Logical Fallacy of Ad Misericordiam / Appeal to pity / Appeal to Sympathy

The logical fallacy of Ad Misericordiam occurs when pity is used rather than truth to support a conclusion.

Examples of the Logical Fallacy of Ad Misericordiam / Appeal to pity / Appeal to Sympathy

“Scientists work very hard and they deserve to be supported by tax dollars.”

Whether or not they work hard is not the issue. Are tax dollars the best source for their pay, and does the use of tax dollars assure that scientists will follow a course that is most beneficial for society?

“There are women who are raped. It’s inhumane to make them carry the baby that results from the rape. Therefore, abortion should be legal."

Appeals to pity for the mother, but never addresses the fact that abortion kills a human being who is innocent. And people who use this argument generally don’t support the death penalty for the rapist.

“How dare you pass judgment on the woman, when you have no idea what she’s going through?”

“Keep your religion off my body!”

“Any law against abortion would be a law against a woman’s right to privacy.”

All of these are examples of the logical fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. They ignore the fact that a baby is being murdered. You may note that they are very useful in politics. That's because politics is not about truth.

“Teaching creation to children will result in them having trouble getting a job later.”

Of course, this has nothing to do with whether or not the teachings of evolutionism are true. Note that they never mention that this is because of the hiring discrimination among atheists and ungodly people.

“Many teachers want to teach evolution in schools and are being pressured by creationists not to teach evolution.”

Those poor evolutionists who want to teach evolution have no effect on whether or not evolution has anything to do with reality. This is also a case of special pleading since it demands one set of rules for evolutionists and a totally different set of rules for creationists. It is also a straw man fallacy in that creationists don’t oppose evolution being taught—they oppose hiding the problems with evolution from the students.

“Think of the children who won’t be able to make good life decisions if they don’t believe fully in evolution.”

This is an appeal to pity fallacy, because it avoids the issue at hand: is molecules-to-man evolution something that happened? It also does not follow that belief in evolution would help anyone make good life decisions—most likely, the opposite would be true.

Fallacy Abuse

Sandy: "If the Big-Bang-Billions-of-Years-No-Flood-Molecules-to-Man story isn't the only possible answer to the history of the Universe, then why are there no articles defaming it in the Secular Humanist scientific journals."

Rocky: "Because, just as in Galileo's day, the ruling elite among the scientists protect their sacred cow theories."

Sandy: "Don't cry on my shoulder. That is just the Galileo Argument Fallacy."

This is fallacy abuse. Rocky was not crying on Sandy's shoulder. Sandy was claiming a false criteria for determining scientific truth. Rocky pointed out the reason that Sandy's contention was wrong. Sandy twisted Rocky's statement into a straw man argument.