Abstract:
In defense of the PACE trial, Petrie and Weinman employ a series of misleading or fallacious argumentation techniques, including circularity, blaming the victim, bait and switch, non-sequitur, setting up a straw person, guilt by association, red herring, and the parade of horribles. These are described and explained.
Petrie and Weinman (2017) devote fewer than three pages to their defense of the PACE trial, but they nonetheless manage to employ a virtual catalog of misleading or fallacious argumentation techniques. These include circularity, blaming the victim, bait and switch, non-sequitur, setting up a straw person, guilt by association, red herring, and the parade of horribles. Sometimes they engage multiple fallacies in a single paragraph, as I shall explain seriatim.
Source: Steven Lubet. Defense of the PACE trial is based on argumentation fallacies. Journal of Health Psychology. First Published June 14, 2017 Editorial. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1359105317712523 (Full article)