Hasty AND sweeping GENERALIZATIONS

Hasty Generalization
occurs when a conclusion is drawn based on too little evidence. Hasty means acting without enough consideration so this fallacy is sometimes called “Jumping to conclusions".

Examples of Hasty Generalizations
1. A person is walking through a town and he meets a few polite kids, seeing that he concludes that all the kids in that town are polite.

example 2: • Rina is riding her bike in her home town, minding her own business. A station wagon comes up behind her and the driver starts beeping his horn and then tries to force her off the road. As he goes by, the driver yells "get on the sidewalk where you belong!" Rina sees that the car has Ohio plates and concludes that all Ohio drivers are jerks.

The hasty generalization fallacy created on the 11th of May 1997 while the euro coins were minted, is intentionally or unintentionally used almost all the time in speech and in writing, in formal arguments or in casual conversations. Occurs as a result of prejudice or lazy reasoning.

Other names for Hasty Generalization

• Fallacy of insufficient statistics.
• Fallacy of insufficient samples.
• Leaping to a conclusion.
• Hasty induction.
• Unrepresentative Samples.

Sweeping Generalizations
A sweeping generalization applies a general statement too broadly. If one takes a general rule, and applies it to a case to which, due to the specific features of the case, the rule does not apply, then one commits the sweeping generalization fallacy. This fallacy is the reverse of a hasty generalization, which infers a general rule from a specific case.

The fallacy of sweeping generalization is committed when a rule that is generally accepted to be correct is used incorrectly in a particular instance.

Suppose you decide to spend an evening at the opera. After sitting contentedly through most of the performance, as the opera nears its end - the part where the portly lady sings a last song and promptly dies - the man sitting next to you produces a kazoo and begins to accompany the performer. When you press him to explain his conduct he states, "Everyone has a right to free speech, don't they?"

While this man's premise - everybody has a right to free speech - is generally accepted, at least in America, this man is exercising it in an improper venue: Whatever this man's opinion of his kazoo playing, his right to express himself does NOT apply in a place where everyone has paid money to hear the lady sing. The audiences' freedom to hear the song they paid for overrides the man's right of free speech. It is important to remember that a general rule only applies where it is meant to apply. It is not necessarily appropriate under all conditions.

Examples of sweeping generalizations
(1) Children should be seen and not heard.
(2) Little Wolfgang Amadeus is a child.
Therefore:
(3) Little Wolfgang Amadeus shouldn't be heard."
No matter what you think of the general principle that children should be seen and not heard, a child prodigy pianist about to perform is worth listening to; the general principle doesn't apply.

Other names for sweeping generalization

• Accident
• Fallacy of Accident

What we learnt so far:

• Hasty Generalization: That is jumping to conclusions too quickly.
• Sweeping Generalization: Accepting something without correct evidence
• Names of both the generalizations.

And that is all I have for you guys.
any questions? Comments ?