Prosecutor's fallacy
Also known as: Conditional probability fallacy · Transposed conditional
What it is
Confuses the probability of the evidence given innocence with the probability of innocence given the evidence.
Example "The chance of this DNA match by coincidence is one in a million, so there is only a one-in-a-million chance he is innocent."
Related
References
- Wikipedia: Prosecutor's fallacy 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