Survivorship Fallacy

This is best summed up as “dead men don’t tell tales.” In its general form, the survivorship fallacy is basing a conclusion on a limited number of “winner” testimonies due to the fact we cannot or do not hear the testimonies of the losers.

Examples:

  • Let’s use the example of automobile accidents since we have relatively good data on these. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 14 , roughly 32,000 people die each year on the roads in the United States. The number of...

Synonyms: survivorship bias