Skeptic-Fallacy #1....Lumping All Phenomena Together
Posted: 27 Mar 2014, 03:51This fallacy is one of my pet hates. It's where a skeptic lumps every unexplained phenomenon together with comments, for example if commenting on some UFO report, such as ' This is all part of UFOs, ghosts, ESP, fairies at the bottom of the garden, and unicorns'.
The idea is to deliberately associate the extremely implausible with the more plausible...thus implying that all these things can be dismissed with equal impunity. Never mind that in fact the range of evidence over unexplained phenomenon is huge. There is at least considerable anecdotal evidence for UFOs, whereas there is not the slightest evidence for unicorns and ( other than a recent hoax ) I don't think I've ever heard anyone even report seeing one.
This is one of the most common skeptic fallacies. I've seen it time and again on skeptic forums and in sceptical reports.
The idea is to deliberately associate the extremely implausible with the more plausible...thus implying that all these things can be dismissed with equal impunity. Never mind that in fact the range of evidence over unexplained phenomenon is huge. There is at least considerable anecdotal evidence for UFOs, whereas there is not the slightest evidence for unicorns and ( other than a recent hoax ) I don't think I've ever heard anyone even report seeing one.
This is one of the most common skeptic fallacies. I've seen it time and again on skeptic forums and in sceptical reports.