Hasty Generalization


1. Howard: You mean you take this Horoscope business seriously?

Aunt: Yes, of course. Don't you see how today's horoscope fit you to a T?

Howard: Yes, but...

Aunt: No buts. There must be something to it.

(From Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric)

2. A friend of mine got food poisoning from MacDonald's last week. I'm never going there again!

3. Jimmy Swaggart was an Assemblies of God tele-evangelist. While building a multi-million dollar "ministry" by preaching a fundamentalist message of biblical inerrancy and scaring people with threats of hellfire and damnation on TV, he was privately cavorting with prostitutes in seedy hotel rooms.

I guess all those fundamentalists must be liars and hypocrites.

4. Ford is an American-made car.

I owned a Ford, and it broke down all the time.

A car that breaks down all the time is not very good.

/.. American-made cars are not very good.

4. This year marks the 100th anniversary of two organizations founded by women, the P.T.A. and the League of Women Voters - organizations that have had a profound impact on American, indeed, international life.

I guess women were pretty remarkable a hundred years ago.