Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Name That Logical Fallacy: ELVIS!

It's time for another round of Name That Logical Fallacy.

As usual, you may want to review the list of fallacies before beginning.  The idea is to pick out what is logically incorrect about the statement.

Sure, it's nerdy.  I don't care.

Ready, Set, Go!

Name that logical fallacy:
"Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong."




Time's up!

Now of course, this is just for fun.  In fact, fifty million Elvis fans may be right.

The implication of this statement is that Elvis has to be awesome because so many people think so.  The fallacy here is "Argumentum ad populum" or sometimes called "appeal to the majority."  However, just because a large number of people believe or think something doesn't make them correct.

I've never seen a ghost or an alien space craft, but so many people claim to have witnessed these things.  Since so many people have had these experiences we could try to conclude that aliens and ghosts must exist, but we would be committing the ad populum fallacy.

We would need to do a little more than that.  We should demand evidence.

The fact that so many people make these claims is a good reason to investigate.  There has actually been a lot of investigation resulting in very little compelling evidence for ghosts and aliens (We can get into these details some other time).  

SO!  In order for fifty million Elvis fans to be correct, further investigation would be needed.  Fifty million Elvis fans CAN be wrong after all.  

This is good news for us because it also means that fifty million Jonas Brothers fans can also be wrong.

::Thanks::

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