4 ms·
Is there a fallacy name for the concept of "yes, that's a plausible story but it's just a story and you have no evidence" ? For example, it's insanely easy to
by seanwilson 6y ago
Is there a fallacy name for the concept of "yes, that's a plausible story but it's just a story and you have no evidence" ?
For example, it's insanely easy to come up with lots of nice sounding stories about how something might have evolved in humans but you still need evidence to know which stories are true.
- logicprog 6y agoMaybe https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal?
- pmichaud 6y agoThat is called a "just so story": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story
- seanwilson 6y agoThanks! Also https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ad_hoc https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Ad_hoc Aside: I wish fallacies had more intuitive names that tied in to common knowledge. It would help their use spread if they were easier to explain, to remember and didn't have names that could be seen as pretentious e.g. the Latin ones. "Straw man" is particularly bad for example - it sounds ridiculous and pretentious explaining where the name comes from to someone who doesn't know what logical fallacies are. "Misrepresentation" or something like that might be better. I'd love it if we got to the stage where journalists were pointing out logical fallacies by name in interviews for example.