Appeal to Probability/Possibility (Fallacy of the Week)

[Laezar]

It is possible that I will work today instead of procrastinating. Therefore at the end of the day my work will be done. It logically follows that it's ok for me to be watching youtube videos at this time instead of working.

[AwkwardSegway]

"Possibly possible" vs "possible" - that's a great distinction to make, since many times when people say that something is possible, they should say that it's possibly possible.

[Martymer]

This should have been up last week, but everything got delayed. Sorry about that. I'm also working on the next part of Dr. Liar, which will hopefully be up this week.

[D.Dragon]

Roses are red,
That's probably true,
But proving that it isn't,
Can't be done by you!

[useyourbrain]

my argument exactly. only you express it so much more clearly.
it sets my teeth grinding every time I hear someone say "well, anything's possible."

[garethdean]

"With so many stars out there there HAS to be life out there somewhere besides Earth\its common\aliens!."

I don't know why this keeps being made as if it settles the argument. (Especially in regards to intelligent life.) Give me a 'possible' sure but don't overstate things.

[MoonBnuuy]

I ran into this recently when trying to explain to a friend why the Alcubierre Drive will probably never work... In order to generate the warp field, you need particles with negative mass, which are not predicted to exist. He said that they still might exist, that we don't know everything, so maybe they do exist and will be discovered later. I said that the particles that we have discovered so far are all predicted by the standard model of particle physics, which long before they were discovered, predicted the existence of the Higgs Boson, quarks, gluons, and more.

He said "well 200 years ago they said it was impossible to fly, and now we have airplanes". I said "yes, but 200 years ago, scientific theories were no where near as complete as they are now. Yes there's things we don't know, but by saying that 200 years ago we thought flying was impossible is admitting that we know a lot more about what's possible and what isn't."

He relented and looked so disappointed. I said "Look man, I know it's disappointing. So I told him that it would be immensely awesome if we could create something that would allow us to cheaply achieve relativistic or faster than light velocities, and that might be possible, but if it is, it probably isn't going to be the Alcubierre drive.

[PunishedFelix]

Gah this reminds me. I explain to people, "the reason why we experience probability is because it represents a lack of knowledge in your current knowledge-state". They think this means that "anything is possible" - well. I suppose you are right, but that doesn't mean it will end up the way you expect it. The probability may be very very low. Extremely common fallacy and good video.

[Susanmugen]

I used to be guilty of this fallacy! I would say "All things are possible until proven impossible." without even realizing how illogical a statement that was.

[markhackett]

Another error recently tried elsewhere is "If the universe is infinite, therefore unicorns must exist!". The problem is that there's higher orders of infinite, and even infinity doesn't actually end with certainty. Infinity never arrives.

[PaulTheSkeptic]

Ha, I've actually been saying this fot a long time. "It's possible that it's possible. " You explain it much better though.

[prschuster]

This fallacy is so common among creationists and conspiracy buffs.

[feynstein]

Is this the same as ignorance = anything's possible fallacy? The most common example of this fallacy is when talking about death. A friend of mine once argued that since it's not possible to record anything after death, we can never know what happens. At the time, I didn't know what to say but now I think I have a worthy rebuttal for it. His argument was analogous to saying unicorns might live on the dark side of the moon because we can never see it directly.

[chbu]

I am probably going to like this video.

I'm convinced Winston wu is actually a troll. How can he hit so many fallacies? It's almost like it's an expose on illogicality

[chrisose]

Has anyone heard an argument for religion that didn't commit at least one fallacy?

[hammalammadingdong]

Yes, premise 1 in the example is like trying to get a foot in the door. The person presenting this argument should (IMO) be asked to demonstrate the possibility proposed in the premise. For me that has been the best line of defense.

[kregorovillupo]

I use my cow analogy to explain the difference between possible and probable: is it possible to put a cow in orbit? Sure, it is. Is it probable someone will take the effort to do it? Until there's no use of cow tech in orbit, no.

[lucidmoses]

“Is it possible that a maximally great being exists”. Well, since there is only one configuration that could be true and an almost infinite amount of configuration that are not. It's much more likely that there isn't.

[TheReaper]

This is the problem with pascals vager