Hasty generalization

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Hasty generalization is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence. It commonly involves basing a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a survey of a small group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole population.

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[edit] Examples

Person A travels through Town X for the first time. He sees 10 people, all of them children. Person A returns to his town and reports that there are no adult residents in Town X.

Person A and Person B walk past a pawn shop. Person A remarks that a watch in a window display looks like the one his grandfather used to wear.

Person B concludes that Person A's grandfather pawned his watch.
Person B concludes that Person A's grandfather had expensive tastes in jewellery.
Person B concludes that Person A's grandfather was ostentatious.
Person B concludes that Person A's grandfather can not tell the time any more.

[edit] Alternative names

The fallacy is also known as: fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction, law of small numbers, unrepresentative sample, and secundum quid.

[edit] References

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[edit] External links

[edit] See also

v • d • e
Informal fallacies
Begging the question • Fallacy of distribution (Composition • Division) • Gambler's fallacy and its inverse • Many questions • Red herring fallacy • Special pleading
Correlative-based fallacies:
Deductive fallacies:
Inductive fallacies:
Vagueness and Ambiguity:
Equivocation:
Questionable cause:
Other types of fallacy