Is this a generalization fallacy?

Question

This is part of a formal science debate.

There are two pairs of people who've previously debated. Pair A won Pair B. There is solid evidence that that debate was Pair A's and B's first debate ever.

then in another debate, another person said, "Pair A is better than Pair B in debating, because Pair A won Pair B in 100% of their debates. There is only one debate to refer to, and I'm not using a generalization fallacy because there is only one example, to apply it to an entire situation. Similiar to saying Pair A won, Pair A is better."

The opposing team points out that it is still a generalization fallacy.

Is it?

Answer 1

Hello Pen Guin! :-)

Very interesting nickname I have to say.

Now, coming to your question, a quote by famous French writer Alexandre Dumas comes to mind- "All generalizations are dangerous, even this one."

You might have figured by now that I am with the opposing team on this one. Yes, this is a generalization fallacy. The person who says that he is not using a generalization fallacy because he only has one example and therefore, concluding on the basis of that example only is missing a critical point.

The point is- lack of examples should make you unable to come to a conclusion rather than making you deduce a quick conclusion. By logic, you cannot say that John (a martial artist) is better than Lee- (another martial artist) just because in their first fight, Lee lost to John.

To test the overall skills, the competitors should be put to different tests. In the same way, to conclude anything about the comparative performances of Pair A and Pair B, they should be given different topics and different sides of the same topic.

One debate cannot possibly let you conclude anything because the parameters involved in debating skills are always more than the time for which the debate lasts.

As Dumas said, coming to a conclusion is always dangerous and even the "always" in this sentence is dangerous. So yea...

And by the way, great question.

Answer 2

To generalize (successfully), there must be a HUGE body of data to make the generalization from. A single event (in this case, a debate between A and B) cannot form the basis of a generalization - ever.

Even with a huge sample size (and I'm talking thousands, if not millions, of events), there is always the chance the data is skewed and the conclusion reached will be erroneous.

If A and B have only debated once, and A won the debate over B:
Is the statement "A won 100 percent of debates vs B" a generalization? No. Is it a fallacy? No.
Is the statement "A is better than B at debating" a generalization? Yes. Is it a fallacy? Yes ... because the sample size isn't large enough to warrant such a generalization.

Answer 3

I don't think it is....if there's proof, and seeing that Pair A won the debate makes it fair to say that they have 100percent of the debates conquered (winning 1 out of 1). So in proof, Pair A won...thus making it not a fallacy but, logically sound. I hope that makes sense.