. Diversity is not an end in itself and does not mean that truth is subjective. It only means that we are all going our own ways to understand truth.

My own first realization that truth is objective was quite unsettling. It seemed to promote intolerance; but on deeper probing we realize that objective truth is what promotes greater tolerance, by fixing the limits of tolerance. For, if you were to tolerate intolerance according to your philosophy of tolerance, soon the society would have nothing but intolerant people. A tolerant philosophy will never take root ever. So, tolerance of an idea is fine as long as the idea itself adheres to the philosophy of tolerance and does not preach intolerance of other ideas. Only ideas that are based on objective truth can afford to tolerate other ideas. Because it is the truth inherent in the idea that guides the system and not the idea itself.

So on the one hand we say, promote pluralism, tolerance and diversity; while on the other, we adopt a motto "Truth alone triumphs." This apparent contradiction, which really isn't one, is quite a profound and powerful underpinning, if you ask me.

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Adding some more...

4. If I agree with what you say, it means that I will have to do certain things that I don't want to do. Therefore what you say is wrong.

This statement seems to have multiple levels of non sequiturs. A non sequitur (meaning, does not follow) is a fallacy in which both the premise and the conclusion may be true, but the conclusion **does not follow** from the premise. In the above case, perhaps it is true that I will have do certain things that I don't want to do if I agree with you. But that does not imply that what are saying is wrong. It might also be that just because I agree with what you say I need not do the things that I don't want to do. One just does not follow from the other.

Actually non sequitur is a very important fallacy. In fact, all fallacies can be reduced to a non sequitur. Because at the end of the day, in an argument, it is the question of a conclusion following from a premise.

I want to add another thing here. There was one piece of advise that I had read regarding research writing that I have found terribly useful. I don't remember the source, but it was basically this: ensure that no statement in your paper (or any other written piece) is a non sequitur. That is, every sentence should coherently follow from a previous statement (or a set of previous statements). In other words, there should be no gaps. This is a very simple piece of advise, but I can vouch that following it has improved my research writing a great deal.

6. I don't agree with you. What you say goes against centuries of beliefs and practices of this place. What you say is nothing short of sacrilege.

Again, this is an appeal to authority, the authority in this case being tradition. We see such arguments all the time, specially wrt religion. Somehow, a lot of people tend to forget that culture, tradition, language etc are things that we created or let evolve to serve our needs. The purpose of their existence is to serve us if and when we need. But it does seem a lot of times that the purpose of our existence is to serve and fight for them!

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@ Sri: Regarding the objective nature of truth...

There is nothing I can disagree with your posts on the objectivity of truth, but somehow I can't bring myself to think that the objective nature of truth is so unapparent or unsettling. Surely there are several things that are universal and timeless. For example, things like showing respect to one's elders, treating your enemies with dignity even in war and so on.

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Well the reason I found it unsettling was that it seemed to go against the philosophy of tolerance, diversity and pluralism that our society is supposed to be based on.

For example, things like showing respect to one's elders, treating your enemies with dignity even in war and so on.

Also I don't find the above so timeless. Different cultures around the world have violated these norms at different points in time and yet have survived to tell the story.

Truth is objective; but the objective truth is not that readily apparent.

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9. Only people who don't find an industry job, join academics. Therefore even though I am interested in academics, I am going to look for an industry job.

An example of what is called a "self-fulfilling prophecy." Regardless of what the real reasons are for people to join academics, the prophecy that "only people who don't find a job will join academics" will be strengthened by the decision that is taken.

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If I am allowed a bit of weekend levity, let me post a link to the Argument Clinic by Monty Python - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM