ABSTRACT
Engineering should be about doing things right. A system such as a bridge, telephone, or traffic light should be designed to function properly over a certain lifetime. The same holds for a formal technical document meant to describe an engineering system, communicate an engineering procedure, or develop an engineering idea. This chapter aims to provide avoidance of common fallacious patterns and shows that an ability to recognize fallacious argument forms is essential to the engineer. It deals with issues related to verifiability and focuses on some elements of logic and heuristic reasoning. Informal fallacies include things like ad hominem, straw man, and appeal to ignorance. Formal logical fallacies include denying the antecedent and affirming the consequent. Consideration of standard fallacies can teach us a lot about common thinking blunders.
