ClaudSkills / Science & Research / math-stats

Informal Fallacies

Q: What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Informal Fallacies skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Informal Fallacies is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Science & Research category. Learn more at https://claudskills.com/learn/what-is-skill-md/.

Category: Science & Research · Sub-category: math-stats · Last updated: 2026-05-21

Catalog of informal fallacies with definitions, canonical examples, and detection heuristics. Covers relevance fallacies (ad hominem, straw man, red herring, appeal to authority, appeal to emotion), presumption fallacies (false dichotomy, complex question, begging the question), ambiguity fallacies (equivocation, amphiboly, accent), causal fallacies (post hoc, slippery slope, correlation-causation), and statistical fallacies (hasty generalization, cherry-picking). Use when evaluating arguments for rhetorical or informal reasoning errors.

Security AStatic scan found no risk patternsHow grading works ›

About this skill (catalog notes)

Informal Fallacies includes explicit scope boundaries (an explicit 'when not to use' or 'out of scope' section). At roughly 1,903 words the SKILL.md is on the longer end of the catalog distribution.

Indexed lastmod: 2026-05-21
Catalog position: Science & Research · math-stats
Indexed related skills: 10

How Informal Fallacies fits the catalog

Informal Fallacies sits in the Science & Research category under the math-stats sub-topic in the ClaudSkills catalog. There are 10 related skills indexed alongside it; comparing a few before installing usually reveals which fits your workflow best.

These notes are auto-generated from features detected in the SKILL.md file and from this catalog's structure — they aren't part of the source repository.

From the source SKILL.md

An informal fallacy is a pattern of reasoning that can look persuasive but fails to actually support its conclusion. Unlike formal fallacies (which are detectable by structure alone), informal fallacies depend on context, content, or rhetorical framing. They are the failure modes of everyday argument, the traps in political discourse, and the stock repertoire of bad faith. This skill catalogs the most common informal fallacies, grouped by family, with canonical examples and detection heuristics. It is not a complete taxonomy -- the literature catalogs over a hundred named fallacies -- but it…

What this skill does

Informal Fallacies is a community-contributed Claude Code skill in the math-stats sub-category. It ships as a SKILL.md file that Claude Code auto-discovers under ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies/ and loads when your prompt matches the skill's trigger.

When to invoke it: Use when evaluating arguments for rhetorical or informal reasoning errors.

Who uses this skill

The Informal Fallacies Claude Code skill is built for researchers, data scientists, academics, and analysts working with complex data and scientific literature. It's part of ClaudSkills (also referred to as Claude Skills or Claude Code Skills) — the open community-curated registry of 115,000+ SKILL.md files for Anthropic's Claude Code agent and the wider Claude ecosystem (Claude API, Claude Agent SDK).

How to install

Free

Manual install (2 steps)

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies
curl -L https://claudskills.com/skills/informal-fallacies/SKILL.md \
  -o ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies/SKILL.md

Or just download SKILL.md directly and drop it into ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies/. Claude Code auto-discovers it on next session.

Skills live at ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies/SKILL.md on macOS/Linux, or %USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\informal-fallacies\SKILL.md on Windows. See the full install guide for step-by-step instructions.

📱 Install from your phone or desktop Telegram

Open @claudskills_bot on Telegram, tap Open Desktop App, and the desktop app installs this skill for you. Or share the bot link with a colleague — they get the same one-tap install. Learn more →

Pro

One-click install via the desktop app

The ClaudSkills desktop app installs any skill directly into ~/.claude/skills/ with one click — no terminal required. Pro starts at $9/mo or $149 lifetime.

Pro

For the full experience including quality scoring and one-click install features for each skill — upgrade to Pro.

See pricing → Download desktop app

Frequently asked questions

How do I install the Informal Fallacies Claude Code skill?

Install via the ClaudSkills desktop app (one click) or copy SKILL.md from the source repository to ~/.claude/skills/informal-fallacies/SKILL.md and restart Claude Code. Both flows are detailed at claudskills.com/install/.

What does the Informal Fallacies skill do?

Is this skill free to install?

Yes. ClaudSkills is an open registry — every skill keeps its source repository's license, and manual install via copy is free. ClaudSkills Pro ($9/mo, $79/yr, or $149 one-time) adds one-click install via the desktop app and a multi-signal Quality Score.

When should I use the Informal Fallacies skill?

Use Informal Fallacies when your Claude Code task falls under the Science & Research category — specifically in the math stats area. Claude Code auto-discovers installed skills and invokes the right one based on the task description, so you can also ask Claude directly (e.g. "use Informal Fallacies" or describe the task and let Claude pick). Browse related skills at /category/science/.

What is a Claude Code skill and how does the Informal Fallacies skill fit in?

A Claude Code skill is a SKILL.md file that lives under ~/.claude/skills/<name>/ and tells the Claude Code CLI agent how to perform a specific task (instructions, prompts, allowed tools). Skills are auto-discovered at session start. Informal Fallacies is one of 67,000+ skills indexed in the open ClaudSkills catalog, classified under the Science & Research category. Learn more at /learn/what-is-a-claude-skill/.

Cite this skill

If you reference this skill in a blog post, paper, or documentation, you can cite it as:

APA

ClaudSkills. (2026). Informal Fallacies [Claude Code skill]. ClaudSkills. https://claudskills.com/skills/informal-fallacies/

BibTeX

@misc{informal-fallacies-2026,
  author    = {ClaudSkills},
  title     = {Informal Fallacies [Claude Code skill]},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {ClaudSkills},
  url       = {https://claudskills.com/skills/informal-fallacies/}
}

Embed this skill

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Security scan

Grade A · scanned 2026-06-13 — free static scan against the OWASP Agentic Skills Top 10.

No risk patterns were found in any of the ten OWASP-aligned categories. How grading works ›

✓ Prompt injection
✓ Data exfiltration
✓ Supply chain
✓ Reverse shell
✓ Credentials
✓ Execution
✓ Filesystem
✓ Persistence
✓ Obfuscation
✓ Network

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