Fallacy of the Day: False Equivalence

A knife and dynamite are both tools that can be used as weapons, so they’re pretty much the same thing, and therefore if we allow people to buy knives at the store, then we should also allow them to also buy dynamite.

False equivalence arises when one draws an equivalence between two things based on the notion that they share some characteristics that are, in reality, not significant enough to justify the equation.

• Its typical logical form is as follows:

  X has characteristics A and B. Y has characteristics B and C. Therefore, X and Y are equivalent (since they both share characteristic B).

• Comparing apples to oranges

• It's considered fallacious because it equates the two subjects on false grounds, either exaggerating the importance of the similarities or ignoring the differences between them that are in fact too important to make the equivalence accurate.