Logical Fallacies

The whole point of being able to recognise a so-called "logical fallacy" is that you should have a ready-made refutation of it, since you recognize it and already know in advance how to defeat the argument.

The point is not to simply be able to point out where logical fallacies have been used, that's next to useless.

If your only attempt at refutation of a "logical fallacy" is simply to schreech "that's an appeal to nature!" (for example), you aren't actually arguing against the fallacy, you're just naming the type of argument.

Take an ad hominem, for example. If you advocated something and I said "You're wrong, and you're a grotesquely ugly freak, which is why you are wrong", that's an ad hominem argument. Great. What you should do in response is say something to the effect of "even if that were true, being ugly doesn't affect the righteousness of my ideas; your argument is therefore invalid" (you probably shouldn't say it like that though because then you'd sound really gay). What you - too often - see a person say is something like "That's an ad hominem. I've won!". That's not correct, all this second person has done is name the type of argument being employed; they haven't refuted it.

Knowing fifteen different types of logical fallacy and their associated names doesn't do anything to help you win any debates. Knowing fifteen different types of logical fallacy and their associated refutations, i.e.why they are fallacies, however, will.