Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies (Academic Edition) (Dr. Bo's Critical Thinking Series)

by Bo Bennett

Fake Precision (also known as: over-precision, false precision, misplaced precision, spurious accuracy) Description: Using implausibly precise statistics to give the appearance of truth and certainty, or using a negligible difference in data to draw incorrect inferences. Logical Forms: Statistic X is unnecessarily precise and has probability A of being true. Statistic X is interpreted as having probability A+B as being true. Statistic X represents position A. Statistic Y represents position B. Statistic Y is insignificantly different from statistic X. Position A is seen as significantly different from position B. Example #1: Tour Guide: This fossil right here is 120,000,003 years old. Guest: How do you know that? Tour Guide: Because when I started working here three years ago, the experts did some radiometric dating and told me that it was 120,000,000 years old. Explanation: Although more of a comedy skit than anything else, this demonstrates the fallacious reasoning by the tour guide in her assumption that the dates given to her were precise to the year.