User:Arp242/Chinese robber fallacy

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The Chinese robber fallacy is about highlighting features within a group to give the impression these features were rampant in that group, but without comparing them properly to instances outside of the group where the same features could be as numerous, or even more pronounced. For example, one could fill entire news with instances of Chinese robbers, to give the impression that Chinese people were particularily fond of mugging.

The fallacy is an imprecision fallacy and an informal fallacy.

Examples[edit]

  • When hundreds of people from different places have to exist next to each other in an unnerving situation in a refugee camp, there will be conflicts and offence, as everywhere when many people come together. This invites racist and xenophobes who draw attention to generic problems within a demographic they don't like, by giving the impression as if native people under same circumstance would have lesser problems.
  • It is claimed that STEM fields are particularily sexist and this was the reason why women don't want to enter these fields. As evidence, motivated reasoners highlight specific cases, e.g. Tim Hunt and imply that (say) humanities were sexist to a considerably lesser degree.

See Also[edit]

Footnotes[edit]