So thought about this in unrelated thread, about Trump suspending the constitution. Someone said this:
Actually that’s a logical fallacy IMO. The fact that people have said this about other presidents, and they were proved wrong, does not mean there is no chance a president will one day decide to try and suspend the constitution (not debating the likelyhood Trump will, in fact, be that president. Feel free to debate that on thisthread)
Likewise when debating the chance a huge stock market crash and massive depression, or huge pandemic that kills millions of people. The fact that “doomsayers” are constantly predicting those things and they don’t happen, doesn’t mean they aren’t going to happen. In fact the chance of those things happening at some point are probably close to 100%, even if the chances of them happening any particular year is very low. Though I realize there is a counter argument that those doomsayers predicting the rapture or collision with undiscovered planet have a somewhat lower chance of ever being proved right.
I think the point with stock market crashes is along the lines of “economists have predicted 17 of the last 3 recessions”. When people mock predictions of market crashes, they aren’t suggesting that they never happen. The issue is that someone is always predicting one, and they are usually wrong since they are rare and hard to predict. I think that’s a fair criticism of crash predictions rather than a fallacy. I’m not sure if it’s quite analogous to what you’re considering with Trump & the constitution.
I’m not sure this is actually a fallacy. If it is one, its flaw is that it is essentially saying that because something is unlikely, its chances are therefore zero. So, confusing low-probability with zero.
But it’s not really a fallacy (except that Trump is different than previous presidents.) If the Atlanta Falcons have never won a Super Bowl, it’s not unreasonable for someone to say, “Yeah yeah I have heard my whole life that next year is our year.”
Right, it’s not fallacious to say that a particular prediction is discredited because the same prediction has been made before and never fulfilled.
But the OP’s right in saying it would be fallacious to claim that such a prediction is actually disproven or necessarily false just because it’s been made before and never fulfilled. Such a claim would be classified, I think, as a form of faulty generalization.
I think it kind of is a fallacy. The fact that they are “due to” win the superbowl is a definitely a fallacy (the gamblers fallacy). But it is also a fallacy to say that because you’ve heard that every year makes them less likely to win this year.
If predictions are made randomly, not based on predictive factors, then it doesn’t matter how often the predictions are made. The probability that any given prediction comes true is the same. It just depends on the true frequency of the event that is predicted.
For example, suppose a stock market crash happens once every 20 years. If you predict a crash every single year, only 1 or your 20 predictions will be correct. If you make only one random prediction, you have a 1 in 20 chance of making it in the correct year.
Even if you are clueless, if you make less frequent predictions, people may grant more credibility on the supposition that you might have some non-random predictive algorithm. But I’m not sure that’s completely irrational, because if you make the same prediction every year, people can be sure that you have no predictive algorithm.
But with Trump we seem to have a situation where some people are making a prediction now that they never made before; but different people made the same prediction in every prior year. That’s quite different, the inference that the person making the prediction now cannot possibly have any predictive algorithm is not warranted.
@Reimann: Right, the example given by the OP is that people are comparing Trump (an abnormal president) with other normal presidents as if both are apples when in fact it is apples and oranges (no skin color pun intended.) That would be like someone saying “I never got a caffeine high from all previous cups of decaf, therefore this upcoming shot of espresso surely won’t affect me either.”
But otherwise, it’s not illogical at all to cast doubt on something due to it having a long past record of failure. If Shaq makes only 20% of his free throws, it’s perfectly fair to say “I bet he misses this upcoming one too.”
If Trump is “abnormal”, then of course it’s not sound to make any inference from prior presidents.
The counterargument is that some people thought every prior presidency was abnormal too.
So I was trying to think about it solely from the perspective of the credibility of the person making the prediction. If the same people have made the same prediction about every president, and it has never happened, then any prediction those people now make about Trump lacks credibility. But if different people are now making the prediction only about Trump - and these people have never made a similar prediction before - then they have somewhat more credibility. So I think if people are guilty of any kind of fallacy, it’s in treating the latter scenario as identical to the former.
But of course, all this just relates to our degree of prior skepticism before hearing the arguments. Ultimately, it’s the merits of the arguments that matters.
The most famous examples are the loss of two space shuttles whereby unacceptable conditions were eventually accepted because those conditions never caused a problem before.
So, previous Presidents and Trump himself never caused a constitutional crisis, or with Putin destroyed the world… so it can’t happen.
