No. 10 Appeals to Authority and the Crowd argumentum ad populum
Bandwagon
In Turkish: Grup Baskısı Safsatası
Everybody buys there because everybody buys there.
Everybody buys from Şükrü’s stall. So his must be the best.
Look at that crowd, it’s got to be cheap!
Everybody buys there because everybody buys there. Nobody’s looked at the tomatoes.
What is it?
Counting something as true because many people do it or believe it. A crowd measures the size of the crowd, not the truth of the thing.
The pattern
- Most people believe / do X.
- Therefore X is true / good.
Why it fails
People are built to follow the herd, and it usually works. But crowds often feed themselves: the queue is long so people join it, and the more people join, the longer it gets. Everyone once thought the earth was flat; millions can be wrong, all at once.
How to spot it
- The words “everybody”, “millions”, “best-selling”, “the whole world”.
- A number where the evidence should be; but the number counts people, not truth.
- When you disagree: “So you know better than everyone?”
What to say
“Maybe everyone says so; but why?” If the crowd can’t give a reason, the crowd is just a crowd. Then ask: “If everyone were wrong, how would we know?”
When it’s not a fallacy
Majority opinion is a reasonable start when you know nothing else: in a strange city, the full restaurant is a smart pick. A majority of experts is a different thing again; that crowd is made of people who looked at the evidence. The fallacy is mistaking the crowd for the evidence.
Examples
- Ads“Turkey’s best-selling yoghurt.” Best-selling isn’t best; it may just be best-advertised.
- Social media“Ten million people watched this video.” Ten million people will also watch a cat.
- School“The whole class goes to this tutoring centre.” That tells you where the class goes, not how good the centre is.
- Shopping“Everybody’s buying this phone.” Is everybody’s need the same as yours?