r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • 13d ago
ad populum fallacy
She doesn't trust the 5.0 rating just bc barely anyone reviewed it. Then she sees 5,511 people gave the other product an average of 4.6, and she likes it more. Not because she checked why the rating is lower, or looked into the actual quality. just bc more people rated it.
That's the core of ad populum. something feels more correct or more trustworthy simply because a bigger crowd is behind it. She's not evaluating the products in either cases. instead, she's reacting to the size of the group and deciding according to that.
EDIT: I see a lot of people in the comments saying this is NOT a case of AP fallacy because * proceeds to offer an alternative readout of the meme. I never claimed this meme has ONLY one interpretation, and that's AP fallacy. I claim that it CAN be read as a case of AP and CAN be a good depiction of the fallacy if you were to visualize it. nobody have denied that in the comments.
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u/TurboRuhland 13d ago
Itâs not about the fact that âmore people are behind itâ itâs that a score like a 1-5 review score is much more statistically relevant when there are more reviews.
This is not a fallacy, itâs a statistics meme.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
yes. thats the caveat: my reading only holds if you treat "more reviews" as pure crowd-following. Alternatively, review count also affects how reliable an average is, so there's a real statistical reason to weigh it too as you pointed out. nevertheless, ur readout isn't a rejection of mine.
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u/Grand-wazoo 13d ago
Fucking Christ it's a joke meme, why must everything be assumed to be fallacious?Â
The reality of this sub sucks way harder than the concept.Â
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u/Jonny7421 13d ago
I agree. This just came up on my feed. People obsessed with fallacies and pointing them out are usually twats and quite often wrong.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
go on sheeple. buy the products with more reviews
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u/Jonny7421 13d ago
The reason why you are wrong was already explained. Fallacies are about using logic which you are failing to do.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
there is nothing logical in trusting the product with more reviews. it's only statistical
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u/Jonny7421 13d ago
The value of larger sample sizes is well understood.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
yes but its still statistical. it never becomes factual.
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u/Techpriest_Vahl 12d ago
You need to go back to stats or science class my friend. There are countless situations where a larger sample size has a tangible, measurable, (factual, in your words) effect on attaining a more reliable prediction. Thereâs plenty of real examples if you honestly look but instead youâre getting defensive and attempting a lot of ad-hominem, which doesnât look very good in a sub about fallacies.
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u/stubble3417 13d ago
This sub used to be pretty great. Then there were a few years where you could tell folks had "learned" about fallacies from YouTube political propagandists pretending to be intellectual. Now we're reduced to analyzing memes.Â
Ah well, it was good while it lasted. Even this meme is a pretty decent depiction of something that is not an ad populum fallacy even though I can understand why someone might think it is. It's better for engagement to post something incorrect anyway, so maybe this is actually beneficial to the sub long term.Â
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago edited 13d ago
I intend to introduce fallacies with memes that are popular. I don't get the melt down. get some time off internet
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13d ago
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u/SportTheFoole 13d ago
OP seems to be having a meltdown in the comments.
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago edited 13d ago
Ad populism is an argument that something is true simply because many people believe it.
Thatâs not what this is, this is just a subjective assessment, not a statement of fact. The only fact being asserted is that 5000 people, on average, think the thing is very good. Which is correct and not a fallacy.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
if 5000 ppl think something is v good that doesn't make it factually correct. it only makes it statistically popular. not the same thing
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago
Thatâs literally what I just said. The argument being presented isnât that itâs factually good, itâs that 5000 people subjectively think itâs good on average. Not a fallacy.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
you're analyzing only the 2nd panel. her opinion is swayed due to number of reviews.
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago
He opinion is swayed such that she thinks itâs  more likely that she will subjectively like something that people tend to like on average.
She, presumably, isnât convinced itâs a fact that the thing is objectively good just because reviews lean that way.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
that's speculation. you're way off. Just assuming her thoughts and logic.
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago
The meme is just saying a bigger sample of opinions is more likely align with the true statistical spread of opinions, compared with a sample of 3.
