Neglecting Free Will

The fallacy of assuming that people (other than oneself, of course) are unable to make a valid judgement on a topic because they "only vote for the candidate who advertised more", or "do what society pressures them to do".

For a fallacy, this has a surprisingly good track record in empirical tests. :)

Citations, please

Kennedy, if I recall correctly. Anyway, the first presidential race with television as a factor. One candidate had good hair (and to an extent, makeup). The other claimed that looks were irrelevant to doing a good job as president. You can guess which one won.

Kennedy vs. Nixon. Another data point is the suicide statistics - actuarial companies manage to predict the suicide rate well enough, yet every suicide is a personal decision.

Presidential elections in general show a strong tendency to elect the taller candidate as well. nearly all of them since 1900. One exception was George W. Bush - and he lost the popular vote.

The premise of this page seems to be that because people have free will, they shouldn't be predictable and shouldn't fall for simple tricks. I have no idea where this notion came from.

I'm not convinced this is a fallacy as often people do just follow the majority opinion. Also, choosing the minority opinion doesn't make you right. Perhaps MajorityOpinionDefaultFallacy? (someone who defaults to the majority's opinion) contrasted with MinorityOpinionDefaultFallacy? (someone who defaults to a minority opinion). Too much MajorityOpinionDefault? and someone is just a sheep, too much MinorityOpinionDefault? and someone is just an undirected radical.

I'm not convinced this is a fallacy because free will is an illusion.

But isn't a fallacy just the illusion of logic?

It doesn't matter. If free will is an illusion then neglecting it isn't a fallacy.

Saying free will is an illusion is trying to prove the unprovable - unless you believe EverythingIsAnIllusion?, which leads to the GrandConspiracyFallacy?. GrandConspiracy is only a fallacy because it's unverifiable. i.e. AbsenceOfEvidenceIsNotEvidenceOfAbsence. It's ironic that many StrongZealots? try to use MyGodIsReal?, while many ConspiracyTheorists try to use GrandConspiracy. They are both wrong in trying to base an argument on a unverifiable foundation. It may be possible to demonstrate that a certain model is more useful, but neither can ever be proven - except by god or TheOnesInControl?.

Note that I had *no* part in claiming free-will is an illusion. I wanted to point that out because to some it may sound like something I'd claim. (I'm not even sure there is a good definition of "free will" yet.) --top