Red Herring

Red Herring

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense! […] If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests. —Cartoon Johnny Cochran on South Park’s “Chef Aid”

A red herring (also known as ignoratio elenchi, beside the point, misdirection, changing the subject, false emphasis, the Chewbacca defense, irrelevant conclusion, smokescreen, clouding the issue, or ignorance of refutation) shifts attention from the issue under discussion to irrelevant material. It can be deliberate or inadvertent. The diversion may leave the original question unanswered, whether or not it also leads to a false conclusion.

The name evokes a strong-smelling cured herring—a smoked or brined fish with a reddish color and pungent aroma—dragged across a trail. Such a scent could distract a dog from the trail it was following. The term “red herring” refers to cured fish, not a separate species. In an argument, the irrelevant claims are the “red herrings” that pull attention away from the issue.

The typical structure follows three steps:

• Step 1: Person 1 presents argument, issue, or topic A.
• Step 2: Person 2 introduces an entirely different argument, issue, or topic B.
• Step 3: Argument, issue, or topic A is abandoned altogether, like a dog veering off trail to chase a red herring.

This pattern appears routinely in everyday interactions, from political interviews to personal disputes. A journalist may ask a politician a direct question about one issue, and the politician responds instead with a wholly different—but often emotionally compelling—issue. Consider a business exchange:

Interviewer: Have you been overcharging customers without them knowing? Business owner: We take our business seriously, and we do everything we can to build a quality product.

Here, the owner evades the specific accusation by shifting focus to a general claim about business commitment, which is irrelevant to the question at hand.

Similar diversions occur in casual conversation. A husband confronted about neglecting Valentine’s Day might reply, “Did I tell you how beautiful you look in that dress?” completely sidestepping the original complaint. Another everyday red herring:

Wife: You need to fix the cabinet today. Husband: Did you see how the weather was this morning? It has been raining all day. I think we will be fine with the cabinet as it is for now.

The weather is a diversion unless it bears on the repair—for example, if the work must be done outside. A police officer’s direct question can be deflected in the same way:

Police officer: Why do you have cocaine in your back pocket? Man: I just got out of prison last night. I can’t go back! Police officer: Please answer my question. Man: That is a nice wristwatch! Where did you get it?

And an academic setting offers its own version:

Student: Professor, you stated that you believe our political system is profoundly flawed. Will you please explain this? Professor: Your question reminds me of a trip I once took to Ecuador . . . (The professor goes on to tell a story without answering the question.)

Political speeches show why identifying a red herring requires context. Consider passages from the 2016 United States presidential election. In her nomination acceptance speech, Hillary Clinton stated:

America is once again at a moment of reckoning. Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. And just as with our founders, there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we all will work together so we all can rise together.

This passage appeals to unity and the Founding Fathers. Such appeals could divert attention if substituted for an answer to a specific policy question. Their presence in an acceptance speech does not by itself establish a red herring.

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech combined economic figures with an emotional appeal:

What about our economy? Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly 4 in 10 African American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African American youth are now not employed. Two million more Latinos are in poverty today than when President Obama took his oath of office less than eight years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely. Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. That’s 16 years ago. Our manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all‑time high. Think of this, think of this: Our trade deficit is nearly $800 billion last year alone. We’re gonna fix that.

Economic hardship can be relevant to a discussion of economic policy. Whether this passage diverts attention depends on the question it is meant to answer and the surrounding argument. Emotion or a lack of detail in the excerpt is not enough to establish the fallacy.

Red herrings can also take the form of judgmental language—insulting, compromising, or pejorative words that influence the recipient’s emotions and pull attention away from the real argument. For example:

Ken: I am tired of your constant sexual comments. I think you have a problem. Bill: Well, I think you have a problem with your morality. You are constantly judging me and condemning me. I have every right to say what I want.

Bill avoids addressing his own behavior by accusing Ken of being judgmental, redirecting the conversation from explicit comments to a debate about morality and rights.

Another common twist is to divert a concrete accusation into an abstract philosophical spiral:

Mike: It is morally wrong to steal. Why on earth would you have done that? Ken: But what is morality exactly? Mike: It’s a code of conduct shared by cultures. Ken: But who creates this code?

Ken initially avoids the ethical accusation by questioning the definition of morality, dragging the discussion away from the specific act of stealing.

The issue being decided also matters. A defense lawyer might say:

Your honor, I know that my client murdered the bank teller. However, my client should not receive the maximum penalty. She was abandoned as a child, abused in foster homes, homeless by the age of ten, and she is currently addicted to drugs and alcohol. She is already suffering a great deal. She deserves mercy.

The lawyer concedes guilt and asks for a lesser punishment. That is a different question from whether the client committed the crime. A plea for mercy is not automatically a red herring or an ad misericordiam fallacy; it would be a diversion if used as evidence of innocence.

In less confrontational settings, emotional red herrings can invalidate personal feelings:

Daughter: I’m so hurt that Todd broke up with me. Mother: Just think of all the starving children in Africa, honey. Your problems will seem pretty insignificant then.

The mother redirects her daughter’s personal pain toward a distant global tragedy, dismissing the immediate emotional need.

Red herrings are also a classic literary device, especially in mystery fiction. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902), readers are deliberately steered toward suspecting an escaped convict and the character Barrymore, while the real culprit—Stapleton, revealed through his wife Beryl’s confession—hides in plain sight. The 1985 comedic murder mystery film Clue both employs and explicitly names the fallacy: during the final revelation, the butler Wadsworth declares, “Communism was just a red herring.”

How to avoid the fallacy

First identify the question being discussed, then ask how the new point bears on it. A meteorologist asked about rain should explain its likelihood, not merely recall last week’s sunshine. If someone asks what 5 plus 5 equals, the answer is 10; a history of zero does not answer the question. When a tangent matters, explain the connection. When it does not, return to the unresolved issue. A deliberate change of subject can also be agreed openly without pretending that the original question has been answered.