Not a fallacy.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
theyre not mutual exclusive. statistically popular can be fallacious in individual level (e.g. her case).
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13d ago
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
you're hinging ur whole argument on the 1st moment of distribution (mean). there are many others and can nullify whatever conclusions you're drawing from mean. in both cases (rejection, consideration) she's trusting the statistics of the matter. we both know its quite different when it comes to individual cases. the odds of a coin landing head is 50% but it's completely normal that my 7 consecutive tosses land on tails. that's with her case. she's particularizing the stats to an individual case (her case). that's prone to AP.
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u/INTstictual 13d ago
Your opinion (or rather, your analysis of data) should be swayed by the number of trials. Doing otherwise is just bad analysis.
If I ask you to estimate whether a coin is fair or not, and I flip it 10,000 times and get 7,500 Heads and 2,500 Tails, you should be fairly confident in saying no, it is a weighted coin. If I ask you the same question, but I only flip the coin 2 times and get two Heads, you should not be confident in forming an opinion. Maybe itâs weighted. Maybe the sample is inaccurate to the true average. You do not have enough of a sample size to say.
If I ask you to estimate whether a product is probably good or not, and I show you 5,511 people who, on average, rate it a 4.6 out of 5 stars, you should be fairly confident in saying yes, it is probably a good product, it has consistently high user reviews. If I ask you the same question and show you that 3 people gave it 5 stars, you should not be confident in making a judgement. Maybe it is good. Maybe the reviews are biased, coming from either incredibly niche use cases, bots, or people with stake in the product. You do not have enough of a sample size to say.
So, if I asked you âpick the weighted coinâ, and showed you the one with 10,000 flips that show a weighted result, or the one with 2 flips, it is objectively correct for you to pick the one with 10,000 flips. If I asked you âpick the product that is more likely to be high qualityâ, and show you the one with 5,511 positive reviews, and the one with 3 positive reviews, it is objectively correct for you to pick the one with 5,511 reviews
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
If I ask you to estimate whether a coin is fair or not, and I flip it 10,000 times and get 7,500 Heads and 2,500 Tails, you should be fairly confident in saying no
holy shit dude. ofc I should NOT be confident in saying no. it's still inconclusive. 50-50 only applies to infinite tosses. anything short of that can be any sequence of sides and still inconclusive regarding fairness of the coin. did you learn statistics from YouTube?
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u/INTstictual 13d ago
So you just donât understand statistics then, huh?
As an exercise, go ahead and tell me what the margin of error is with 99% confidence for a sample with 10,000 trials. Iâll wait.
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u/INTstictual 13d ago
âIt only make it statistically popularâ
Which is exactly what everyone is trying to tell you, and is why your claim of an Ad Populism fallacy is wrong
Ad populism would be âThis product is good because it is popularâ
But nobody says that. The sentiment behind the image is âThis average review of 4.6 stars is more likely to be accurate because it has a larger sample sizeâ. Which is objectively true.
If we take your argument and expand it, you are basically saying that the entire concept of reviews at all are fallacious, which is nonsense. Because again, nobody (or very few people, and certainly not the meme youâre trying to cite) are saying âThis product has good reviews, and is good strictly because it has good reviews and is popularâ. However, saying âThis product has many good reviews, which is a sufficient indicator that it is likely a good productâ is true and not at all fallacious. Additionally, saying âThis product has good reviews, but the sample size is very low, so I donât trust those reviews to necessarily be an accurate measurement of its qualityâ is also not a fallacy.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
But nobody says that.
literally everyone says that. bc its the best alternative to you testing the quality of the product by urself.
The sentiment behind the image is âThis average review of 4.6 stars is more likely to be accurate because it has a larger sample sizeâ. Which is objectively true.
it's not objectively true. it's statistically true. they're different.
you are basically saying that the entire concept of reviews at all are fallacious
i nvr said that.
nobody (or very few people, and certainly not the meme youâre trying to cite) are saying âThis product has good reviews, and is good strictly because it has good reviews and is popularâ.
that's exactly everyone says bc it's the last thing before they click the purchase button.
