False analogy

What it is

Argues that two things are alike in one respect and so must be alike in another, though they differ in ways that matter.

Related

• False equivalence fallacy
  Both treat a similarity as if it made things equal; false equivalence ignores differences of degree, a false analogy those of kind.
• Representativeness heuristic bias
  Analogies feel strong when something resembles something else, and judging by resemblance is the representativeness heuristic.
• Fallacy of composition fallacy
  Both reason from one thing's properties to another's, but the properties don't carry over.

References

• Wikipedia: False analogy en.wikipedia.org
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies iep.utm.edu
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies plato.stanford.edu
• Wikipedia: List of fallacies en.wikipedia.org
• Purdue OWL: Logical fallacies owl.purdue.edu

More in “False choices, circles and leaps”