Association Fallacy: Difference between revisions
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:: Claiming a quality of one thing is also a quality of another thing because they have some other thing in common, e.g. "Water is a liquid. Water will put out most fires. Therefore, any liquid will put out most fires." And then you pour on the olive oil. Or the high-proof vodka.
* [[Hitler Ate Sugar|Reductio Ad Hitlerum]], when the association is specifically made to [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]].
* Reductio ad Nazium, when the association is made to [[Those Wacky Nazis|the Nazis]].
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In order to make this work, any time wine is referenced in a positive context (for example, Jesus' first miracle), the word is instead rendered as "unfermented grape juice" when translated into English.
:: A very common form of Guilt by Association is "Hitler did it, therefore it's bad." While persuasive, it's not always true, since while Hitler did a lot of evil things, he also was a massive advocate of animal rights (well, definitely more so than Jewish, gay, or Gypsy rights...), built motorways, painted pictures, hosted the Olympics, [[Hitler Ate Sugar|ate sugar]], and breathed oxygen. This is related to the Fallacy of Division, since it assumes the evilness of the whole of Hitler also applies to any part of Hitler. Related to [[Godwin's Law]] and [[Hitler Ate Sugar]].
* An anti-abortion [[Jack Chick|Chick Tract]] claims abortion is wrong because Hitler killed Jewish babies, and therefore doctors who carry out abortions are as bad as Hitler.
* There's an interesting inversion of this [[Memetic Mutation|making the rounds on the internet.]] Whenever some distressing news is revealed to the world, someone will inevitably use the clip from ''[[Downfall (film)|Downfall]]'' where Hitler has a [[Villainous Breakdown]] upon learning that Berlin will be overrun. The person making the video will often put their words into ''Hitler's'' mouth. This is usually a case of [[Even Evil Has Standards]], with the intended message being "Even Hitler thinks that's going too far".
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"Vegetarianism then: not all it's cracked up to be. In some extreme cases may cause genocide." \\ -- Bill Bailey }}
* Similar to the above, when an example is used to establish a fact about a group in the aggregate, rather than about members of that group. For instance, noting instances of gay men who are HIV positive and concluding that gay men have higher rates of HIV is not a fallacy (assuming valid statistical techniques are used). Concluding that a particular gay man is HIV positive is a fallacy.
* When a member of a group is presented as an example of a common feature at work, rather than proof in itself that there is a common feature. For instance, it is valid to use the 9/11 attacks and abortion-clinic bombings as examples of how ''radical'' Muslims and Christians ''can be'' evil. They are ''not'', on the other hand, examples of how ''all'' Muslims and Christians ''are'' evil. Capiche?
:: The flip side of Guilt by Association, stating that two things share a positive quality because they share a different, unrelated quality.
* One Usenet poster who claims "we should all become vegetarian" claims in his sig that "Jesus was a vegetarian". His reasoning: vegetarianism is good; Jesus was good; therefore Jesus must have been a vegetarian. Which assumes that vegetarianism is "Good" by all standards and values of those who hold that Jesus Christ was good '''and''' that Jesus is believed to be "Good" by everyone.
** Other people use a somewhat more complicated, but just as fallacious version of this argument: Because Jesus's teachings and behaviors were most in line with the Essene sect, Jesus must have been an Essene, and because the Essenes were mostly vegetarian (pescatarian, actually, but they leave out that part), Jesus must have been vegetarian and because Jesus is good, the vegetarianism is good and would therefore hate killing animals as much as they do. (Never mind that the Essenes weren't vegetarian out of compassion for animals, but rather because they believed anything created from sexual union was treif, but that fish spawned via abiogenesis in the waters and were therefore kosher. Of course that part gets left out, too.)
** Some sects of Christianity that preach teetotalitarianism apply a similar fallacy to alcohol. They feel alcohol is bad, and Jesus was purest good, so he naturally would not have done anything bad. Therefore he would not have partaken of alcohol. Therefore, the same word is translated as "unfermented grape juice" in instances where it's being partaken of or otherwise addressed positively, and "wine" when speaking against the dangers of excessive drinking in their editions of the Bible. This is pretty much entirely nonsensical; grape skins are coated in yeast, and therefore keeping grape juice from fermenting with period technology is impossible. You pretty much had to own a vineyard to get fresh grape juice in those days, as the alcohol produced by fermentation was necessary to prevent spoilage.
* [[Metal Gear Solid|Otacon]] states matter of factly that liking dogs is irrefutable proof that a person is decent, deep down. Snake immediately points out that Hitler was a big fan of dogs. Interesting in that while it applies under this variant, the exchange is often mistaken for an example of the Argumentum Ad Hitlerium fallacy. But Snake isn't saying liking dogs is bad; he's just shooting down Otacon's fallacy by pointing out a bad person who liked dogs.
* When the example is being used to show that there is overlap in the members of two groups, but not to state or imply that the overlap is total. For instance, saying "many (or even most) vegetarians are good, moral people" is not this. On the other hand, saying it might be misleading: One hopes that ''most'' people are good, moral people.
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