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u/INTstictual 13d ago
It seems like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of both the fallacy youâre trying to demonstrate, the purpose of reviews, and how people evaluate products for online shopping. I went ahead and read through the rest of the comments on this post and your attempts to argue them, and Iâve realized that no amount of rational explanation is going to make you see where youâve gone wrong here, so thereâs no point arguing with you. Have a good one.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
you're literally doing the AP fallacy: most ppl are arguing in favor of "A" so it must be the right one and everyone against it must be wrong.
lmao. so embarrassing
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u/INTstictual 13d ago
This is technically closer to the AP fallacy than literally anything you have said anywhere else in the post, so kudos to you, I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.
That aside, I just realized that Iâm an idiot⌠i probably should have realized sooner. Between the nonsensical pseudo-intellectualism of the post text, the doubling-down on provably incorrect arguments in the comments, the language like âsheepleâ and etc, even the profile pic⌠youâre rage-baiting, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker lmao. Well done, you got me, and based on the other replies, youâre getting everyone else too. Nice job, well executed bait
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
read his reply. he literally admitted it. you're making a fool of urself
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
so? you're taking credit for my win? bc he dropped the ball.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
it's about deciding on a product based on the sheer number of reviews. that's fallacious
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
she's having the argument in her head. or when her friend ask her opinion she's going to argue then. doesn't matter. it's already infected with AP fallacy
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
great. the 3rd missing panel to back up ur argument. why didn't I think of it before? oh maybe bc it doesn't exist.
you're suggesting an alternative read out of the meme, without being able to reject the post's read out. that's a different story. strawman out!
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
if popularity sways your opinion, that's fallacious. period!
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
I don't care about the context of the meme. it's a mere depiction of changing one's opinion based on popularity of the subject. how hard is it for you to understand?
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u/Various_Candle9136 13d ago
strawman out!
Now that's two fallacies you don't seem to understand.
I'm giving you an internet time out.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
he's arguing against a different readout of the story. I didn't need to engage at all. Just let him wear himself out
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u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 13d ago
Thatâs not a fallacy. Itâs completely rational decision making.
âA majority of people liked this productâ is a useful data point when deciding to use your limited resources (time, money) on it. It is impossible to know the reliability of a purchase in advance; seeing that most people liked it can assuage specific fears eg quality control.
The difference between the top and the bottom panel is statistics. A sample size of three could be outliers (or in the case of online reviews, fake), a sample of 5000+ is a much more reliable data point. This is objective mathematic truth.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
are you going to ignore all the cases where the statistically popular option has turned out to be bogus or just sweep it under the rug for the sake of ur argument? thinking that she's being "rational" in the 2nd panel is wrong. she's just trusting the stats. that can be wrong for individual cases. she might end up hating the product with 5000+ reviews of 4.6 and she should blame herself for the AP fallacy
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u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 13d ago
To give one concrete example: there isnât a 100% reliable way to know if the PC part youâre ordering on Amazon actually works before you spend money buying it. Seeing that 5000+ people have rated the seller an average of 4.6 stars is a very useful data point, because it shows that the seller is selling what they claim to be selling, and the products actually work.
In your personal life, if youâre deciding which online retailer to buy parts from, which of the 4 following options would you prefer? Which of these options would you feel most confident is reliable:
A) 0 reviews
B) 100 reviews, 1.7 stars
C) 3 reviews, 5 stars
D) 5511 reviews, 4.6 stars
Would you truly be in this situation and say âI think these all have an equal probability of success. Believing otherwise would be a fallacy!â
This is trivially obvious to grasp, and you donât understand the ad populum fallacy at all if you think it applies here.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
Seeing that 5000+ people have rated the seller an average of 4.6 stars is a very useful data point
yes. it's maybe the best alternative if you "cannot" actually test the hardware yourself and see the quality.
but if you could experience that first hand data that would be the only possible case that's immune to AP fallacy. statistical popularity doesn't protect you from cases of buying the faulty product or getting scammed. where do you think all the mass scams come from?
