A field guide to the ways reasoning breaks
False choices and ranges
Also called Sorites, line drawing fallacy
Denying a real distinction because no exact boundary can be drawn between its ends.
There is no exact line for baldness, so no one is bald.
Point to a clear case at each end. Vague borders do not erase clear centres.
Also called the fallacy of the beard or line-drawing fallacy, and tied to the sorites paradox — 'sorites' from the Greek word for heap. The puzzle is attributed to Eubulides of Miletus in the fourth century BCE: take one grain from a heap and it is still a heap, so keep going, and the heap is never not a heap. The fallacy is the confident use of that puzzle to deny distinctions we manage perfectly well in practice.
There is no exact salary at which someone becomes rich, so talking about a wealth tax is meaningless.
You cannot say at which sentence a report becomes too long, therefore length limits are arbitrary and unenforceable.
No precise minute separates a late submission from an on-time one, so every deadline is fiction.
No single day marks when a side project became a startup, so calling ours a startup is pure poetry.