Your weekly logical fallacy: composition/division

[Oh it is good to be back. Especially since I basically didn't see the eclipse... I mean I saw a bit of it, but there was a lot of cloud cover so I could only catch glimpses of it. That's ok I got 20 years to play for the 2024 total eclipse! Now where were we? Oh yes, composition/division.
Huh, since when did this become a gardening group?/p]

[You assumed that one part of something has to be applied to all, or other, parts of it; or that the whole must apply to its parts./p]

Often when something is true for the part it does also apply to the whole, or vice versa, but the crucial difference is whether there exists good evidence to show that this is the case. Because we observe consistencies in things, our thinking can become biased so that we presume consistency to exist where it does not.

Example: A woman from Europe came to Tennessee and went outside topless. She was arrested for indecent exposure. She argued that since it was legal in many states for women to be topless she assumed it would be protected there. One lost court case and a hefty fine later she went back home saying that toplessness was illegal in the United States. She just happened to be wrong in both directions. Moral of the store? FREE THE NIPPLE!!!

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