Logical Fallacies

How I Met Your Mother is a great Tv show and it has a lot of logical fallacies. In almost every episode there are countless logical fallacies represented. In my recent viewings of How I Met Your Mother, I have noticed some logical fallacies. In the first episode I saw, two of the characters named Barney and Robin are dating and they hate to get into fights. One day Robin ruined some of Barney's ties. Barney loves his ties and Robin understands that the broken ties would spark an argument. When Robin begins to tell Barney she uses a red herring and starts to unbutton her blouse. This is a logical fallacy because Robin uses something irrelevant to distract Barney from his anger. Later in the episode the characters get stuck in a ski lift and neither can use a logical fallacy to escape from their upcoming fight and what they had avoided so long all comes down on them at once.

In another episode, one of the characters named Marshall is at his house with Lilly, his wife, and their friend Barney. After Marshall eats, Lilly asks him to wash his dishes right away. Barney then believes that Marshall and Lilly are going to get a divorce because Lilly made Marshall wash his dishes. This is a non-sequitor because their is a disconnection between the premise and the conclusion. In the same episode another fallacy surfaces. Later in the episode Barney is explaining to Marshall about how to deal with the dishes "problem," and Barney says, " If you wanted a replica of the 16th chapel on my ceiling, would it be my job to paint it? Then it's not my job to clean this dish." This is a fallacist's fallacy because Barney is using a fallacy to reject and idea's correctness.

These are just a few fallacies found in episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Anytime someone watches the show they can notice multiple fallacies throughout the episodes. Logical fallacies have branded themselves in pop culture and are everywhere. It is important to understand them because they use forms of logic, but they do not help add truth to an argument.