Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The usual fallacy of "I don't experience it, so how come others do?"


That's not a fallacy, it's just a question.


That is a fallacy, whether worded as a rhetorical question or explicitly as "faulty generalisation" or "fallacy of defective induction". The fact is that the subjective observation is generalised without any buttressing evidence whatsoever. "That's not my experience, so that's doubtful."


It absolutely is not a fallacy, nor is it an inherently rhetorical question. Inquiring as to whether others share your experience isn't illogical; it's the root of most human learning and understanding thus far, and I suspect it precedes most other methods of claim-buttressing. And, to be pedantic, the fallacies you mentioned are specifically in terms of drawing conclusions from that faulty logic; not asking questions.

Also, faulty evidence for a claim is not the same as false evidence for a claim. If I have zero other information besides "other humans exist and act similar to me", and "that object is grey", I can infer that it is more likely than not that other humans see the object as grey. This is faulty in that it is subjective and not rigorous (I could be colorblind), but it is not inherently wrong or invalid reasoning. This is a common annoyance of mine when the terms "fallacy" or "faulty logic" are bandied about: the presence of insufficient logic is only problematic when an insufficiently-premised claim is evaluated against a more-sufficiently-premised claim without considering the differences in the quality of the evidence/premises.


GP doesn't ask a question, he literally says I don't get it. The article is about post millennial teenagers' employ of technology and the effects therefrom, she/he doesn't even make comparative claims or mention this. It was a lazy post.


I have interpreted the comment in question---which BTW I don't really recall ATM--as drawing conclusions, not as asking questions. That's why I thought is fallacious. I may well be mistaken in that, so sorry if that's the case.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: