Essay:Why are logical fallacies effective?

After reading our article on logical fallacies, one may desire to ask: just why are logical fallacies often effective at persuading people? This can be best explained with some assistance from the folks at TV Tropes. Since TV Tropes is somewhat more encyclopedic than RationalWiki, we will use their language verbatim to explain the effectiveness of logical fallacies at persuasion, before rephrasing it in our own words. As TV Tropes puts it: "The key is that there are two primary routes of persuasion: the central (logical) route and the peripheral (emotional) route. To persuade someone using the central route, you need logic; a logical fallacy will make your argument fall flat on its face. To persuade someone using the peripheral route, you don't need logic; you simply need to play on their emotions. Some people are impassive to emotional appeals, and so you must use logic to persuade them; others are confused by logic, and so must be persuaded through emotion."

As we at RationalWiki would put it: whether due to prior indoctrination, cognitive dissonance, conflict of interest, ignorance (willful or otherwise), distraction, disinterest, or simply sub-par intelligence (or a mixture of several of the above), some people lack the capacity, energy, and/or desire to pay any heed to your fancy book-learnin' "logic" thingamajiggywhatchumaycallit. However, even these people probably have some degree of skepticism, for the simple reason that anybody who had no capacity to screen out deceit could be easily led to financial ruin and/or an untimely end by any crank or charlatan seeking petty gain at their expense, therefore failing to have any descendants. Many logically fallacious arguments are quite effective at manipulating the of listeners who lack the sufficient intellectual training and/or capacity to recognize their inherent incoherence, allowing them to slip past low-grade skepticism to ensnare the weak of mind.

Yes, this is an insulting way of describing how logical fallacies work, but RationalWiki is not Wikipedia or even TV Tropes; RationalWiki devotes itself to fighting cranks and pseudoscience, and part of that mission entails shedding the harsh light of reason and reality on the pitch-black web of deceit and misinformation that cranks rely on to promote their warped view of reality at the expense of the human race. We are not afraid to insult cranks and their followers and call them out as mountebanks and morons in order to expose their ridiculousness and falsity, so that others do not make the mistake of falling for their lies and being led to their destruction.