Emotional appeals, false experts: Debate Bingo!

WESTMINSTER, Md. (AP) | Two professors at McDaniel College developed a game to show students how arguments made by candidates in this year’s presidential debates often fail basic tests of logic.

In “Debate Fallacy Bingo,” each student gets a bingo card, but instead of numbers, each box on the card contain a type of logical fallacy.

“This is the only time of year when the American obsession is [with] rhetoric and reasoning. So we’re trying to work off that and have students look at this stuff critically,” said Peter Bradley, a McDaniel assistant philosophy professor who created the game with adjunct professor Anne Nester.

While most debate viewers listened for the candidates’ proposals for the economy or the war in Iraq, about 50 students who arrived to play during the final debate, on Oct. 15, focused just on the arguments, looking for red herrings, loaded language, hyperbole, smoke screens and innuendo.

When Republican candidate Sen. John McCain started talking about “Joe the Plumber,” who didn’t think he would benefit from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan, student Kevin Heron wrote “Joe the Plumber” in the box marked, “Appeal to authority: fake expert.”

As Mr. McCain continued, Miss Nester shouted out, “Whoa! ‘Class warfare!’ Anybody got dysphemism? Appeal to fear, anyone?”

She also said Mr. Obama’s claim that 100 percent of Mr. McCain’s ads have been negative could be hyperbole and his suggestion that the U.S. should lead the way in fuel-efficient cars was an “appeal to shame.”

When Mr. McCain talked about running mate Sarah Palin’s concern for special-needs families, Mr. Heron crossed off the “Appeal to emotion: kindness” box on his card. And just 30 minutes into the debate, he had already scored a bingo and won a bag of M&Ms.;

Mr. Bradley said Mrs. Palin has been a gift to anyone looking for logical fallacies in arguments. But he also was critical of Democrats’ linking Mr. McCain with the policies of President Bush.

“Some could say the entire Democratic campaign platform is guilt by association,” he said.

Mr. Obama also used a straw man argument - attributing to your opponent an oversimplified and easy-to-defeat view - when he said Mr. McCain thinks that “if we remove all regulation, prosperity will just rain down.”

By the end of the night, Mr. Heron managed to cross off every box on his card.