Fallacy of the Day: Faulty Analogy

[sarahmichigan]

This one drives me up the wall. I noticed an example of it in, of all things, Babylon 5, season 4. Captain Sheridan tells the alien Lorien that the first duty of a prisoner is to escape. Lorien then launches into a completely moronic speech about, "If you're a captive of love, should you try to escape to solitude?" and so on, using terribly flawed analogies and abusing the prisoner metaphor to within an inch of its life.

Of course, no analogy is perfect, but some are better than others. More discussion on this fallacy can be found here:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/wanalogy.html

Comments

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

The problem with using analogies as proof is that proving the analogy hold is generally the same thing as proving whatever you were arguing without the analogy. They're useful as illustrations, but I think using analogy for argument is just an emotional appeal.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I think analogies can be useful to explain hard concepts, but they're not terribly useful as "proof" or "evidence" for any claim.