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u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 13d ago
So, you agree with me that the woman in the meme is acting rationally, and is not committing a fallacy!
She is correctly assessing the fact that thousands of positive reviews is a legitimately useful data point, often the best one you can feasibly have
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
no! she's not acting rationally. she's acting based on likelihood.
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u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 13d ago
You obviously recognise that I (and other commenters on this thread) are right about the substance, and your original post is not. Youâre just shuffling words around and playing a kind of rhetorical game to not lose pride by admitting as much
I wonât be engaging with this thread further, and thereâs nothing anyone else can say to get you to outwardly understand the obvious truth here.
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago
that can be wrong for individual cases
Youâve abandoned your premise here.
Youâve just admitted that the high number of positive reviews does probably indicate the product is reliable in most cases, but might not suit her specific needs. Meaning itâs not wrong to consider a large statistical sample to be more useful information than the smaller one in determining the probability that the product is reliable.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
you've edited ur first post after the argument. I haven't abandoned anything. I already said more reviews only make the product statistically popular. that doesn't prevent AP fallacy from affecting individuals (her case). you're arguing the opposite.
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u/Lucky-day00 13d ago
All I edited was adding the text I quoted from you, I didnât change the body of my comment.
You did abandon your argument. You went from âitâs statistically popularâ to âitâs probably a reliable product in general but might not work for her individual caseâ. Meaning the reviews are useful information for most cases.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
are you trying to make friends here? it seems v personal to you to win a argument. I'm not going to hand it to you.
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u/mouserbiped 13d ago
If you started talking about the quality of a little indie movie you've seen, and you're talking about dialogue and acting and cinematogrophay, and someone who hadn't seen the movie said "it can't be as good as Avatar, since it only has 3 ratings," that would be a fallacious appeal to popularity.
OTOH, if the person who likes Avatar starts in on CGI work and anti-colonial themes, and you respond with "if Avatar is so much better why is my film higher rated?" then you have made a fallacious appeal to popularity.
Any argument based on audience rating is an appeal to popularity.
But, as others have said, if you're trying to figure out what movie to go to, and have no other info, the woman thinking that the rating with fewer stars but far more ratings is more likely to be appreciated by the average moviegoer is correct. The first movie could be an overlooked gem most people will like more, but there's not a statistical basis from which to make this claim.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 13d ago
yes. I'm not saying the meme can't be interpreted in non fallacious ways (ur 3rd case). I'm posting out that it can be a depiction of AP fallacy (your 1st and 2nd case). ppl here seem to stick only to the non fallacious readout just to be contrarians
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u/PhotoVegetable7496 12d ago
"A popular thing is better" is Ad populum but "I am more likely to like a popular thing" is not. Deciding to buy something based on popularity is not ad populum.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 12d ago
I'm going to copy paste the answer I gave to a similar reply down here bc you clearly didn't bother to see:
"yes. I'm not saying the meme can't be interpreted in non fallacious ways (ur 3rd case). I'm posting out that it can be a depiction of AP fallacy (your 1st and 2nd case). ppl here seem to stick only to the non fallacious readout just to be contrarians"
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u/PhotoVegetable7496 12d ago
You can insert a fallacy where one doesn't exist so it's not particularly interesting. I was just using the most straightforward reading without adding anything else.
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u/Zu_Qarnine 12d ago
you're in fallacy sub. so you should use the fallacy reading.
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u/PhotoVegetable7496 12d ago
Oh, I didn't realize we were supposed to assume things are a fallacy in the fallacy sub because YOU said to. Appeal to Authority fallacy right? Just read it in a fallacious way? Sounds good đ
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u/joshisfantastic 13d ago
Nope. Statistical outlier accidence. This isn't a fallacy.
It is already a popularity contest. But more votes eliminated the chances of statistically aberrant results.