Reversals
In some circumstances, a person may argue that the fact that most people believes X implies that X is false. This line of thought is closely related to the ad hominem, appeal to emotion, poisoning the well, and guilt by association fallacies given that it invokes a person's contempt for the general populace or something about the general populace in order to persuade them that most are wrong about X. The ad populum reversal commits exactly the same logical flaw as the original fallacy given that the idea "X is true" is inherently separate from the idea that "Most people believe X".
For example, consider the arguments:
- "Are you going to be a mindless conformist drone drinking milk and water like everyone else, or will you wake up and drink my product?"
- "Everyone likes The Beatles and that probably means that they didn't have nearly as much talent as
, which didn't sell out." - "The German people today consists of the Auschwitz generation, with every person in power being guilty in some way. How on earth can we buy the generally held propaganda that the Soviet Union is imperialistic and totalitarian? Clearly, it must not be."
- "Most people still either hate gays or just barely tolerate their existence. How can you still buy their other line that claims that pederasty is wrong?"
- "Everyone loves . must be nowhere near as talented as the devoted and serious method actors that aren't so popular like ."
In general, the reversal usually goes: Most people believe A and B are both true. B is false. Thus, A is false. The similar fallacy of chronological snobbery is not to be confused with the ad populum reversal. Chronological snobbery is the claim that if belief in both X and Y was popularly held in the past and if Y was recently proved to be untrue then X must also be untrue. That line of argument is based on a belief in historical progress and not—like the ad populum reversal is—on whether or not X and/or Y is currently popular.
Read more about this topic: Argumentum Ad Populum