Talk:Balance fallacy

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Several issues

There are several issues in my view with this article.

• In the first paragraph, it is stated "it is effectively an inverse false dilemma". Not really. A false dilemma means only two options are presented, and they are presented as mutually exclusive, when in fact there may be many more and/or they may not be mutually exclusive. A false dilemma does in no way imply correct answer is in the middle.
• The whole "false equivalence" section. First of all, it does not belong in this article, as there is no connection between a balance fallacy and a false equivalence. But second and most importantly, its contents only reference the contents of an irrelevant book written by some conservative, without any accurate description of what a false equivalence is or any conclusion being presented.

80.217.138.131 (talk)

Couldn't agree more. The "false equivalency" section doesn't actually define what a false equivalency is, instead presenting denialist arguments from a couple of anti-intellectual right-wing apologists that the argument never even tries to rebut. Some problems with their rhetoric expressed include:

• They say that "we don't remember false equivalence from logic class because liberals made it up." ...No, we don't remember it from "logic class" because there is no such thing as "logic class"! Logical fallacies are usually taught in writing classes, and the reason they never taught us about it is because, due to constraints of time, most writing classes only bother to teach you about nine or ten fallacies out of the hundreds that exist overall.
• It is obvious that these people refuse to believe that the left and the right could possibly be anything but equals. Their assertion that liberals are "anti-science" because they're more likely to oppose nuclear power than conservatives is fallacious. To quote Cracked, opposing one science on one level does not mean you reject all science on all levels. That's not to mention that liberal opposition to nuclear power is ethical in nature, as opposed to refusing to believe that established scientific principles exist because they think an invisible giant in the sky told them so.
• The piece about climate change is especially absurd. Instead of conceding that liberals are more knowledgable in that field than conservatives, these two hacks use blatant special pleading to smear the left by saying that conservatives "won" the debate because they recognize the difference between climate change and global warming better than liberals do. Here's the problem: THERE IS LITERALLY NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO WHATSOEVER!!! Anyone with even the slightest knowledge on the subject could tell these clowns that "global warming" and "climate change" are synonyms that describe the same phenomenon, so that would only make conservatives look worse for not recognizing obvious fact. That's not even getting into the fact that, even with all that hair-splitting I just described, they still failed to rebut the fact that the numbers show that liberals are more likely to recognize the existence of climate change than conservatives. The statistics show that liberal belief in climate change existence is over 90%, while conservatives who believe such are at much lower numbers regardless of the terminology used. This isn't like golf where the lowest score wins!

Look, I know I'm ranting here, and I'm sorry. To see such blatant ignorance go unchallenged just nettles me is all. NotYourAverageBoN (talk) 02:31, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

• Agreeing with the above; even if its logic wasn't flawed, it doesn't have any sort of introduction or explanation for its presence. It's just... there. I would just remove it myself, but that is, apparently, section blanking, and thus an administrator needs to come and do it. 73.109.59.58 (talk) 00:07, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be linked to from Horseshoe Theory?

Or is it already? Evil Zionist (talk) 23:23, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

US-centric

This article is too much US centric. Even in the definition section there are examples and a lot are so specific to the USA that they do not remotely help to understand the fallacy. What follows the fascism vs communism describes some riots in the US that few have heard about and even if they did its a minor event on the global stage. ^{— Unsigned, by: 31.164.4.34 / talk}

Dead link -- source 16

Heyo, noticed that source 16 was broken, linking here. Found an archive, replacing now, revert if necessary :) Moria (talk) 01:04, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

X believes Y just as much as you "believe" Z!

Are things such as "creationists believe in creation just as strong as 'evolutionists' 'believe' in evolution!" a balance fallacy? --NiciesMan (talk) 00:07, 5 May 2021 (UTC)NiciesMan

That's false equivalence if I recall correctly. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

It certainly wouldn't be a "balance fallacy" as the balance fallacy would be the suggestion that the truth lay between the two statements. I'm not even sure there is a logical falicy which covers that. "People who believe in a flat Earth are just as convinced as those who believe it's (more-or-less) spherical." So what?

One of them has evidence and logic on their side and the other is wrong.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 11:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The more I think about this the more convinced I become that there is no actual "fallacy" here. "Group X believes A strongly", "Group Y believes B strongly", "If belief A is correct B must be wrong and vice versa". But nowhere is there a conclusion "therefore .....". It's just statements of fact.

OK, given the way it is structured at least one of the groups must be wrong. But that's all you can say about it.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 12:56, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Shouldn't this page be separate from the argument to moderation/golden mean fallacy?

The argument to moderation A.K.A. golden mean fallacy is when someone claims that the truth lies between two extremes even when one of those "extremes" is obviously the correct option. It leads to some really stupid beliefs if one takes it to its limit. It is not the same thing as the balance fallacy, which believes that both options are equally valid, not that the truth lies between them. IMO, these should be separate pages. PLMMJ (talk) 12:42, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

That's not my understanding of the balance fallacy - though sometimes these things go by different names. Do you have some links which support your interpretation?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. You want links? I've found links. Numero uno: Logically Fallacious states on their page on the Argument to Moderation that it is "Asserting that given any two positions, there exists a compromise between them that must be correct." Numero dos: Finmasters has an article about the middle ground fallacy (another name for the same thing) where it states that "Middle ground is a common type of logical fallacy [...] whereby a person argues that the correct conclusion must lie somewhere between two opposing arguments." The bit I cut out is an explanation of what a logical fallacy is, which can be confirmed at the page itself. Numero tres: ResearchGate has a paper about the golden mean fallacy in finance from the European Journal of Social Sciences, which states that it "is the tendency [...] to steer an irrational middle course when faced with two meaningful alternatives." The bit I cut out is talking about how many of the subjects fell into the fallacious thinking. Numero cuatro: Fallacy.in, another site dedicated to defining fallacies, lists the Argument to Moderation as "an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth must be found as a compromise between two opposite positions." Numero cinco: Ness Labs has a page about the false compromise fallacy (again, same thing, which is stated on the page as its old Roman name) that states that "A false compromise occurs when a resolution cannot be found between two opposing views, and so the middle ground is accepted as the “best of both worlds” instead." Wikipedia and TV Tropes also agree with me, though the former also cites Ness Labs and they're not proper sources. I'd like to add that they do indeed seem similar, but valuing both sides of the argument equally even when one of them is wrong (balance fallacy) can lead to the argument to moderation. Sorry for the wall of text, but I couldn't figure out how to separate it without making it look weird or like several comments. PLMMJ (talk) 12:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC)