BullShift.News
: About Everything BullShift
BullShift.News
: About Everything BullShift
We are a website that likes to have fun with our characters: Bull, Shift, Shadow, and Dr. Fowlsee. Even though we like to keep things lighthearted, we are very serious about bringing transparency to the media (all news, including the fringe stuff). We recognize that there is an abundance of information, theories, and hot takes out there, and that conflicting views need to be presented side-by-side in order to try and find the theme behind them. Our goal, therefore, is to remain the most unbiased collection of media links on the web with professional summaries for the stories we reference. They are presented together on one site in order to make it easier for you to find the ones that suit your interests, regardless of your stance on things. We also give you the tools to effortlessly decide what is worth your time and what isn’t. In short, we sift through the bull so that you don't have to. On our site, you will have access to analyses and short summaries so that you can quickly decide what is Shifty and what is not. Spend your time with your family and friends, and let us disassemble, summarize, and present the information to you. We use experienced analysts (and sometimes lawyers) to pick apart the information and to separate the opinions and fallacies from the facts. Your life is about to become much easier—and more informed—with our help.
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Scroll down to see if you can find all the hidden images and messages in our covers Also learn about our future ratings system and logical analyses.
Or jump directly to the fallacies that are commonly used for persuasion.
But first you should...
a.k.a. Hapi (source unknown)
The Bull is as honest as they come. As a retired judge, he is always trying to bring truth and justice to the forefront. He spends his days chasing Shift and protecting the public from Shift's shenanigans. He is strong and dependable, but no one really knows his true identity.
a.k.a. Shifty
Shift is quite shifty. He is as mischievous as they get. He is always slinging deception and trouble wherever he goes. A master of disguises, he frequently takes on appearances of those around him. He is quick and very gregarious, so don't underestimate him. He can appear friendly and fun, but don't take your eyes off him, or you may find yourself scrubbing your sole.
Real Name Unknown
The Shadow is always found close by. Some say she is an undercover agent, not too unlike the "smoking man." Many have claimed to have seen her in Shift's tracks. Some say that she is Shift's puppet-master and primary source of funds. No one can get close enough to really know. But we do know one thing: She is always lurking in the shadows.
a.k.a. The Quack
Dr. Fowlsee (pronunciation /ˈfaləsē/) is a self-proclaimed expert in everything in which he owns stock. He changes his mind often and counts on his followers having short memories. He made his name when he patented and released F.I.V. (Fowl Immunodeficiency Virus) through a chicken vaccination program targeting roosters. He has since moved on to his latest efforts to reduce the sheep population with his patented vaccination for LUVIT-21 (a.k.a. Certification of Vaccine ID 21), an mRNA "leaky" vaccine that mutates and spreads like wildfire.
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BullShit.News provides quick summaries for referenced articles and videos, so you can decide if you want to invest your time further. Many of these articles are also flagged for a detailed analysis by one of our trained analysts. We break down the information provided and look for opinions and fallacies. When we find opinions and fallacies, we knock it down a notch on the BullShift rankings. When we find multiple fallacies, we knock it down even further. We make all of these details available to you, so you don't waste your time, or worse yet, so you don't get swallowed by the rabbit hole.
And when the article really gets deep into the legal concerns, we assign it to one of our lawyers to give it a rigorous legal analysis.
We also give you the tools to rate these articles and videos yourself.
So when you see one of these, select it:
It is your opportunity to rate an article or video. Just choose the appropriate rating. Once you have selected a rating, you will be able to also see the community average rating for the article/video. And now for the Shifty ratings...
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This is the lowest rating that can be given. Use this when the article/video is not worth your time and is complete garbage.
This is a one star rating. Use this when the article/video is not very good and seems to be out in the cold and straying from the truth.
This is the average rating of 2 stars. Use this when the article/video is average.
This is a 3 star rating for something that is really well done. Use this when the article/video is well made, informative, and worth viewing.
This is the highest rating that can be given. Use this when the article/video is absolutely perfect and should be viewed by everyone.
Here are the most common fallacies that are used for persuasion (As described on Psychology Today by Christopher Dwyer, Ph.D):
Ad hominem ("to the man") refers to an attack on the person; for example, regarding their past or personal traits, as a means of undermining/opposing their argument, without having to provide any evidence. Loaded questions evoke a similar effect.
Anecdotal Evidence is personal experience. Anecdotes can be a very powerful tool of persuasion but are a weak basis for an argument. We cannot generalize one person’s experience to the population at large. Other people may have had very different experiences. If we account for many experiences (e.g. 1,000 instead of 1), then we might be able to make some generalizations.
An Appeal to Emotion aims to manipulate emotions or evoke an affective response to gain acceptance, as opposed to using logically compelling evidence. Appeals to pity and compassion are among the most common forms of this argument.
