Thursday, September 16, 2010

Fallacy of the Day - Argumentum ad numerum

Argumentum ad numerum (argument or appeal to numbers). This fallacy is the attempt to prove something by showing how many people think that it's true. But no matter how many people believe something, that doesn't necessarily make it true or right.

Example: "Why do you want to ban...or, I'm sorry....because in reality you're not banning...you're book burning...but why do do you want to take away from 600,000 people, a magazine they enjoy reading?" *

*Bob Beierle, Creative Insight. Our Town Magazine Warren County Edition - Issue #19, September 8, 2010. Copyright (c) 2010 **

**The 1961 Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law cites examples of activities that courts have regarded as fair use: “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.” More...

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