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Hasty induction; Law of small numbers; Unrepresentative sample; Secundum quid; When referring to a generalization made from a single example, the terms fallacy of the lonely fact, [8] or the fallacy of proof by example, might be used. [9] When evidence is intentionally excluded to bias the result, the fallacy of exclusion—a form of selection ...
Hasty generalization (fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, hasty induction, secundum quid, converse accident, jumping to conclusions) – basing a broad conclusion on a small or unrepresentative sample. [55]
Hasty generalization often follows a pattern such as: X is true for A. X is true for B. Therefore, X is true for C, D, etc. While never a valid logical deduction, if such an inference can be made on statistical grounds, it may nonetheless be convincing. This is because with enough empirical evidence, the generalization is no longer a hasty one.
The fallacy can take many forms, such as cherry picking, hasty generalization, proof by assertion, and so on. [1] The fallacy does not mean that every single instance of sense data or testimony must be considered a fallacy, only that anecdotal evidence, when improperly used in logic, results in a fallacy.
Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-free Arguments [1] is a textbook on logical fallacies by T. Edward Damer that has been used for many years in a number of college courses on logic, critical thinking, argumentation, and philosophy. It explains 60 of the most commonly committed fallacies.
They point out the similarity of the selection form to the fallacy of hasty generalization, in which the refutation of an opposing position that is weaker than the opponent's is claimed as a refutation of all opposing arguments. Because they have found significantly increased use of the selection form in modern political argumentation, they ...
Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. [1] Context may be omitted intentionally or accidentally, thinking it to be non-essential.
The definition of a hasty generalization would seem to preclude scientific study. For instance, the Polya conjecture example seems to indicate that a generalization is hasty if it holds for 906150256 entities, but not the 906150257th, even if the 906150257th hasn't been discovered yet.