What is An Appeal to Ridicule?
An appeal to ridicule is a common type of logical fallacy. Being able to spot it in arguments will help you defend yourself, and avoiding it will make you a much stronger communicator and debater. The problem with most logical fallacies is that they are very tempting to use, because many of them are effective, especially against a weaker opponent. However, an appeal to ridicule can easily be turned back on the person who uses it, if someone is keen enough to spot it and jump on it. In an appeal to ridicule, a person belittles a claim by suggesting that it is absurd. The mockery of the claim, in theory, reduces its power. However, an appeal to ridicule does not take the form of a valid or useful argument, because it brings no new information or concrete discussion into the debate. There are numerous examples of an appeal to ridicule, but they all more or less take the form of “X is foolish, therefore x is false.” Often, an appeal to ridicule utilizes a straw man, a weak argument created
