Noncitizen voting, already illegal in federal elections, becomes a centerpiece of 2024 GOP messaging
AP's May 18, 2024 overview of noncitizen-voting rhetoric documented how a politically useful intuition about election fraud kept being treated as if it were established by the evidence. The report is especially useful for seeing how tiny counts, suggestive language, and moral urgency can be stretched into system-wide claims. The fallacy here is Cherry picking: someone selects only the evidence that supports a conclusion and ignores a wider body of evidence that weakens, qualifies, or reverses it. That matters here because cherry picking can involve hand-picked dates, unusual baselines, isolated anecdotes, or a single study taken out of a larger research picture. A better analysis would remember that the defect is not using examples, but using a biased sample as if it were representative.
Associated Press · 2024-05-18
New Pentagon report on UFOs includes hundreds of new incidents but no evidence of aliens
AP's November 14, 2024 story on hundreds of new UAP reports is a useful case because it mixes explained incidents, unexplained incidents, and limited data without pretending they all support the same conclusion. It is exactly the kind of evidence landscape that invites cherry-picking and premature certainty. The fallacy here is Cherry picking: someone selects only the evidence that supports a conclusion and ignores a wider body of evidence that weakens, qualifies, or reverses it. That matters here because cherry picking can involve hand-picked dates, unusual baselines, isolated anecdotes, or a single study taken out of a larger research picture. A better analysis would remember that the defect is not using examples, but using a biased sample as if it were representative.
Associated Press · 2024-11-14
Authorities rebut claims that Haitian immigrants are eating cats, waterfowl in Ohio town
PolitiFact's September 9, 2024 Springfield fact check is a neat example of a rumor built out of anonymous posts, recycled images, and suggestive repetition rather than verifiable support. It shows how easily a story can feel established before it has actually been checked. The fallacy here is Cherry picking: someone selects only the evidence that supports a conclusion and ignores a wider body of evidence that weakens, qualifies, or reverses it. That matters here because cherry picking can involve hand-picked dates, unusual baselines, isolated anecdotes, or a single study taken out of a larger research picture. A better analysis would remember that the defect is not using examples, but using a biased sample as if it were representative.
PolitiFact · 2024-09-09
FACT FOCUS: Here's a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump's first debate
AP's June 27, 2024 fact check of the first Biden-Trump debate is a dense collection of real argumentative shortcuts: statistics pulled loose from context, emotionally loaded immigration claims, and repeated assertions that did more rhetorical than evidential work. It is one of the best single-source stress tests in the library. The fallacy here is Cherry picking: someone selects only the evidence that supports a conclusion and ignores a wider body of evidence that weakens, qualifies, or reverses it. That matters here because cherry picking can involve hand-picked dates, unusual baselines, isolated anecdotes, or a single study taken out of a larger research picture. A better analysis would remember that the defect is not using examples, but using a biased sample as if it were representative.
Associated Press · 2024-06-27
Survivorship bias
Britannica's overview of survivorship bias, especially its retelling of Abraham Wald's aircraft analysis, is a strong historical case of the visible sample misleading people about the full set. It earns its keep anywhere a page needs a real example of selection effects masquerading as a complete picture. The fallacy here is Cherry picking: someone selects only the evidence that supports a conclusion and ignores a wider body of evidence that weakens, qualifies, or reverses it. That matters here because cherry picking can involve hand-picked dates, unusual baselines, isolated anecdotes, or a single study taken out of a larger research picture. A better analysis would remember that the defect is not using examples, but using a biased sample as if it were representative.
Britannica · 2026-01-01
