{"id":9674,"date":"2026-04-07T15:32:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/?p=9674"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T22:32:20","slug":"incredulity-fallacy-eliminate-the-impossible-whatever-remains-however-improbable-must-be-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/incredulity-fallacy-eliminate-the-impossible-whatever-remains-however-improbable-must-be-the-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Incredulity Fallacy &#8220;Eliminate the Impossible, whatever remains, however Improbable, must be the Truth\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sherlock Holmes famously espoused the idea \u201c<em><strong>When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.<\/strong><\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>No, no NO !<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>How many well-meaning people have been led astray with this <strong>sneaky fallacy by a celebrity puzzle solver?<\/strong> Or even falsely declared someone guilty with this faulty logic.<\/p>\n<p>Its called The <strong>Incredulity Fallacy.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"R6fFo1PUzD\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/yandoo.wordpress.com\/2026\/04\/08\/the-incredulity-fallacy\/\">The Incredulity Fallacy<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;The Incredulity Fallacy&#8221; &#8212; The Logical Place\" src=\"https:\/\/yandoo.wordpress.com\/2026\/04\/08\/the-incredulity-fallacy\/embed\/#?secret=hCaTbkUZnd#?secret=R6fFo1PUzD\" data-secret=\"R6fFo1PUzD\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It means the asserter, Sherlock Holmes in this case, believes he is so all knowing, that there c<strong>ould not possibly exist another explanation because he has thought of everything; absolutely every possible way a cause could have made this effect happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nonsense &#8212; &#8220;<strong>Our failure to imagine alternatives does not prove there are none.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>The limits of our imagination are not the limits of reality<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re on a small island when a Banana Pie goes missing. All seven residents constitute a family. All except one boy has an alibi for the loss of the Banana Pie.<\/p>\n<p>But, that does not mean he ate it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How would you like to be that boy &#8211; falsely accused then found guilty by Sherlock Holmes&#8217; reasoning &#8211; when you know you did not eat the Banana Pie?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Months later a girl finds the Banana Pie plate in a fox&#8217;s Den.<\/p>\n<p>We can never wash the mud off of a false accusation.<\/p>\n<p>That boy&#8217;s reputation is forever diminished, despite his innocence.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"># # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sherlock Holmes famously espoused the idea \u201cWhen you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.\u201d No, no NO ! How many well-meaning people have been led astray with this sneaky fallacy by a celebrity puzzle &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/incredulity-fallacy-eliminate-the-impossible-whatever-remains-however-improbable-must-be-the-truth\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[44,46,45],"class_list":["post-9674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-fallacy","tag-irrational","tag-thinking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9674"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9676,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9674\/revisions\/9676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}