But the effect is the same, regardless of intent. Psst, hey Dad - nice try, but I don’t think she’s gonna bite.Ī red herring doesn’t have to be an intentional thing someone may simply have such sloppy thinking or poor debate skills that they blunder into it unintentionally. Here’s dear old Dad, tossing a red herring to try to derail his daughter’s request for an allowance increase with an anecdote about using his allowance as a kid to buy a gaming system. My buddies and I spent hours playing that thing after school. Johnson, did you see the latest episode of the Mandalorian? Wow, what’d you think of it?īilly is flinging fish here in an effort to derail the teacher’s question to him and hide the fact that he didn’t read the assignment.Īnybody remember Lew Zealand and his boomerang fish from The Muppet Show?ĭaughter: Hey, dad, I’m 13 now and doing more chores, can I get a raise on my allowance?ĭad: Y’know, back in my day I saved my allowance to buy a Nintendo. Teacher: Billy, can you tell me one of President Lincoln’s accomplishments?īilly (knowing the teacher is a huge Star Wars fan, and knowing he didn’t read even one sentence of the assignment): Gee, Mrs. Though his response might be maybe tangentially related, it doesn’t answer the question at all and simply provides a distraction from the issue. In the example, Senator Smith is challenged to comment on a piece of legislation, and instead responds with a tangent about working for his constituents and bipartisanship. Senator Smith: I work tirelessly for my constituents and have a reputation of being able to reach across the aisle to my colleagues on the other side of the political fence, and I’ll continue to work for my constituents in the future. Can you comment on why that might be the case? Reporter: Senator Smith, your signature legislation doesn’t appear to have had any impact on unemployment despite that being the goal. So, what’s that got to do with a red herring? The fallacy in question is a case in which one party attempts to divert attention from the real issue by presenting information that is irrelevant or only tenuously related to the real issue. And then there’s the Chewbacca Defense (more about that later you don’t really expect me to leave a Star Wars reference unexplained, do you?). Originally, before red herring became the popular term for it, the fallacy was known as ignoratio elenchi, or irrelevant conclusion. The term originates with an 1807 story published in Political Register by William Cobbett, a British journalist and politician, in which a smoked fish is used to distract hounds from chasing a rabbit.

Red herring fallacy in media