Card 22 of 24 · Weak Induction
Secundum quid (hasty generalization)
Treating one fishing story like a scientific survey.
Personal experience matters, but it isn’t the same as broad evidence.
Example
“My grandfather smoked every day and lived to 95, so smoking can’t be harmful.”
A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter in its inductive form: generalizing from a small or unrepresentative sample.
Diagnosis: A single vivid case is a sample of one. Without representative data, the leap from “this” to “all” is unsupported — and memorable stories are especially prone to selection bias.
“I met a rude atheist once, so atheists are hostile.” Or: “A pastor hurt me, so Christianity is harmful.” Real wounds matter pastorally; they don’t establish the generalization.
Religious experience can be evidence (William Alston, Richard Swinburne’s principle of credulity), but philosophers debate how much weight a single experience can bear.
“I know a family that abused welfare, so the program is wasteful.” Policy needs data across the whole population.
Trail recovery
Honor the story — it’s often the reason someone cares. Then ask how typical it is and what broader evidence shows.
Try saying: “That’s a powerful example — do we know how representative it is?”
Keep questioning. Keep exploring.