On the one hand, you have people predicting something that’s happened in the past, making logical statements about the possibility (which may be hugely unlikely at any given point in time) of something cataclysmic happening.
Thus, scientists may soberly discuss and plan for the chance that there will be a devastating volcanic eruption or earthquake.
On the other hand, there are people constantly predicting an extremely unlikely event, either because it benefits them in some way, if only for the reason that they like stirring things up.
In this category there are persons who claim to foresee the federal government suspending or canceling individual rights on a massive scale, seizing guns and forcibly vaccinating everyone (and you better buy survivalist supplies right away, which they happen to sell), and those who insist Trump is a good bet to void the Constitution and become Dictator for Life. The latter most likely aren’t selling supplies for your home bunker; they’re hoping to inflame you into fervent political action (or maybe they’re like little kids who enjoy scaring each other with ghost stories).
My bottom line is that if you have good evidence that something really bad is bound to happen and a reasonable course of action to follow, then I’ll listen. If you haven’t got a clue and are out to sow dread and panic regardless, then to hell with that.
That’s what makes it fallacy to me. He’s not saying I personally have predicted this bad thing happening multiple times in the past and been proved wrong. That’s a perfectly logical assessment of my past performance.
He’s saying people, generic “doomsayers”, having been incorrectly predicting that thing happening for ages. So my prediction of it now must be wrong.
I suspect the problem is thinking in terms of “fallacies”. The game of looking for fallacies from some closed list is encouraged in younger school students, but it has little to do with real life. People who argue for a living almost never refer to them.
Real arguments about real life issues are about probabilities and relative strengths and weaknesses of evidence. Fallacy-think is about true/not true binaries. It has no tools to deal with relative strengths, or the idea that evidence that is not by itself conclusive can still be strong.
The proposition that every other president has been the subject of alarmist rumours is weak evidence, by itself. But when added to the absolute lack of evidence that Trump proposes any such suspension of the constitution, the lack of any reliable way he could get the police and military to cooperate, and an understanding of the psychological drivers of such rumours, then a piece of evidence that is weak on its own, taken in context, may potentially add to the lack of credibility of such rumours, and help identify their source as paranoia. Just because it was other people who predicted the alleged villainy of Bush, Clinton, etc does not mean that we cannot see the unifying theme of paranoia in all of them. Using the failure of all prior predictions of usurpation of he constitution is weak unless we have, separately, other reasons for rejecting the theory, such as those I mentioned above. But if there were evidence of Trump’s ruminating that he was going to suspend the constitution, and there were reliable evidence of, say, draft Executive orders and military orders in support, then the previous failure of such predictions would become irrelevant. Where there is credible evidence, it is not paranoia any longer.
This is not like a roulette table, where 7 reds in a row tells us nothing about the eighth spin. Roulette spins are independent. Real life is deeply interactive.
By the way, in case the above propositions lead to misunderstandings about my own position on Trump, he is a clearly unworthy president.
There can be no fallacy because no conclusion is posted. He’s heard the doomsday prediction a million times. He didn’t say anything that starts “therefore…”, and who are we to guess at his implication?
Actually his the implication is clear (in this case and others) that because in their memory “doomsayers” have made a similar prediction, and been wrong, then the thing being predicted right now is also wrong.
The basic situation is enshrined in the legends of. Cassandra, and of the boy who cried wolf. But their sceptics haven’t, I think, been given a name that lives in metaphor or analogy, probably precisely because they were proved wrong and the doomsayer right.
We can call that the Cubs fallacy. However I think less likely is not fallacious (since hearing it every year might mean the team sucks) but saying that hearing it every year means they can’t win the championship is fallacious.
I’ve been listening to the Atheist Experience streaming tv show lately, and the hosts there call out specific fallacies in the calls they get from theists.
If by people who argue for a living you mean lawyers, I’ll buy that since both sides are likely too well educated to make fallacious arguments, especially if they know they’d be caught doing it. Though I doubt anyone would give the name of a fallacy even if one were committed since it would probably confuse the jury.
Voyager said exactly what I was thinking. Hardly anyone argues professionally except for lawyers. But we hear no end of fallacious arguments in our daily lives, many from politicians or those attempting to influence opinions. Not to mention from those who have been influenced. An arsenal or fallacy counters is a handy thing for anyone to have.
In this spirit I’ll link to someone on the side of the all things good.
They sell a set of cards (ie a custom playing card set) of fallacies. I bought a few, and have been known to give a set to friends who need them.