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For e.g

"All Muslims are terrorists, that muslim guy knifed that girl in London last month"

"All white men have privilege, just look at any senior level boardroom"

(not the same as the fallacy for associating a group with the actions of a few)

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    I would say the "fallacy" in the second example is itself based on a fallacy of equivocation resulting from the multiple meanings of "privilege."
    – David K
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 20:27
  • I agree with John Cooper; this is NOT a duplicate of the question was n the link!
    – Khuldraeseth na'Barya
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 16:16
  • @JohnCooper, the speaker already has an opinion, right? He's using selected examples in order to support his preexisting belief, not drawing a conclusion based on insufficient evidence?
    – Khuldraeseth na'Barya
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 16:19
  • I dont know why this is marked up as same as: "Technical term for associating a group with the actions of a few". There's a subtle but rather distinct difference.
    – John Cooper
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 18:40

5 Answers 5

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Hasty Generalisation

Fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction, secundum quid, converse accident – basing a broad conclusion on a small sample.

Source: Wikipedia

Drawing a conclusion based on a small sample size, rather than looking at statistics that are much more in line with the typical or average situation.

  1. Sample S is taken from population P.
  2. Sample S is a very small part of population P.
  3. Conclusion C is drawn from sample S and applied to population P.

Source: Logically Fallacious

Apparently, it goes under several guises:

  • Illicit generalization
  • Fallacy of insufficient sample
  • Generalization from the particular
  • Hasty induction
  • Law of small numbers
  • Unrepresentative sample
  • Secundum quid
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  • This is NOT leaping to a conclusion; the sentences lead me to believe that the speaker already has an opinion and is using selected examples to support it.
    – Khuldraeseth na'Barya
    Commented Jul 1, 2017 at 0:12
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Faulty Generalization

A faulty generalization is a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon that has been reached on the basis of just one or just a few instances of that phenomenon. It is an example of jumping to conclusions. For example, we may generalize about all people, or all members of a group, based on what we know about just one or just a few people.

(Wikipedia)

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Fallacy of composition

  • Inferring that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.

"Hydrogen is not wet. Oxygen is not wet. Therefore, water (H2O) is not wet."

It is the opposite of the Fallacy of Division

1. A is part of B

2. A has property X

3. Therefore, B has property X

(logicallyfallacious)

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It can be a faulty generalization

Described by Wikipedia as:

A faulty generalization is a conclusion about all or many instances of a phenomenon that has been reached on the basis of just one or just a few instances of that phenomenon. It is an example of jumping to conclusions. For example, we may generalize about all people, or all members of a group, based on what we know about just one or just a few people. If we meet an angry person from a given country X, we may suspect that most people in country X are often angry. If we meet a lazy recipient of social welfare benefits, we may suspect that all welfare recipients are lazy.

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This is an example of selected instances.

The difference between this and hasty/faulty generalization is as follows: a user of selected instances deliberately tries to deceive his audience by using selected examples of his point, while one who generalizes hastily has no opinion beforehand.

From the AGLOA Propaganda Technique Explanations (http://agloa.org/prop-definitions):

Selected Instances: A person believes in a certain proposition. He then looks for examples that will support his belief. He selects only those examples or instances that back up his belief while ignoring examples that contradict his belief. He tries to persuade you by giving you only his selected examples.

Hasty Generalization: A person jumps to a conclusion based on only a few examples. Unlike Selected Instances, the person has no preconceived belief. Instead, after seeing only a few examples, he draws a conclusion.

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