McNamara fallacy

The McNamara fallacy refers to Robert McNamara, the United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, and his belief as to what led the United States to defeat in the Vietnam War. It refers to the quantifying of success in the war (e.g. in terms of enemy body count) while ignoring other variables.

The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

—Charles Handy, The Empty Raincoat, page 219.

Examples

Ted has a lot of money. Lots of money makes a person happy. Ted says that he is depressed. What Ted says doesn't necessarily indicate how he feels. Depression cannot be proven. Therefore, Ted is happy.

References

This logic-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.v · Categories: Logic stubs Inductive fallacies Informal fallacies Metaphors Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную? McNamara Park McNamee Look at other dictionaries: Fallacy — In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor (appeal to emotion), or… …   Wikipedia Fallacy of composition — The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part). For example: This fragment of metal cannot be broken with a hammer,… …   Wikipedia Fallacy of division — A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts. An example: A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean. A Boeing 747 has jet engines. Therefore, one of its… …   Wikipedia Fallacy of quoting out of context — The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining , is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended… …   Wikipedia Fallacy of the single cause — The fallacy of the single cause, also known as causal oversimplification, is a fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of… …   Wikipedia Gambler's fallacy — The Gambler s fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy (because its most famous example happened in a Monte Carlo Casino in 1913)[1], and also referred to as the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that if deviations from… …   Wikipedia Reification (fallacy) — Contents 1 Etymology 2 Theory 3 Difference between reification and hypostatisation …   Wikipedia Deductive fallacy — A deductive fallacy is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid. The argument itself could have true premises, but still have a false conclusion.[1] Thus, a deductive fallacy is a fallacy where deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a… …   Wikipedia Continuum fallacy — The continuum fallacy (also called the fallacy of the beard[1], line drawing fallacy, bald man fallacy, fallacy of the heap, and the sorites fallacy) is an informal logical fallacy closely related to the sorites paradox, or paradox of the heap.… …   Wikipedia Conjunction fallacy — The conjunction fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one. The most often cited example of this fallacy originated with Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:[1]… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2024 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”