samedi 26 novembre 2022

Is there a name for the fallacy of assuming one is too stupid to have done something?

I believe there was a word describing this sort of situation where one insists someone could not possibly have achieved something, because they were either "too stupid", "too poor", or "too primitive", etc. Despite lots of evidence that they did, in fact, achieve that thing.

One example I recently came across: "William Shakespeare could not have written his plays because he was too poor to have been that well educated." Now, I know there is PLENTY of evidence that he really did write his plays. This is NOT a thread specifically about Shakespeare. What I want is the term describing that sort of bad argument. Googling the idea did not seem to come up with anything.

I recall another potential example, from a long time ago, where I believe I first heard the proper term, but I cannot remember what that term was. That example went along the lines of "The pyramids of South America could not possibly have been built by ancestors of the current native tribes, because they are all too primitive to have done so.", which of course, is also probably not true, according to actual evidence. But, is a similar fallacious line of thinking.


via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/sOyALZg

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