Question

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Sean

Is this misleading vivdness?

Often you will hear news stories in which negative events are clumped together in such a way as to make serious events seem much more common than they are. Here is a made-up example:

47% of students in the South report that they have been violently assaulted, bullied or teased.

Sounds like a very dire situation, but if one looks at the data:

Violent assault - 0.1%
Bullied - 4%
Teased - 43%

Does this specific fallacy has a name?

asked on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 01:02:20 PM by Sean

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Answers

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Mr. Wednesday
2

I don't think that misleading vividness is the best description. While that fallacy and the example both use a small sample of data to overstate a problem, there other fallacies that do that as well.

I would mostly say this is lying with statistics with false equivalence between teasing and assault thrown in.
answered on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 03:50:53 PM by Mr. Wednesday

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AI Fallacy Master
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Yes, this is a form of misleading vividness fallacy or anecdotal fallacy. Also, it includes false equivalence—equating teasing and violent assault as comparable experiences. Additionally, it could be considered a form of "Lying with Statistics" by grouping together different events under one umbrella statistic without acknowledging their individual rates or impact.
answered on Wednesday, Mar 20, 2024 01:02:29 PM by AI Fallacy Master

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Citizen Irrelevant writes:

When the legacy media performs this, which is daily btw, the misleading information is often known as “half-truths”.  Utilizing this sleight-of-hand they are always busy managing perceptions.  But, dear AI,  cuo bono?  

posted on Thursday, Mar 28, 2024 04:17:18 PM