The Bandwagon Argument is simply an appeal to popularity. For example, “Everyone else is doing it, so why don’t you?” or “Most people believe X, so X must be true.” The bandwagon argument is often based on common belief statements (e.g. “Everyone knows that opposites attract” a common adage that is actually not the case), which are generally weak with respect to credibility.
Begging the Question is based on circular reasoning (e.g. “We need to cut spending as too much money is being spent”), generally resulting from an individual taking a certain premise for granted.
The Black-or-White Fallacy is the provision of only two alternatives in an argument when there are actually more options available. That is, numerous "shades of grey" are also possible, but are not addressed.
The Burden of Proof Fallacy occurs when a claim is made and expected to be accepted because it has not been disproved or even adequately disputed. However, this does not mean the claim is true. As this issue often rests on potential (un)certainty, in such cases, it will require reflective judgment (King & Kitchener, 1994).
Card-stacking is a method of argumentation in which important counter-arguments are purposefully omitted, creating an imbalance of evidence in an effort to bias the argument.
The fallacy of composition and division makes the assumption that one part of something will apply to the whole, or that the whole must apply to all the parts.
The Fallacy Fallacy refers to dismissing a claim (which may be true) altogether solely because it has been poorly argued (e.g. illogical or with suspect evidence) or because a fallacy was used in arguing its case.
The False Cause Argument, or correlation not causation, refers to the assumption that because two things are related means that one causes the other. For example, 100% of murderers drink water; therefore, drinking water causes people to kill.
Moving the Goalposts refers to adding related propositions with just enough content altered to continue an argument, in order to avoid conceding after the initial claim had been successfully counter-argued. Similar argument types that fall under this umbrella of fallacies include Special Pleading and No True Scotsman.
A genetic fallacy occurs when a claim is accepted as true or false based on the origin of the claim. ... Examples of Genetic Fallacy: 1. My parents told me that God exists; therefore, God exists.
Asking a question that has an unjustified presupoosition (assumption) built into it.
The Middle Ground Fallacy is almost the exact opposite of the black-or-white fallacy. For example, where two alternatives are proposed (generally extremes), the middle ground fallacy incorrectly supposes that the truth must rest somewhere in between (i.e. a shade of grey). However, it could very well be the case that truth rests in one of the two ‘extremes’.
The Gambler's Fallacy refers to the belief that streaks affect statistically independent phenomena. Simply, there is a one in two chance of a coin landing tails up, so based on this assessment, some might say if heads comes up on the first flip, then it seems likely the coin will come up tails on the second flip. This would be an incorrect assessment of probability, as coins do not have a memory. The same goes for roulette wheels. Every flip and every spin is new and is not dictated by what happened previously. Thus, the probability of flipping a coin and getting tails eight times in a row is the very same as getting HTHTHTHT. The conceptualisation of the gambler’s fallacy is quite similar to the Representativeness Heuristic (Kahneman, 2011; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).
No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect a universal generalization from counterexamples by changing the definition in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample.[1][2] Rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any new specific objective rule or criterion: "no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group.[3]
The Strawman Fallacy involves misrepresenting an argument to make it easier to attack. For example, someone in opposition to your argument refutes it, often irrelevantly, by claiming that you are actually arguing in favor of something else. In this case, the "something else" is the strawman the opposition has purposefully built in order to make it easier to refute your stance, even though the "something else" was never argued for in the first place. Simply, a strawman is built so it can be knocked down.
The Slippery Slope Argument is an argument that concludes that if an action is taken, other negative consequences will follow. For example, “If event X were to occur, then event Y would (eventually) follow; thus, we cannot allow event X to happen.” This is often difficult to refute because it is not possible for us to see into the future and guarantee that the subsequent event won’t occur. Often, after critically thinking about patterns in human history, it may be that the subsequent event is likely to happen, in which case, the slippery slope argument may not be illogical. However, such judgment depends on the context of the argument. Regardless, what makes the argument fallacious is that it avoids engaging the argument at hand. It adds a component that isn’t necessarily relevant to the initial argument. Furthermore, the added component is generally emotionally loaded (e.g. fear-evoking).
Tu Quoque (translated from Latin as "you too"), or the argument of hypocrisy, refers to avoiding refutation or critique by reverting the same criticism back on to the accuser, without addressing the initial refutation. Another way of looking at this fallacy is as challenging a claim by asserting that the claimant’s behavior is inconsistent with the conclusion they have drawn. In this context, it is a type of ad hominem that rejects a proposition based on the traits of the claimant. For example, in response to the claim that "Eating fast food is unhealthy": “But I saw you eat a burger and fries for lunch only a few hours ago!"
Personal Incredulity refers to the dismissal of a claim by an individual due to a lack of understanding of either the claim itself or the supports for that claim (e.g. an individual’s dismissal of evolution because they don’t understand it).
An argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavorable to their point of view.