What Is the Red Herring Fallacy?
A red herring is an informal logical fallacy where someone brings up an irrelevant topic to pull attention away from the original issue. In classical logic, it falls under the broader Latin category of ignoratio elenchi, which translates to "ignorance of the refutation." In plain terms, it means missing the point. The irrelevant topic might be true, deeply philosophical, or genuinely important somewhere else. It just has nothing to do with the question at hand.
It usually plays out something like this:
Dad: Did you take out the kitchen trash like you were supposed to?
Kid: Have you ever noticed that nobody on sitcoms ever takes out the garbage? Like, ever. Their kitchens are magically clean, and nobody discusses who does the chores. Frankly, it sets unrealistic standards for modern society.
Fascinating media analysis. Truly profound. But the banana peels are still sitting in the kitchen bin. The kid didn't answer "yes," and didn't answer "no." Instead, the conversation has turned into a cultural critique, which is a much nicer place to be than the curb in the rain with a leaking trash bag.
The name comes from a strong-smelling smoked fish. In 1807, the English journalist William Cobbett wrote that as a boy, he had dragged a red herring across a trail to pull a pack of hounds off the scent of a hare. He used the story to mock London newspapers that had been fooled by a false report about Napoleon and had stopped paying attention to real problems at home. Historians of fox hunting have found no evidence that huntsmen actually used smoked fish to throw hounds off a trail, and Cobbett's own story was probably made up. So the origin story of "red herring" is, fittingly, a bit of a red herring.
Red herrings work because the detour usually sounds interesting, emotional, or close enough to the real topic that people follow the scent without noticing they've run a mile in the wrong direction. Beating one is simple in theory and harder in the moment: spot the switch, set the shiny new topic aside, and drag the conversation back to the smelly kitchen bin where it belongs.
To Introduce the Concept
Clementine and the BirdsA vase is on the floor in pieces, but Clementine would like to talk about birds.
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A vase is on the floor in pieces, but Clementine would like to talk about birds.
The vase that sat on the living room shelf is now in pieces on the floor, and the cat, Clementine, is the only one who was home. When asked about it, Clementine says the birds outside the window have been acting very suspicious lately. They gather in groups. They stare. One of them has been on the fence every morning this week. With a situation like that going on outside, Clementine says, the household should really be focusing on bird security.
Clementine was asked about the vase. She responded with a report on birds. The birds are outside. The vase was inside. There is a window between them, and as far as anyone knows, it was closed.
Clementine's conclusion is that the family should focus on the birds. But even if the birds really are up to something, and the family should be terrified of them, that has nothing to do with how the vase ended up in pieces.
In the Wild
United States, 2015"This Is What Happens When You Work to Change Things"A newspaper asked whether a famous company's blood tests worked. The founder answered with a story about people who change the world.
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A newspaper asked whether a famous company's blood tests worked. The founder answered with a story about people who change the world.
Theranos was a Silicon Valley startup that promised a medical revolution: running hundreds of lab tests from a tiny pinprick of blood. Its founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, appeared on magazine covers in black turtlenecks, drew comparisons to Steve Jobs, and raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors who valued her company at $9 billion.
On October 15, 2015, The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell. Citing a former employee, it reported that Theranos's own testing machine, called Edison, was running only 15 of the company's 240 tests. Most of the rest were done on ordinary lab equipment bought from other companies.
The story raised a simple question: Did Theranos's technology actually work, and could patients trust their results?
That evening, Holmes went on CNBC's Mad Money. Host Jim Cramer called the article "pretty brutal." Holmes answered: "This is what happens when you work to change things, and first they think you're crazy, then they fight you and then all of a sudden you change the world."
To be fair, she said other things too. She said Theranos had sent the Journal more than 1,000 pages of documents disputing its claims. That was at least about the question. But the line everyone remembered had nothing to do with blood tests.
It sounded noble. A speech about visionary inventors is a lot more inspiring than a discussion of lab error rates.
It replaced evidence with a story. A real pioneer can be criticized. So can someone selling a machine that doesn't work. Being "fought" doesn't tell you which one you're looking at.
The story eventually ran into reality. In 2016, Theranos told federal regulators it had voided two years of results from its Edison machines, and it sent doctors tens of thousands of corrected test reports. The company shut down in 2018. In 2022, a federal jury convicted Holmes on four counts of fraud and conspiracy, and she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison.
The Journal had asked the right question. The answer about changing the world never got around to it.
Sources: "Theranos CEO fires back at WSJ", CNBC (Oct. 15, 2015); Geoff Weiss, "Out For Blood: Theranos Orchestrates Bold PR Coup in the Face of Damning Allegations", Entrepreneur.com via Fox News (Oct. 23, 2015); Caroline Chen, "Theranos Corrects Tens of Thousands of Blood-Testing Results", Bloomberg via IndustryWeek (May 19, 2016); "Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Sentenced to More Than 11 Years in Prison", NBC Bay Area (Nov. 18, 2022)
This week, listen for one time someone answers a different question than the one that was asked. What was the real question, and where did the answer wander off to?
This is 1 fallacy. Mind Merit covers 25.
Mind Merit's Red Herring Family Guide
- •More examples: Fun, simple examples to illustrate the flaw.
- •More real-world cases: Real-world examples to dig into the flaw in more detail.
- •Family guidance: How to teach recognizing the fallacy to your family.
Inside Mind Merit
Learn to separate the main conclusion from the evidence backing it up.
Learn to spot the flaw in the reasoning, even when the conclusion seems convincing.
- •Adaptive practice: Questions adjust automatically as reasoning improves, keeping practice challenging without being overwhelming.
- •Parent dashboard: Track which logic skills are clicking, and where your student needs more practice.