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This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!) Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. This article has been tagged since June 2007. An argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people"), in logic, is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges that "If many believe so, it is so." In ethics this argument is stated, "If many find it acceptable, it is acceptable." Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...
Logic (from Classical Greek λÏÎ³Î¿Ï logos; meaning word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason or principle) is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Fallacy. ...
This article is about the word proposition as it is used in logic, philosophy, and linguistics. ...
Ethics (via Latin from the Ancient Greek moral philosophy, from the adjective of Äthos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ...
This type of argument is known by several names[1], including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, bandwagon fallacy, and tyranny of the majority, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum ("appeal to the people"), argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, and of the Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger". Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...
Communal reinforcement is a social phenomenon in which a concept or idea is repeatedly asserted in a community, regardless of whether sufficient empirical evidence has been presented to support it. ...
The bandwagon effect is the observation that people often do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. ...
Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-12-15, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...
Examples
This fallacy is sometimes committed while trying to convince a person that a widely popular theory is true. - Since 88% of the people polled believed in UFOs, they must exist.
- Since citizens have to pay taxes and are ruled by governments, the state must be a judicial reasoned and rightful institution.
- Since most of the world believes in God, it must exist.
It is sometimes committed when trying to convince a person that widely unpopular theories are false. - It's silly for you to claim that Hitler would not have attacked the United States if they hadn't entered World War II. Everyone knows that he planned to conquer the world.
The fallacy is commonly found in arguments over ethics: Hitler redirects here. ...
Ethics (via Latin from the Ancient Greek moral philosophy, from the adjective of Äthos custom, habit), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group. ...
- Most Americans hold that the Vietnam War was morally wrong. Therefore, the Vietnam War was morally wrong.
The fallacy is also commonly found in marketing: Combatants Republic of Vietnam United States Republic of Korea Thailand Australia New Zealand The Philippines National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam Democratic Republic of Vietnam Peopleâs Republic of China Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Strength US 1,000,000 South Korea 300,000 Australia 48,000...
Wikibooks has more about this subject: Marketing Look up marketing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
- Brand X vacuum cleaners are the leading brand in America. You should buy Brand X vacuum cleaners.
Other examples: - Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong.
- Christianity is believed in by the greatest amount of people in the world, so it must be true.
- "Every society but ours believed in magic; why should we think otherwise?" "Every society but ours thought the sun revolved about the Earth, rather than the other way round. Would you decide the matter by majority vote?" - Isaac Asimov.
- In a court of law, the jury vote by majority, therefore they will always make the correct decision.
50,000,000 Elvis Fans Cant Be Wrong (sometimes listed as 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Cant Be Wrong: Elvis Golden Records, Vol. ...
Isaac Asimov (January 2?, 1920?[1] â April 6, 1992), IPA: , originally ÐÑаак Ðзимов but now transcribed into Russian as Ðйзек Ðзимов) was a Russian-born American Jewish author and professor of biochemistry, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. ...
Explanation The argumentum ad populum is a red herring and genetic fallacy. It is logically fallacious because the mere fact that a belief is widely held is not necessarily a guarantee that the belief is correct; if the belief of any individual can be wrong, then the belief held by multiple persons can also be wrong. Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion) is the logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but which proves or supports a different proposition than the one it is purporting to prove or support. ...
It also fails to assess ideas on their merits. ...
This fallacy is similar in structure to certain other fallacies that involve a confusion between the justification of a belief and its widespread acceptance by a given group of people. When an argument uses the appeal to the beliefs of a group of supposed experts, it takes on the form of an appeal to authority; if the appeal is to the beliefs of a group of respected elders or the members of one's community over a long period of time, then it takes on the form of an appeal to tradition. An appeal to authority or argument by authority is a type of argument in logic, consisting on basing the truth value of an otherwise unsupported assertion on the authority, knowledge or position of the person asserting it. ...
Appeal to tradition, also known as appeal to common practice or argumentum ad antiquitatem or false induction is a common logical fallacy in which a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it has a long standing tradition behind. ...
One who commits this fallacy may assume that individuals commonly analyze and edit their beliefs and behaviors. This is often not the case (see conformity). This article is about the psychological concept of conformity. ...
Evidence - One could claim that smoking is a healthy pastime, since millions of people do it. However, knowing the dangers of smoking, we instead say that smoking is not a healthy pastime despite the fact that millions do it.
- One could claim Brad Pitt is the best-looking man in the world, because he is regularly voted such, although the sample he is part of (celebrities) is insufficient.
William Bradley Brad Pitt(born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. ...
Exceptions Appeal to belief is only valid when the question is whether the belief exists. Appeal to popularity is therefore only valid when the questions are whether the belief is widespread and to what degree. Ie. ad populum only proves that a belief is popular, not that it is true.
Democracy The "correctness" of electoral processes lies in the prior acceptance by the electorate that the outcome of an election shall be enacted no matter what it is. - "Most of the voting members at the last Rotary Club meeting thought that the Club should hold a fund-raiser in October. Therefore, the Club should hold a fund-raiser in October."
