Well said Kaosium.
Perhaps that's why it came off in my mind like a dichotomy. Amanda and Raffaele did nothing that would indicate guilt. The police investigation, on the other hand, seemed either to indicate guilt or over-active imaginations.
Never the less, the whole story was a concatination of logical fallacies.
• Appeal to law: an argument which implies that legislation is a moral imperative.[2][3]
• Appeal to probability: assumes that because something could happen, it is inevitable that it will happen. This is the premise on which Murphy's Law is based.[4][3]
• Base rate fallacy: using weak evidence to make a probability judgment without taking into account known empirical statistics about the probability.[6]
• False dilemma (false dichotomy): where two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there are more.[9]
• Nirvana fallacy: when solutions to problems are said not to be right because they are not perfect.
• Negative proof fallacy: that, because a premise cannot be proven false, the premise must be true; or that, because a premise cannot be proven true, the premise must be false.
• Package-deal fallacy: consists of assuming that things often grouped together by tradition or culture must always be grouped that way.
• Existential fallacy: an argument has two universal premises and a particular conclusion, but the premises do not establish the truth of the conclusion.
• Proof by example: where examples are offered as inductive proof for a universal proposition. ("This apple is red, therefore all apples are red.")
• Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam): signifies that it has been discussed extensively (possibly by different people) until nobody cares to discuss it anymore
• Appeal to ridicule: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by presenting the opponent's argument in a way that makes it appear ridiculous
• Argument from ignorance (appeal to ignorance): The fallacy of assuming that something is true/false because it has not been proven false/true. For example: "The student has failed to prove that he didn't cheat on the test, therefore he must have cheated on the test."
• Begging the question (petitio principii): where the conclusion of an argument is implicitly or explicitly assumed in one of the premises
• Circular cause and consequence: where the consequence of the phenomenon is claimed to be its root cause
• Continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard): appears to demonstrate that two states or conditions cannot be considered distinct (or do not exist at all) because between them there exists a continuum of states. According to the fallacy, differences in quality cannot result from differences in quantity.
• Correlation does not imply causation (cum hoc ergo propter hoc): a phrase used in the sciences and the statistics to emphasize that correlation between two variables does not imply that one causes the other
• Division: where one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts
• Composition: where one reasons logically that something true of part of a whole must also be true of the whole
• Ecological fallacy: inferences about the nature of specific individuals are based solely upon aggregate statistics collected for the group to which those individuals belong
• False attribution: occurs when an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument
• contextomy (Fallacy of quoting out of context): refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original linguistic context in a way that distorts the source’s intended meaning
• False compromise/middle ground: asserts that a compromise between two positions is correct
• Gambler's fallacy: the incorrect belief that separate, independent events can affect the likelihood of another random event.
• Moving the goalpost (raising the bar): argument in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded
• Proof by verbosity (argumentum verbosium) (proof by intimidation): submission of others to an argument too complex and verbose to reasonably deal with in all its intimate details. see also Gish Gallop and argument from authority.
• Prosecutor's fallacy: a low probability of false matches does not mean a low probability of some false match being found
• Psychologist's fallacy: occurs when an observer presupposes the objectivity of his own perspective when analyzing a behavioral event
• Red herring: This occurs when a speaker attempts to distract an audience by deviating from the topic at hand by introducing a separate argument which the speaker believes will be easier to speak to.
• Special pleading: where a proponent of a position attempts to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule or principle without justifying the exemption
• Suppressed correlative: an argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, thus making one alternative impossible
• Wrong direction: where cause and effect are reversed. The cause is said to be the effect and vice versa.
• Cherry picking: act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position
• Composition: where one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole
• False analogy: false analogy consists of an error in the substance of an argument (the content of the analogy itself), not an error in the logical structure of the argument
• Hasty generalization (fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction, secundum quid)
• Misleading vividness: involves describing an occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem
• A red herring is an argument, given in response to another argument, which does not address the original issue. See also irrelevant conclusion
• Ad hominem: attacking the person instead of the argument. A form of this is reductio ad Hitlerum.
• Argumentum ad baculum ("appeal to the stick" or "appeal to force"): where an argument is made through coercion or threats of force towards an opposing party
• Argumentum ad populum ("appeal to belief", "appeal to the majority", "appeal to the people"): where a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because many people believe it to be so
• Association fallacy (guilt by association)
• Appeal to authority: where an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it.[13][14]
• Appeal to accomplishment: where an assertion is deemed true or false based on the accomplishments of the proposer.
• Appeal to emotion: where an argument is made due to the manipulation of emotions, rather than the use of valid reasoning
• Appeal to consequences: a specific type of appeal to emotion
• Appeal to fear: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side
• Appeal to flattery: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made due to the use of flattery to gather support
• Appeal to pity: a specific type of appeal to emotion
• Appeal to ridicule: a specific type of appeal to emotion
• Appeal to spite: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made through exploiting people's bitterness or spite towards an opposing party
• Wishful thinking: a specific type of appeal to emotion where a decision is made according to what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than according to evidence or reason
• Appeal to motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer
• Appeal to nature: an argument wherein something is deemed correct or good if it is natural, and is deemed incorrect or bad if it is unnatural
• Appeal to novelty: where a proposal is claimed to be superior or better solely because it is new or modern
• Appeal to tradition: where a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it has a long-standing tradition behind it
• Genetic fallacy: where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context.
• Judgmental language: insulting or pejorative language to influence the recipient's judgment
• Poisoning the well: where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person is about to say
• Sentimental fallacy: it would be more pleasant if; therefore it ought to be; therefore it is
• Straw man argument: based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position
• Style over substance fallacy: occurs when one emphasizes the way in which the argument is presented, while marginalizing (or outright ignoring) the content of the argument
• Texas sharpshooter fallacy: Picking your target after you shoot the dart ensuring that you are right
• Tu quoque: the argument states that a certain position is false or wrong and/or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with that position
• Slippery slope: argument states that a relatively small first step inevitably leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant impact
