Definition
“an argument based on misleading, superficial, or implausible comparisons”
-Nordquist, Richard. ThoughtCo. 5 Feb. 2020, www.thoughtco.com/false-analogy-fallacy-1690850. Accessed 5 Sept. 2022.
Informal Definition
When factually wrong, improbable, deceiving, or questionable comparisons are used to back up a claim/statement in an argument and is presented as proof. For example, someone makes a false analogy by saying that strawberries and oranges are sweet because they produce seeds.
Etymology
False:
“The term comes from the Latin word fallacia, meaning “deception, deceit, trick, or artifice””
-Nordquist, Richard. ThoughtCo. 5 Feb. 2020, www.thoughtco.com/false-analogy-fallacy-1690850. Accessed 5 Sept. 2022.
Analogy:
"Early 15., “correspondence, proportion,” from Old French analogie or directly from Latin analogia, from Greek analogia “proportion,” from ana “upon, according to” (see ana-) + logos “ratio,” also “word, speech, reckoning,” from PIE root *leg- (1) “to collect, gather,” with derivatives meaning “to speak (to ‘pick out words’).”
A mathematical term given a wider sense by Plato. Meaning “partial agreement, likeness or proportion between things” is from 1540s. In logic, “an argument from the similarity of things in some ways inferring their similarity in others,” c. 1600."
-Online Etymology Dictionary. 19 Apr. 2017, www.etymonline.com/word/analogy. Accessed 6 Sept. 2022.
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