The lawyer stands up in front of the jury and says, ‘the defendant is guilty of an egregious crime, he attacked his wife not with a hammer, but with a chainsaw.’īased on the lawyer’s statement, is this information helpful in proving her case that the person is guilty or not? Scenario: A lawyer is presenting her case in court during a murder trial.

It dismisses people’s point of view and their legitimate concerns by bringing up other tangential but less relevant points that are designed to muddy the waters. This common trope of “don’t complain because you should be grateful” is a classic red herring. “Not far from here, such marches, even now, are being met with, but not here in this country.” Instead of engaging with the concerns women were expressing on the streets, he told them they should be grateful that they are able to protest at all: This is a true scenario from Australia, where the Prime Minister of the country was accused of creating a red herring. The Prime Minster of the country stands up in parliament and argues these women should be grateful they live in a country where they can protest peacefully. Scenario: Women march for their rights on the streets. But this argument is also a red herring because it distracts the argument away from “how can we do better?” to a debate about whether other people are doing enough.Īs with many other red herring examples on this list, we can see that the red herring’s purpose is to shift accountability and re-frame the debate to terms more favorable to the person creating the red herring. They can argue that action is not their responsibility because they’re not the most egregious actors. Whereas the first person is arguing that we must take personal responsibility for our carbon emissions, the other person is saying “but what about them!” and pointing at someone else.Ĭhina, in this situation (and sometimes India) act as shields for the second person. This is a scenario we’ve seen played out many times on television. The other party says that we should try to get China to do more before the USA spends another dime on the issue. Scenario: One political party says we should do more in the USA about climate change. Often, this is a red herring that distracts us from the substance of the politician’s comments and works to sustain the political glass ceiling. Similarly, you might find someone who doesn’t like a female politician because she sounds “shrill” or “whiney”. For example, a boss (or even a bad husband!) might accuse a woman of being shrill when she tries to stand up for herself and her perspective. It has been historically been used by some men against women to highlight tropes about women being shrill or overly emotional. Tone policing occurs when someone doesn’t address the substance of someone’s argument but rather addresses the tone with which it is expressed. Her boss responds that he won’t discuss her payrise until she stops being so shrill. Scenario: A woman is arguing that she should get a payrise. Instead, they decide to attack from a different angle, and haven’t made a serious attempt at addressing their own behavior. So, in this scenario, we can see that the person who doesn’t ever do the dishes isn’t responding to the point about their need to be more diligent. In doing so, they’re able to avoid accountability for their actions. You will often find that red herrings allow the person who is defending themselves to blunt or subvert the original point. This information is designed to start a different argument where there is more of a level playing field. This scenario is a red herring because the person who is being accused of not doing the dishes is trying to find a new piece of information that will distract the aggressor. One couple says “You never do the dishes!” The other says “What about you! You never take out the bins!” Today, we use the metaphor to explain any situation where someone tries to distract people from the true issue at hand.

The strong smell of the herring fish to distract dogs from chasing rabbits. The smell of the fish would overwhelm the smell of the rabbits, putting the dogs off the scent. He put the strong-smelling fish out in the woods. The metaphor comes from a situation where Cobbett needed to distract some dogs from chasing rabbits in the English woods.Ĭobbett’s chosen distraction was strong-smelling red herrings (the fish!). It’s a metaphor used to refer to a distraction designed to confuse people from the issue at hand.

The term “red herring” was coined by William Cobbett in 1807. Dalia Yashinsky (MA, Phil) Red Herring Fallacy Definition

The red herring fallacy