Columnist: It is impossible for there to be real evidence that lax radiation standards that were once in effect at...

shunhe on December 29, 2020

Hi @Maxx,

Thanks for the question! I wouldn’t quite say that this is a part to whole flaw. I suppose the logic is somewhat similar. Remember, part to whole flaws occur when you take something about the part and you generalize it to the whole incorrectly. For example, the tusk of the elephant is hard and made of ivory. Therefore, the entire elephant must be hard and made of ivory. That’s an example of a part to whole flaw. Here, we have individual cases of cancer from which we make conclusions about aggregate causes of cancer. So it’s more related to causation specifically, but there is kind of that “extrapolate from a small part to a large part” move happening.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.