4 ms·
Thanks for your personal anecdote. Unfortunately, it is fallacious to try and generalize it to the entire population.
by Alchemista 11y ago
Thanks for your personal anecdote. Unfortunately, it is fallacious to try and generalize it to the entire population.
- Scarblac 11y agoWell, the title does say "you"...
- tfgg 11y agoIt's the informal generic "you". More formally it'd be "Poor Sleep Gives One the Munchies, Study Says".
- kazinator 11y agoThen the strawman-generator would just move the goalposts. "Well, it says 'one'; that's a small number out of all the people in the study."
- oldmanjay 11y ago"Poor Sleep Can Cause the Munchies" seems least ambiguous but also least punchy. If you can't read the fist, the headline missed.
- mlevy 11y agoThat's true but it's also true that studies like this one, which are true on average of the population, are often not true for each individual. It's worth pointing out that it doesn't apply to everyone.
- colmvp 11y agoI guess. I think it's implicit with practically every study that the results aren't necessarily applicable to everybody.
- mikeash 11y agoAlmost nothing is universal. You could have a study that says, "Falling out of an airplane from 30,000ft is deadly" and you can still find counterexamples. So I agree, it doesn't need to be explicitly stated at every turn.
- kbenson 11y agoYes, but pointing out that it may not apply to everyone should not start with the sentence "That's not true."
- kingkawn 11y agoEqually severe a fallacy to take population generalizations and impose them on an individual.