Talk:Faulty generalization

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This article could use some examples of the types of faulty generalization defined.

It is hard to edit this article without generalization or exception. It is basically already a part of Inductive reasoning plus more links to logical inductive falacies.

quote searched[edit]

Something strange happens if you search for the author of "every generalization ... even this one" because you can not know that your result is correct without Faulty generalization and that is not only because you do not know the exact quote.

I wanted to find the first author of the quote "All generalizations are dangerous, even this one." and I did not even know the exact quote. google only gave "Alexandre Dumas" in ONE of many, most gave "unknown author". Searching (biased) "Dumas quotes" (and similar) gave me that same quote (his version when searched through quote databases) or any version I wanted to search for (also biased investigation by author).

The version of the quote result (everything after "every generalization is") depends on your searching method, also if author is known or unknown. Every version seems logically valid (Faulty generalization in common sense).

yeah.this isnt a veryy good deffinition if the word.i dont even understand it.it could use some examples or something! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.185.216 (talk) 01:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What if the conclusion drawn is correct?[edit]

What if, hypothetically, one sees a lazy person on welfare, and assumes that poverty is their own fault, and it turns out to be true for the most part? You didn't claim that EVERYONE on welfare is lazy, just that enough of them are that it becomes a self-sustaining cycle. If the assumption drawn turns out to be entirely accurate, is it still "faulty", just because of the methods used to draw that conclusion, regardless of whether the conclusion is accurate or not? I mean, if you meet one Frenchman, and he speaks French, one might assume that most people in France speak French. This is totally true, but since you based that conclusion on only one example, it is a "faulty generalization"? If that's not what the article is saying, I'm not sure I'm happy about the use of the examples, as they are implying that these conclusions are both proven incorrect. How do we KNOW that most people from this "Country X" aren't angry? What proof do you provide that the majority of people on welfare AREN'T lazy? That seems to be creating a biased judgement towards one viewpoint over the another, by the assumption that the conclusion drawn is inaccurate. And Wikipedia isn't supposed to state "facts" like that without reference, or that's my understanding of it. If the article does only mean that "faulty" only refers to the method use to draw the conclusion, then it ought to say so more clearly..45Colt 18:58, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, an argument being faulty doesn't mean that the conclusion reached by it is untrue, it just means that the argument itself isn't a justifiable reason to believe the conclusion. I'm pretty sure that's an actual fallacy.23.233.6.47 (talk) 03:11, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

See Argument from fallacy.

If the article Faulty generalization had to point out that a conclusion reached by the fallacy does not have to be false, by the same reasoning, all other fallacy articles would have to do that too. But that observation ("does not have to be false") is obvious anyway, so I am against it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:25, 7 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Faulty generalization vs. Fallacy of composition[edit]

What, exactly, is the distinction between this article and Fallacy of composition? It seems like they both are just different terms for the same thing. Perhaps they should be merged if so? SnowFire (talk) 20:01, 20 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also not really convinced that there's a difference between "Hasty generalization" and "Faulty generalization". The examples described are very mildly different but I don't think there's a true distinction being made here. SnowFire (talk) 22:00, 25 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]