Toupee fallacy

[[File:Carl Reiner with and without toupee 1964.JPG|thumb|right|165px|Carl Reiner, before and after]]
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The '''toupée fallacy''' is an [[informal fallacy|informal]] [[logical fallacy]] regarding silent [[evidence]] and the problem of [[induction]]. It is a type of [[selection bias]] (and of [[survivorship bias]]) that is most readily summed up by the following phrase:

{{cquote|All toupées look fake; I've never seen one that I couldn't tell was fake.}}

It should be obvious that such a phrase can only be said about ''bad'' toupées — ones that look fake — and not actually ''all'' toupées. If the person uttering this phrase saw a convincing toupée, they wouldn't have noticed it at all! Hence it is a fallacy to draw such a conclusion from a horrendously limited evidence base.

The origins of the name are unclear, but it can be traced back to at least 2006 with a mention on a ''Skeptics Guide to the Universe'' podcast as a "name that fallacy" question,<ref>[https://archive.is/zKDbD The Skeptics Guide archive - August 15, 2006]. Original (dead) link [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/archive/podcastinfo.aspx?mid=1&pid=56 here].</ref> and the Skeptical Medicine blog's list of fallacies attributes the phrase to [[Rebecca Watson]].<ref>[https://sites.google.com/site/skepticalmedicine/logical-fallacies#h.on4ftbd4stpb Skeptical Medicine - ''Logical Fallacies'']</ref>

==Relation to other fallacies and biases==
The toupée fallacy in this form is a specific case of the far broader problem of generalisability, which is the question of whether specific observations can lead to generalised rules that must always hold true. So, in this illustration, trying to claim that all toupées look fake based on the ones that obviously ''do'' look fake doesn't work and shows the problem of induction clearly. One can not draw the general conclusion that ''all'' toupées make the wearer look like an arse merely by pointing to the ones that do, because you have no idea about which realistic-looking hairpieces might, underneath, be fake.

Toupées, in this analogy, that look "real" enough to be ignored and passed by undetected are sometimes referred to as what the economist Nassim Taleb calls "silent evidence",<ref>Nassim Nicholas Taleb, ''[https://archive.org/details/blackswanimpacto0000tale/page/100/mode/2up?q=%22silent+evidence%22 The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable]''. Random House Publishing Group, 2010. {{isbn|9780679604181}}.</ref>{{rp|101}} and this concept of silent evidence forms a key part of [[hindsight bias]], of the narrative fallacy, and of what Taleb has popularised as "the [[black swan|black-swan]] problem". The toupée fallacy, as stated above, is highly isomorphic with the statement "all swans are white", an assertion that can be shattered by the observation of even a single ''black'' swan.<ref group=note>Surely, you didn't have such excessive sophistication as to to regard the representation of a black swan on the flag of Western Australia as metaphorical, did you?</ref> Similarly, the statement that all toupées look fake can be shattered by a toupée that looks convincing. While the black-swan problem suggests that black swans are not observed mostly because they haven't happened ''yet'', the toupée fallacy specifically puts [[evidence]] that would ''dis''confirm it outside what people are looking for.

The fallacy and how it illustrates the problem of [[induction]] also exemplifies the need for [[falsifiable]] [[hypotheses]] in [[science]]. The assertion that "''all'' toupées look fake" cannot be proved by only looking at hairpieces that look fake and restricting one's search for evidence this way — a method known in the [[skepticism]] business as [[confirmation bias]]. However, by examining examples of realistic-looking hair and finding that none of them happen to be fake hairpieces, one could [[absence of evidence|build up confidence]] in the proposition that toupées ''tend'' to look fake.

==Applications==
The fallacy was mentioned by name by Natalie Reed in response to the idea that all [[transgender]] women are easily discernible from [[cisgender]] women, even just with a passing glance in public. Such an observation must only have come from trans women (MTF) who are either mid-transition or happen to look — in the words of [[radical feminist]] and [[TERF]] [[Germaine Greer]]<ref>Germaine Greer, [https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/aug/20/germaine-greer-caster-semenya Caster Semenya sex row: What makes a woman?]. ''The Guardian, 20 August 2009.</ref> — like a "ghastly parody" of cisgender women.<ref>Natalie Reed, [https://archive.ph/l5tfH Passability and the toupee fallacy]. Archived from [http://freethoughtblogs.com/nataliereed/2012/01/30/passability-and-the-toupee-fallacy/ freethoughtblogs, 30 January 2012].</ref> Reed also spotted it in her own thinking, having once held the opinion that all trans women were batcrap crazy, happily ignoring the ones that simply passed by without drawing attention to themselves in that fashion.

The problem of [[induction]] is almost always well pronounced when generalising about demographics, and such things are easily influenced by [[selective reporting]]. For instance, it's quite likely that you've met a gay man who ''wasn't'' excessively camp, wasn't highly groomed, and didn't drop their sexuality into the conversation in the first fifteen seconds — but it's quite likely that if you did, you didn't notice (or care, or even go out of your way to find out) that they were gay. Simply looking out for a set of simplistic and basic traits like that can very easily enforce [[stereotyping]], and confirmation bias happily fills in the rest.

Similarly, it's often argued that the news [[media]] will happily enforce confirmation bias by reporting on news that fits existing narratives. Hence, [[terrorism|terrorists]] associated with [[Islamic extremism]] are likely to be shown on the news. This supports the [[stereotype]] of "all [[Muslims]] are terrorists" in a manner similar to [[affirming the consequent]], and is a case of the toupée fallacy as people who happily accept this phrase won't be interested in Muslims who ''aren't'' also terrorists.

A variant (the inverted toupée fallacy?) is along the lines of "Despite every advance in forensic science over the last (insert [[random]] number of your choice) years, the incidence of undetected murders continues to rise".

== That being said ==

[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DodgyToupee There are a '''lot''' of really bad toupees]. There's a very good reason the fallacy is named for this particular example of it, is all we're saying.

==See also==
* [[Argument from ignorance]]
* [[Composition and division]]
* "[[Coverup|Coverups]] always fail"
* [[Gaydar]]
* [[Passing]]
* [[Spotlight fallacy]]
* [[Turing test]]
* [[Donald Trump|''The'' toupée]]
* [[Transvestigation]] — assuming everyone is wearing a toupée

==External links==
*[https://youtube.com/watch?v=bL6hp8BKB24 Why CG Sucks: Except when it doesn't]
*[https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Skeptics_Guide_to_the_Universe/6aNKDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Toup%C3%A9e+fallacy%22&pg=PT124&printsec=frontcover In the book ''The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe'']

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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[[Category:Arguments from ignorance]]
[[Category:Informal fallacies]]

Categories: Arguments from ignorance, Informal fallacies