136 How to Win Every Argument
Darling, I'm bigger than you are, stronger, and richer; yet I respect you.
You stand in the same relationship to your mother, so I, in turn must
respect your mother.
(I just don't want her in the house.)The red herring
When the hounds are intent on following a scent of their own
choosing, in preference to that selected by the master of the
hunt, a red herring is used to effect the transfer. Tied to a length
of string, it is led across the trail the hounds are following. Its
powerful aroma is sufficient to make them forget what they were
following, and to take up its trail instead. The red herring is then
skilfully drawn onto the trail which the hunt-master prefers.
In logic the red herring is drawn across the trail of an argu-
ment. It is so smelly and so strong that the participants are led
irresistibly in its wake, forgetting their original goal. The fallacy of
the red herring is committed whenever irrelevant material is used
to divert people away from the point being made, and to pro-
ceed towards a different conclusion.
'The police should stop environmental demonstrators from incon-
veniencing the general public. We pay our taxes. '
'Surely global meltdown is infinitely worse than a little inconvenience?'
(It may well be, but that particularly ripe and smelly fish is not the one
we were following.)The use of the red herring is fallacious because it uses irrele-
vant material to prevent a conclusion being reached in its
absence. If the argument leads in a particular direction because
reason and evidence are taking it there, it is not valid to divert it