“This is the best post on apologetics ever!”

While at first glance–or from intuition–you might brush my
statement aside as ludicrous, there is actually a fallacy represented here by my
hyperbolic enthusiasm for my own writing: a hasty generalization.

Hasty generalization: generalizing about a class based upon
a small or poor sample.

In committing the hasty generalization fallacy, there are
normally two problems involved:
#1.Too small of a sample
#2. Not a representative sample

Going back to my original statement, I am committing a hasty
generalization because I do not have access to all the posts written on
apologetics in order to know if the post I just wrote is the best post
ever.  The sample size for my inference
would be too small.

Let’s look at the first problem: too small of a sample size.

If the sample size is too small, we risk it not being
representative of the broader class which we are referencing.  In our political campaign examples, a
Democrat candidate might claim that because Republican Randy Presidential
Hopeful demeans other candidates then all Republicans are demeaning to other
people; therefore a democrat cannot vote for any Republican.  But Republican Randy doesn’t represent how
all Republicans would treat Democrats (or other republicans, independents, etc).
 The sample size here is too small to
make an accurate judgment.  However, I’ve
heard this kind of inference from members of both parties! 

Let’s look at the second problem: not a representative
sample.

Perhaps the person making the generalization has a large
sample size but it may not be a sample that aptly represents the class.

Example: All plumbers are rich.  I just went to the international plumbers
convention and studied 3,000 plumbers there. 
They all made over $100,000 a year.[1]

Be on the lookout in the presidential campaigns for hasty
generalizations; including throwing around poll percentages, tossing out
figures supporting a view, and attributing ideology to entire classes of
people.  When you hear these figures you
should ask: Where are you getting that from? 
What is the source of your information? 
What were the control factors used in the study (ie. how many people
were surveyed and who were the people surveyed and did the survey have an apt
sample of the representative class)?  These
are important questions to answer in order to avoid manipulation through the
logical fallacy of hasty generalization.