shminux comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - LessWrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: shminux 29 August 2012 10:57:15PM *  4 points [-]

Guilt by association, as has been mentioned before, is probably a better name.

Comment author: metaphysicist 30 August 2012 08:13:13PM *  3 points [-]

The association fallacy is indeed what Yvain invokes: "An association fallacy is an inductive informal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association."

Key to demonstrating the association fallacy is identifying the intended association because only then can you go on to argue that it's irrelevant. Ignore this step and you are likely to fall into another fallacy: the straw-man argument.