I once had a colleague, who when she heard something she found difficult to believe, would exclaim: “Oh, tell the truth!” How I now wish she was asking the candidates questions, trying to weed through their fallacies. A fallacy is a mistake or deliberate misuse of one of the parts of argument. Fallacies often seem persuasive on their surface. The value in understanding them lies in creating sound arguments yourself and becoming less susceptible to the unsound arguments of others. Fallacies may appear as people construct their own arguments or as people respond to the questions or challenges of others. Here are the top ten you’ve seen or are likely to see in the debates.

Fallacies in Assertions

Ad‑Hominem literally, it means “against the man.” It consists in attacking a person rather than the argument. This fallacy also manifests itself when A person’s argument is attacked on the basis of that person’s association or group. Another example is when someone tries to attach a highly charged pejorative label to someone. Calling Bernie Sanders a “socialist,” Rand Paul an “isolationist,” or Donald Trump a “fascist,” is making ad hominem attacks. In the 4th Republican undercard debate, Bobby Jindal consistently tried to label his opponents as “big government Republicans.”

Persuasive Definition occurs when the definition argues for a point of view. Cruze: If I’m elected president, let me tell you about my first day in office. The first thing I intend to do is to rescind every illegal and unconstitutional executive action taken by Barack Obama.[1st Republican debate] Cruz is assuming the very point that is under contention, that it, whether the actions taken by President Obama are illegal and unconstitutional.

False Alternatives consists in assuming too few alternatives and at the same time assuming that one of the suggested alternatives must be true. Sanders: The American people want to know whether we’re going to have a democracy or an oligarchy as a result of Citizens Union. [1st Democratic debate] It’s possible we could still maintain a democracy even given the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, but Sanders doesn’t allow for that possibility.

Fallacy of Relevance occurs when someone refuses to engage in the debate or answer a direct question.

Gerard Baker of The Wall Street Journal asked Fiorina this question:

Now, in seven years under President Obama, the U.S. has added an average of 107,000 jobs a month. Under President Clinton, the economy added about 240,000 jobs a month. Under George W. Bush, it was only 13,000 a month. If you win the nomination, you’ll probably be facing a Democrat named Clinton. How are you going to respond to the claim that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republicans?

 Here was the first part of her non-response;

Well, first of all, I must say as I think about that question, I think about a woman I met the other day. I would guess she was 40 years old. She had several children. And she said to me, you know, Carly, I go to bed every night afraid for my children’s future. And that really struck me. This is America. A mother is going to bed afraid for her children’s future.

And the reason she’s afraid for her children’s future is because we’ve had problems for a long time. Yes, problems have gotten much worse under Democrats. But the truth is, this government has been growing bigger and bigger, more corrupt, less effective, crushing the engine of economic growth for a very long time. This isn’t about just replacing a Democrat with a Republican now. It’s about actually challenging the status quo of big government. [4th Republican debate] [Watch it]

When Cruze was asked this question by moderator Carl Quintanilla:

Senator Cruz. Congressional Republicans, Democrats and the White House are about to strike a compromise that would raise the debt limit, prevent a government shutdown and calm financial markets that fear of — another Washington-created crisis is on the way. Does your opposition to it show that you’re not the kind of problem-solver American voters want?

Cruz avoided the question entirely by attacking the media and the moderators;

You know, let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. [applause] This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions — “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?” “Ben Carson, can you do math?” “John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?” “Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign?” “Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?” How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about? [3rd Republican debate] [Watch it]

Candidates are fond of this strategy when faced with a question they don’t want to answer.

Slippery Slope takes place when arguing that one action will inevitably lead to an undesired consequence. Firorina: And now what do we have with Dodd-Frank? The classic of crony capitalism. The big have gotten bigger, 1,590 community banks have gone out of business, and on top of all that, we’ve created something called the Consumer Financial Production Bureau, a vast bureaucracy with no congressional oversight that’s digging through hundreds of millions of your credit records to detect fraud.

This is how socialism starts, ladies and gentlemen. [4th Republican debate] [bolded by yours truly]

Fallacies in Evidence

Unrepresentative or Biased Statistics consists in drawing an inductive   generalization based on an unrepresentative, biased or out of context sample. It is selected specifically to make the evidence appear stronger than it is. Fiorina makes much of her track record as CEO of HP, but as several articles have pointed out, [Fortune, The Fiscal Times, CNN Money] many of her assertions about a positive track record are true only within narrowly defined contexts.

Clinton: I think that we have to look at the fact that we lose 90 people a day from gun violence. This has gone on too long and it’s time the entire country stood up against the NRA. [1st Democratic debate] While she accurately cites the number of overall death by firearms, only (and I use the term “only” in a descriptive rather than an evaluative sense), about 33% were classified as homicides. The CDC attributes the majority (66%) of gun deaths to suicide or other causes which Clinton conveniently omits.

You’ll also find this fallacy when someone uses the testimony of, or cites the study of some organization with an obvious political bias. Notice that I say “obvious” political bias. It’s not enough for someone to simply level the accusation of political bias—there should be ample evidence to support the charge. The National Rifle Association or The People for the American Way have made their political agenda clear and wouldn’t be considered “objective” or “unbiased” sources.

A Hasty Generalization consists in drawing an inductive generalization from too few instances. This is perhaps the most common fallacy in inductive reasoning. Typical examples include trying to reach a conclusion from a single example that may be doubtful, or even if true, insufficient. It’s difficult to generalize from personal experience. In attempt to support their assertion, people sometimes choose “outliers,” that is, a piece of data that lies outside of what is typical. Although a single narrative may illustrate or clarify a point, it rarely carries enough weight to tip the balance of the argument. A hasty generalization is similar to the fallacy of unrepresentative or biased statistics, but usually relies on an example or narrative as the starting point.

Fallacies in Reasoning

Non‑Sequitur occurs when a conclusion is unwarranted by the support provided. In the broadest sense, all fallacies fall under this category as non-sequitur literally means “it does not follow.” Non-sequiturs also get tacked on to candidate responses as attempted rebuttals. When Kasich criticized Trump’s plan to deport 11 million people, Trump’s first response was All I can say is, you’re lucky in Ohio that you struck oil. That is for one thing. [4th Republican debate] While it’s true that reasoning is most often implicit or unstated in an argument, whenever a candidate produces evidence in support of an assertion that leaves you wondering “huh”? or “so what,” you should suspect a non-sequitur.

Faulty Analogy consists in assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect. While it’s true that Governors are the chief executive of their states and are fond of saying they will do for America what they did for their own states, they ignore or gloss over some important differences. 1) There is a tremendous difference in scale and scope between a single state and the United States. 2) They might not find the Congress as compliant as their state legislatures. 3) They didn’t have foreign policy issues of part of their portfolio.

Appeal to Public Opinion consists in urging the acceptance of a position simply on the grounds that most or great numbers of people accept it or agree with it. Not surprisingly, candidates tend to cite public opinion polls when they support their own position and ignore them or try to “school” the public when they don’t. Clinton cites the overwhelming number of Americans who favour background checks for gun purchases: That’s why I’ve got such a good plan. But we have to also go after the gun lobby and 92 percent of Americans agree we should have universal background checks. Close the gun show loophole, close the online loophole and… [[second Democratic debate]I doubt she would be so quick to use public polling dating showing that 60% of Americans disapprove of taking in Syrian refuges [Gallup Poll, Nov. 21-22, 2015]

No doubt the fallacies will continue to pile up during the rest of the debates, but armed with this list, you’ll at least be able to identify them and see where the equation doesn’t add up.