>No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The

>No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The correct response would have been for them to replace the boy with someone who wasn't so prone to lying (and for your clock example, replace or fix the clock). They must check every alarm raised from their designated "wolf watcher". Interestingly, a good usage of an ad hominem would have been the argument for replacing the boy (e.g. "It's too inefficient to use him as the watcher because he's a liar").