The limits of the crowd's wisdom
Photo by davidTbear
Consider a recent case of déjà vu.
In October, an FDA panel recommended cough and cold medicines not be given to children under 6, since there is little hard evidence they work and growing evidence they can make kids sick.
That prompted the following response from a drug industry representative: "If these medicines are allegedly not effective or materially unsafe, how is the purchase of millions -- hundreds of millions -- of doses by parents explained?"
About a week later, a similar argument was made in another set of circumstances. A Baltimore County judge banned fingerprint evidence in a murder trail, saying there is little evidence fingerprints are an accurate way of identifying a criminal.
A spokeman for the association that certifies fingerprint examiners countered that fingerprints have been used for more than 100 years. "If this didn't work almost 100 percent," he said, "there would be a hue and cry from people who were identified but it wasn't them."
Regardless of whom you agree with in these debates, the arguments of the people quoted seem to suffer from a common logical fallacy.