Democracy by plural voting is based on appeal to popularity. As a means of determining the truth of beliefs, it is fallacious. Democracy does not obviate this; it merely makes the fallacy irrelevant by defining law as subjective rather than objective*. Nonetheless, acceptance of policies and candidates have been shown to be well-correlated with their effectiveness (cf. Approval voting). As a system of political decisionmaking, electoral systems compare favorably against fiat systems such as feudalism and pseudo-democracies such as one-party rule. (Though the astute will note that this is a circular argument: Democracy is good because people living in a democracy say so.) Logo of Rotary International Rotary International is an organisation whose members comprise Rotary Clubs (service clubs) located all over the world. ...
The plurality electoral system (or first past the post electoral system), is a voting system for single-member districts. ...
On an approval ballot, the voter can vote for any number of candidates. ...
Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste. ...
A single-party state or one-party system or single-party system is a type of party system and form of government where only a single political party dominates the government and no opposition parties are allowed. ...
Argumentum ad populum explains how some democracies have fallen victim to this principle. (See Propaganda and Nazi Germany.) Soviet Propaganda Poster during the World War II. The text reads Red Army Fighter, SAVE US! Chinese propaganda poster from during the Cultural Revolution. ...
Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...
Social convention Matters of social convention, such as etiquette or polite manners, depend upon the wide acceptance of the convention. As such, argumentum ad populum is not fallacious when referring to the popular belief about what is polite or proper: It has been suggested that Office etiquette be merged into this article or section. ...
- "Most people in Russia think that it is polite for men to kiss each other in greeting. Therefore, it is polite for men to kiss each other in greeting in Russia."
Social conventions can change, however, sometimes very quickly. Thus, the fact that everyone in Russia this year thinks that it is polite to kiss can't be used as evidence that everyone always believed that, or that they should always believe it. The philosophical question of moral relativism asks whether such arguments apply to statements of morals. In philosophy, moral relativism is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances. ...
Safety Whether to follow a tenet decided by popularity rather than logical design may be a matter of safety or convenience: - "Nearly all Americans think that you should drive on the right side of the road. Therefore, you should drive on the right side of the road in the United States."
In this case, the choice of which side to drive on is basically arbitrary. However, to avoid head-on collisions, everyone on the road must agree on it. In many cases, what is safe to do depends on what others expect one will do, and thus on the "popularity" of that choice.
References - ^ Austin Cline. Argumentum ad Populum
See also Bandwagon effect • Buzzword • Card stacking • Code word • Dog-whistle politics • Doublespeak • Framing • Glittering generality • Power word • Lesser of two evils principle • Loaded language • Newspeak • Public relations • Plain folks • Testimonial • Weasel word Cognitive dissonance is a psychological term which describes the uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts at the same time, or from engaging in behavior that conflicts with ones beliefs. ...
Communal reinforcement is a social phenomenon in which a concept or idea is repeatedly asserted in a community, regardless of whether sufficient empirical evidence has been presented to support it. ...
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Social constructionism. ...
Conventional wisdom is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, used to describe certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public. ...
In attribution theory, the fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias or overattribution effect and frequently confused with the actor-observer bias) is the tendency for people to over-emphasize dispositional, or personality-based, explanations for behaviors observed in others while under-emphasizing the role and power of situational...
Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. ...
The term reductio ad Hitlerum (sometimes rendered reductio ad Hitlerem)âwhimsical Latin for reduction to Hitlerâwas originally coined by University of Chicago professor and ethicist Leo Strauss. ...
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than...
Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-12-15, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ...
Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion) is the logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but which proves or supports a different proposition than the one it is purporting to prove or support. ...
Ad Lapidem is a logical fallacy where someone dismisses a statement as absurd without giving a reason why it is supposedly absurd. ...
The logical fallacy of accident, also called destroying the exception or a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, is a deductive fallacy occurring in statistical syllogisms (an argument based on a generalization) when an exception to the generalization is ignored. ...
Look up ad nauseam in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (appeal to ignorance [1]) or argument by lack of imagination, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or that a premise is false only because...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect, is a logical fallacy that occurs when irrelevant information is used to make a probability judgment, especially when empirical statistics about the probability are available (called the base rate or prior probability). In some experiments, students were asked to estimate the...
Bulverism is a logical fallacy coined by C. S. Lewis where rather than proving that an argument is wrong, a person instead assumes it wrong, and then goes on to explain why the other person held that argument. ...
A compound question is one that actually asks several things which might require different answers. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
A false compromise (also known as the gray fallacy) is a logical fallacy: X and Y are opposite alternatives. ...
Middle ground off the harbour. ...
George Edward Moore The naturalistic fallacy is an alleged logical fallacy, delineated by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his seminal Principia Ethica (1903). ...
Proof by assertion is a fallacious argument technique. ...
Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion) is the logical fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but which proves or supports a different proposition than the one it is purporting to prove or support. ...
Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. ...
A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponents position. ...
The Style over substance fallacy occurs when one emphasises the way in which the argument is presented, while marginalising (or outright ignoring) the content of the argument. ...
Two wrongs make a right is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that if one wrong is committed, another wrong will cancel it out. ...
Appeal to emotion is a logical fallacy wherein the arguer (who is using this fallacy) takes advantage of emotion to prove his or her argument. ...
An appeal to fear (also called argumentum ad metum or argumentum in terrorem) is a logical fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for his or her idea by playing on existing fears and prejudices. ...
Appeal to flattery is a logical fallacy in which a person uses flattery, excessive compliments, in an attempt to win support for their side. ...
Appeal to nature is a simplified type of naturalistic fallacy in argument form. ...
The appeal to novelty (also called argumentum ad novitatem) is a logical fallacy in which someone claims that his or her idea or proposal is correct or superior because it is new and modern. ...
An appeal to pity (also called argumentum ad misericordiam) is a logical fallacy in which someone tries to win support for their argument or idea by exploiting their opponents feelings of pity or guilt. ...
Appeal to ridicule is a logical fallacy which presents the opponents argument in a way that appears ridiculous, often to the extent of creating a straw man of the actual argument. ...
The wisdom of repugnance is a phrase describing the notion that an intuitive (or deep-seated) negative response to a thing (e. ...
Appeal to spite (also called argumentum ad odium) is a logical fallacy in which someone attempts to win favor for an argument by exploiting existing feelings of bitterness or spite in the opposing party: By voting for my proposal instead of Jims, youll finally have a chance to...
It also fails to assess ideas on their merits. ...
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: argument to the person, argument against the man) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or...
An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin, literally argument to the man), is 1) a logical fallacy that involves replying to an argument or assertion by addressing the person presenting the argument or assertion rather than the argument itself; 2) an argument pointing out an inconsistency...
An appeal to authority or argument by authority is a type of argument in logic, consisting on basing the truth value of an otherwise unsupported assertion on the authority, knowledge or position of the person asserting it. ...
Appeal to motive is a pattern of argument which consists in challenging a thesis by calling into question the motives of its proposer. ...
Appeal to tradition, also known as appeal to common practice or argumentum ad antiquitatem or false induction is a common logical fallacy in which a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it has a long standing tradition behind. ...
Argumentum ad crumenam is a logical fallacy of thinking a conclusion is correct because the person making the argument is rich. ...
Argumentum ad lazarum is the logical fallacy of thinking a conclusion is correct because the subject of the argument is poor. ...
An association fallacy is a type of logical fallacy which asserts that qualities of one are inherently qualities of another, merely by association. ...
Chronological snobbery is the logical fallacy that the thinking, art, or science of an earlier time is inherently inferior when compared to that of the present. ...
Ipsedixitism is the pejorative term for an unsupported rhetorical assertion; the term in Logic for a missing argument. ...
Poisoning the well is a logical fallacy where adverse information about someone is pre-emptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that person is about to say. ...
This is a fallacy based on the idea that the etymology of a word or phrase is its real meaning. ...
The term reductio ad Hitlerum (sometimes rendered reductio ad Hitlerem)âwhimsical Latin for reduction to Hitlerâwas originally coined by University of Chicago professor and ethicist Leo Strauss. ...
Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin: argument to the consequences), is an argument that concludes a premise (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. ...
Argumentum ad baculum (Latin: argument to the cudgel or appeal to the stick), also known as appeal to force, is an argument where force, coercion, or the threat of force, is given as a justification for a conclusion. ...
Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence or rationality. ...
Soviet Propaganda Poster during the World War II. The text reads Red Army Fighter, SAVE US! Chinese propaganda poster from during the Cultural Revolution. ...
The bandwagon effect is the observation that people often do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
A code word is a word or a phrase designed to evoke a predetermined meaning to certain listeners while disguising the speakers true meaning by allowing them to use a word that sounds much more acceptable to an average listener. ...
Dog-whistle politics is a term used to describe a type of political campaigning which is only heard by a specific intended audience. ...
Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. ...
In media studies, sociology and psychology, framing is a process of selective control over the individuals perception of the meanings attributed to words or phrases. ...
Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that they carry conviction without supporting information or reason. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...
Loaded words are words or phrases which have strong emotional overtones or connotations and which evoke strongly positive (or negative) reactions far beyond the specific meaning of the word which is listed in the dictionary. ...
Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwells novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. ...
Public relations (PR): Building sustainable relations with all publics in order to create a postive brand image. ...
Plain Folks is one of the seven forms of propaganda. ...
In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or endorsement consists of a written or spoken statement, sometimes from a public figure, sometimes from a private citizen, extolling the virtue of some product. ...
A weasel word is a word intended to soften the force of a statement and/or make an assertion as though one is just conveying some others opinion. ...
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