Appeal to the majority is the fallacy of treating the opinions of many people as proof that something is true. In Latin, argumentum ad populum, "argument addressed to the people".
The reasoning behind the fallacy
"Everyone does it like that, so it's right." The phrase seems to have weight because it invokes numbers, but numbers are not evidence of truth, they are evidence of popularity, which are different things. An idea can be accepted by millions of people and still be false.
The example that dismantles the argument
There was a time when all of humanity, for centuries, swore that the sun revolved around the Earth. The consensus was complete, the intuition seemed obvious, and yet it was wrong. If the number of people who believe in something were enough to prove its truth, this error would never have been corrected, because the majority were on the wrong side.
Why this fallacy is so effective
The appeal to the majority exploits a real mental shortcut: following the group is often a safe strategy in everyday life, and so it seems reasonable to treat consensus as a sign of truth. But this shortcut is about social security, not logic. Confusing the two things is what makes the fallacy convincing.
How to respond to her
The right question is never "how many people believe this?", it is "what reasons support it?". An argument supported by a single person, with good reasons, is worth more than one supported by crowds without any.
This fallacy is a cousin of hasty generalization: the two exchange real evidence for quantity, one for the number of cases observed, the other for the number of people who agree.
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What is appeal to the majority?
It's the fallacy of treating the number of people who believe in something as proof that that thing is true. In Latin, argumentum ad populum, "argument addressed to the people".
Why doesn't "everyone do it like this" prove anything?
Because the truth is not decided by voting. There was a time when all of humanity swore that the sun revolved around the Earth, and the consensus was wrong.
Does appealing to the majority mean that the consensus is always wrong?
No. It just means that the number of people who believe something is not, in itself, logical proof that that thing is true. The consensus may be right, but it needs other reasons to support it.
The other cluster fallacies: What is ad hominem · What is the strawman fallacy · What is false dilemma
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