Fallacy in the context of "Pseudoarchaeology"

In logic and philosophy, a formal fallacy is a pattern of reasoning with a flaw in its logical structure (the logical relationship between the premises and the conclusion). In other words:

• It is a pattern of reasoning in which the conclusion may not be true even if all the premises are true.
• It is a pattern of reasoning in which the premises do not entail the conclusion.
• It is a pattern of reasoning that is invalid.
• It is a fallacy in which deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a logical process.

A formal fallacy is contrasted with an informal fallacy which may have a valid logical form and yet be unsound because one or more premises are false. A formal fallacy, however, may have a true premise, but a false conclusion. The term 'logical fallacy' is sometimes used in everyday conversation, and refers to a formal fallacy.

A false statement, also known as a falsehood, falsity, misstatement or untruth, is a statement that is false or does not align with reality. This concept spans various fields, including communication, law, linguistics, and philosophy. It is considered a fundamental issue in human discourse. The intentional dissemination of misstatements (disinformation) is commonly termed as deception or lying, while unintentional inaccuracies may arise from misconceptions, misinformation, or mistakes.

Although the word fallacy is sometimes used as a synonym for false statement, that is not how the word is used in most formal contexts.

Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs based on what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than on evidence, rationality, or reality. It is a product of resolving conflicts between belief and desire. Methodologies to examine wishful thinking are diverse. Various disciplines and schools of thought examine related mechanisms such as neural circuitry, human cognition and emotion, types of bias, procrastination, motivation, optimism, attention and environment. This concept has been examined as a fallacy. It is related to the concept of wishful seeing.

Some psychologists believe that positive thinking is able to positively influence behavior and so bring about better results. This is called the "Pygmalion effect". Studies have consistently shown that holding all else equal, subjects will have unrealistic optimism and predict positive outcomes to be more likely than negative outcomes. Research also suggests that under certain circumstances, such as when threat increases, a reverse phenomenon occurs.

Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving"; also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy, but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of proof or evidence as the conclusion. As a consequence, the argument becomes a matter of faith and fails to persuade those who do not already accept it. Other ways to express this are that there is no reason to accept the premises unless one already believes the conclusion, or that the premises provide no independent ground or evidence for the conclusion. Circular reasoning is closely related to begging the question, and in modern usage the two generally refer to the same thing.

Circular reasoning is often of the form: "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true." Circularity can be difficult to detect if it involves a longer chain of propositions.

The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber; therefore, the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." That is fallacious, because vehicles are made with a variety of parts, most of which are not made of rubber. The fallacy of composition can apply even when a fact is true of every proper part of a greater entity, though. A more complicated example might be: "No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive." This is a statement most people would consider incorrect, due to emergence, where the whole possesses properties not present in any of the parts.

The fallacy of composition is related to the fallacy of hasty generalization, in which an unwarranted inference is made from a statement about a sample to a statement about the population from which the sample is drawn. The fallacy of composition is the converse of the fallacy of division.

Sophistical Refutations (Greek: Σοφιστικοὶ Ἔλεγχοι, romanized: Sophistikoi Elenchoi; Latin: De Sophisticis Elenchis) is a text in Aristotle's Organon in which he identified thirteen fallacies. According to Aristotle, this is the first work to treat the subject of deductive reasoning in ancient Greece (Soph. Ref., 34, 183b34 ff.).
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Alternative medicine refers to practices that aim to achieve the healing effects of conventional medicine, but that typically lack biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or supporting evidence of effectiveness. Such practices are generally not part of evidence-based medicine. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of mainstream medicine and do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, unorthodox medicine, holistic medicine, fringe medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery.

Some alternative practices are based on theories that contradict the established science of how the human body works; others appeal to the supernatural or superstitions to explain their effect or lack thereof. In others, the practice has plausibility but lacks a positive risk–benefit outcome probability. Research into alternative therapies often fails to follow proper research protocols (such as placebo-controlled trials, blind experiments and calculation of prior probability), providing invalid results. History has shown that if a method is proven to work, it eventually ceases to be alternative and becomes mainstream medicine.