Can someone explain a logical fallacy

A fallacy is an error of reasoning.

Example: a man drinks gin and coke on Monday and gets drunk, he drinks whiskey and coke on Tuesday and gets drunk, he drinks rum and coke on Wednesday and gets drunk, he drinks bourbon and coke on Thursday and gets drunk. Conclusion... it must be the coke that gets him drunk.

An argument is a set of statements that attempt to draw a conclusion from other (given) statements.

An argument can be false because the assumed statements are not in fact true, or it can be invalid because the conclusions cannot be drawn.

As an example a logically valid (but false) argument is:

All blue things are tasty
The sky is blue
therefore
The sky is tasty

The argument is valid because *if* the first two statements are true, the conclusion must be true.

A logical fallacy is made when even if the supporting statements are true, the conclusion does not necessarily follow. A simple example is the non sequitur.

I like beans
The sky is blue
therefore
You like beans

This is an argument, the conclusion may even be true, but the conclusion does not logically follow from the statements.

There are many sites with lists of different types of logical fallacies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fal…