Tag Archives: evaluating evidence

Anti-vaccers are fundamentally wrong about placebo-controlled trials

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Fallacy Man

Anti-vaxxers love to demand placebo-controlled trials and insist that nothing else will suffice for demonstrating vaccine safety. This approach to medical research is flawed for a number of reasons. First, as I’ve explained previously, new vaccines are, in fact, tested … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Understanding analogies in logical arguments

Posted on June 25, 2026 by Fallacy Man

Yesterday, on this blog’s Facebook page, I posted the stick figure comic on the right, lightly making fun of anti-vaccers and using analogies to demonstrate why they are wrong that 100% effectiveness is needed for vaccines to be useful. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Rules of Logic, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Big pharma is not buying favorable peer-reviews

Posted on April 20, 2026 by Fallacy Man

Science-deniers have a long history of blindly assuming that any research they don’t like must have been corrupted by “big whatever,” and I constantly see people assume a study had conflicts of interest rather than actually checking for conflicts. Lately, … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Is the “backfire effect” real?

Posted on February 17, 2026 by Fallacy Man

The “backfire effect” is a psychological phenomenon in which correcting misinformation actually reinforces the false view rather than causing someone to reject it (Nyhan and Reifler 2010). This topic comes a lot in the comments on this and other pro-science … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Science never showed that smoking was safe

Posted on January 8, 2026 by Fallacy Man

“Science used to say that smoking was safe, so why should we ‘trust the science’ when it says that vaccines are safe and effective, climate change is real, or GMOs are safe?” This is one of the most common excuses … Continue reading →

Posted in Nature of Science | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment