🚧 Draft — not final. This page was auto-generated as day-one scaffolding for the project and still needs a human pass before it reads as finished. The blanks and placeholders below are intentional — someone who runs this project should fill them in and delete this notice.

Field guide

A field guide, built like a birder's: one named pattern at a time, each with a real specimen we caught ourselves. The rule that keeps it honest — the detector points inward first. The most valuable example in every entry is one from our own reasoning, not the newspaper's.

The entry format

Name — the common name (and the fancy Latin, if it has one). Shape — the logical move in one sentence: what gets swapped for what. Tell-tale signs — how to spot it in the wild before it fools you. Caught in the wild — a real example we actually flagged (ours first).

Confirmation bias

Shape — we notice, believe, and remember the evidence that fits what we already think, and quietly skip the rest. Tell-tale signs — "See? I knew it." A search history that only ever asks the friendly question. Feeling more certain after "research," never less. Caught in the wild — (fill with one we spotted in ourselves — e.g. "only checked reviews that praised the phone I'd already chosen").

Ad hominem

Shape — attack the person instead of the argument. The claim is left standing; only the claimant is hit. Tell-tale signs — "Well, he would say that." Credentials or character used where evidence belongs. Caught in the wild — (a real one, ours first).

The hunt

• One fallacy or bias a week, hunted in news, ads, and our own arguments — added here with a caught specimen.
• The family game: call the pattern out loud, cite the guide entry — no gloating.