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Let's review logic.
A lot of very intelligent people commit logical fallacies every day. Some of these fallacies are more common than others, and some are quite stunningly common, even among people who are well-educated.
So, on that note, let's review the biased sample.
We've all heard this story before. An extremely conservative religious group is polled over a controversial issue... let's say gay marriage, as it's been in the news a lot lately. Then they use their results to claim that "79% of Americans oppose gay marriage!". The actual number is lower, because they chose from a biased sample. The only people taking the poll were people who agreed with that group's agenda! This of course works in reverse - a site for the gay crowd might say that 90% supports gay marriage, based on equally flawed data.
This is easily recognizable as the biased sample. I don't know if the next two examples actually share the name, but they seem related mihi, so I'm going to list them together.
1. You're graduating at the bottom of your class. Because of this, you get depressed and tell people that you're stupid. The reality is that you're graduating at the bottom of your class from Harvard.
It's clear to see the mistake here as well. In every class, somebody will have the highest grade, and somebody will have the lowest. This says nothing about the actual intelligence of each individual, it is merely a mathmatic certainty. Somebody must graduate bottom of the class.
2. You're in an early 20th century sanatorium for TB. Compared to most of the residents, you're very healthy. You aren't coughing up blood, and you can move around, and you've been gaining weight. But the reality is that you're still infected, and still sick.
This is the inverse of the example before. You're comparing yourself to people who are less healthy than you are, and coming up with the conclusion that you are well. But they're not a good basis for comparison because they are very ill.
Those are both glaringly simple examples. The examples which I see daily are not so simple, which explains why people say them. This means that people say things which are incorrect, and lack clarity in their thoughts, because they don't notice the missed steps that indicate a fallacy.
So, be warned. Watch for this in your statements. You can't say that something worked for you if you're just doing better than other people who tried the same thing. You can only say it if you're doing better than people who tried something different.
So, on that note, let's review the biased sample.
We've all heard this story before. An extremely conservative religious group is polled over a controversial issue... let's say gay marriage, as it's been in the news a lot lately. Then they use their results to claim that "79% of Americans oppose gay marriage!". The actual number is lower, because they chose from a biased sample. The only people taking the poll were people who agreed with that group's agenda! This of course works in reverse - a site for the gay crowd might say that 90% supports gay marriage, based on equally flawed data.
This is easily recognizable as the biased sample. I don't know if the next two examples actually share the name, but they seem related mihi, so I'm going to list them together.
1. You're graduating at the bottom of your class. Because of this, you get depressed and tell people that you're stupid. The reality is that you're graduating at the bottom of your class from Harvard.
It's clear to see the mistake here as well. In every class, somebody will have the highest grade, and somebody will have the lowest. This says nothing about the actual intelligence of each individual, it is merely a mathmatic certainty. Somebody must graduate bottom of the class.
2. You're in an early 20th century sanatorium for TB. Compared to most of the residents, you're very healthy. You aren't coughing up blood, and you can move around, and you've been gaining weight. But the reality is that you're still infected, and still sick.
This is the inverse of the example before. You're comparing yourself to people who are less healthy than you are, and coming up with the conclusion that you are well. But they're not a good basis for comparison because they are very ill.
Those are both glaringly simple examples. The examples which I see daily are not so simple, which explains why people say them. This means that people say things which are incorrect, and lack clarity in their thoughts, because they don't notice the missed steps that indicate a fallacy.
So, be warned. Watch for this in your statements. You can't say that something worked for you if you're just doing better than other people who tried the same thing. You can only say it if you're doing better than people who tried something different.
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