Red Herring Fallacy
The literal meaning of red herring is a dried smoked herring, which is turned red by the smoke. The term seems to have originated from the old method of training the dogs for fox hunting. When a fox passes through a path, it leaves a scent, which dogs can smell and find the fox. Hence, during training, the trainer would spread red herring, a strong-smelling thing, on a different path, and the dogs would be distracted and follow a different path, missing the fox. The trainer would gradually train the dogs to keep on the path of fox trial and avoid red-herring to reach their goal.
A red herring fallacy is a form of reasoning error that occurs when a misleading argument or question is presented to distract from the main issue or argument at hand. Red herring attempts to reroute a discussion onto a highly controversial topic or confuse people by introducing a vague statement that they forget the original topic.
The following arguments contain the red herring fallacy.
Arguments
- Daughter: “My boyfriend broke up with me. I am feeling so hurt.”
- Mother: “Just think of all the starving children in Africa. What a miserable life they are having. Your problem is nothing compared to them.”
Argument
- Son: “Dad, I am getting only $200 a week. It is tough to make a living on my salary.”
- Father: “You are lucky, son. I only made $50 a week when I was your age.”
Argument
- Rohan: “Arjit Singh is the greatest singer of our time. I love his songs.”
- Milli: “He can sing only sad songs. His peppy songs stink.”
- Rohan: “Well, Your favourite singer, Neha Kakkar, is horrible. She can’t sing any type of song well. “
Argument
- Police officer: “You were driving at a very high speed. Here is the challan for Rs 1000 for violating the traffic rules”.
- Driver: “How can you ask me to pay a fine? There are so many criminals roaming free. You must chase them rather than us, who are hurting no one”.
How to Avoid Red Hering Fallacy?
To avoid the red herring fallacy, stay focused on the original argument and keep the argument on track. Whenever a diversion is attempted by introducing irrelevant information, bring back the original argument in the picture by asking questions like, “Is this relevant to the main point?”
It is also important to identify the emotional appeals and not get sucked into the irrelevant discussion losing track of the main issue. If the person presents any information or claim, we may ask for the source of information or the relevant evidence. In order to ensure that the discussion focuses on the main issue, we may use phrases like “This is not relevant to the issue”, or “How does that relate to the argument?” and constantly remind the opponent to “Stay on topic.”
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