Fallacies of Defective Induction

Your friend says no one has ever proved that the old building near the station is haunted, so it must be haunted. A film star you admire recommends a cement brand, so it must be good. Two days after you wash the car it rains, so washing the car must cause rain. Each of these stretches thin evidence into a big conclusion. This topic names four such habits and shows why an examiner, and a judge, will not accept them.

In two minutes

A fallacy of defective induction reaches a conclusion the evidence cannot support: the evidence is absent, borrowed from the wrong person, wrongly linked as cause, or too small a sample.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Logic – II on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.