You guys know your philosophy. What is the proper name of this fallacy?
It's a common sophistry to conflate an utterly negligible probability with a non-negligible one. The argument goes:
Step 3 is the tricky one. Humans are, in general, really bad at feeling the difference between epsilon uncertainty and sufficient uncertainty to be worth taking notice of - they can't tell a nonzero chance from one that's worth paying attention to ever.
I could make up a neologism for it, but this thing must have been around approximately forever. What is its proper name, if any? Who was the first person to note it as fallacious? Any history of it would be most welcomed.
Well, this instance is certainly a False Dichotomy. That is, the argument assumes that everything is either certain or non-negligibly certain. It also sort of looks like an instance of what is sometimes called an Appeal to Possibility or an Appeal to Probability. (1. This argument in uncertain. 2. If an argument is uncertain, it is possible that the uncertainty is non-negligible. 3. Therefore, it is possible that this argument's uncertainty is non-negligible. 4. Therefore, this argument's uncertainty is non-negligible.)
On Lesswrong, all of this is generall...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.