(no subject)

[theweaselking]

The Galileo Fallacy:

The thinking goes like this:

"Great thinkers throughout history have had unpopular ideas that everyone disagreed with.

"I have an unpopular idea that everyone disagrees with.

"Therefore, I must be a great thinker."

Comments

[dreamshade.livejournal.com]

I mean that seriously, my definition of a leader is to make tough decisions and then convince people to support them actively and follow you, not…you know, he says, well, I’m not popular because I make tough decisions. Maybe they’re wrong…you know, I could say we should wear coats made out of puppies and nobody wants to do it and I’m like “What a great leader, look at me! It’s unpopular!”

[fatfred.livejournal.com]

Gee, that explains a lot of LJ community problems...

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

There's an artist's corollary:

"Great artists throughout history have created works that everyone disliked and misunderstood until after they were dead.

"Nobody likes or understands my work, even though I drink a lot/do interesting drugs/have many piercings.

"Therefore, I must be a great artist."

(My mother used to work for an art school. The foregoing is by no means an unusual attitude, typically voiced by people of whose work she might well have said, à la Gertrude Stein, "There's no there there.")

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

From that same article I linked:

The Galileo Fallacy is often accompanied by the Gadfly Corollary. It goes something like this

"Great thinkers throughout history have make people upset, angry, irritated, or insulted.

"I make people upset, angry, irritated, or insulted.

"Therefore, I must be a great thinker."

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- Carl Sagan

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Isn't this the heart of Objectivism?