Overwhelming Exception

An overwhelming exception is an informal fallacy similar to a hasty generalization. It is a generalization that is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications which eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led one to believe.

Examples:

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" (The attempted implication (fallacious in this case) is that the Romans did nothing for us). This is a quotation from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
"Our foreign policy has always helped other countries, except of course when it is against our National Interest..." (The false implication is that our foreign policy always helps other countries).
"Well, I promise the answer will always be 'yes.' Unless 'no' is required." (from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa)

See also faulty generalization for other fallacies involving generalization.

Fallacies of relevance

General	Dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid (Accident) Ad nauseam (Argument from repetition) Argumentum ad ignorantiam (Argument from ignorance) Argumentum e silentio (Argument from silence) Argumentum ad temperantiam (Argument to moderation) Argumentum ad populum (Appeal to the people) Base rate Compound question Evidence of absence Ignoratio elenchi (Irrelevant conclusion) Invincible ignorance Loaded question Moralistic Naturalistic Non sequitur Proof by assertion Special pleading Straw man Two wrongs make a right

Appeals to emotion	Fear Flattery Nature Novelty Pity Ridicule Children's interests Invented here Island mentality Not invented here Repugnance Spite

Genetic fallacies	Ad hominem Ad hominem tu quoque Appeal to accomplishment Appeal to authority Appeal to etymology Appeal to motive Appeal to novelty Appeal to poverty Appeals to psychology Argumentum ad lapidem (Appeal to the stone) Appeal to tradition Appeal to wealth Association Bulverism Chronological snobbery Ipse dixit (Ipse-dixitism) Poisoning the well Pro hominem Reductio ad Hitlerum

Appeals to consequences	Appeal to force Wishful thinking

Informal fallacies

Absence paradox Begging the question Blind men and an elephant Cherry picking Complex question False analogy Fallacy of distribution (Composition Division) Furtive fallacy Hasty generalization I'm entitled to my opinion Loaded question McNamara fallacy Name calling Nirvana fallacy Rationalization (making excuses) Red herring fallacy Special pleading Slothful induction

Correlative-based fallacies	False dilemma Denying the correlative Suppressed correlative

Deductive fallacies	Accident Converse accident

Inductive fallacies	Sampling bias Conjunction fallacy False analogy Hasty generalization Misleading vividness Overwhelming exception

Vagueness and ambiguity	Amphibology Continuum fallacy False precision Slippery slope

Equivocation	Equivocation False attribution Fallacy of quoting out of context Loki's Wager No true Scotsman Reification

Questionable cause	Animistic Appeal to consequences Argumentum ad baculum Correlation does not imply causation (Cum hoc) Gambler's fallacy and its inverse Post hoc Prescience Regression Single cause Slippery slope Texas sharpshooter The Great Magnet Wrong direction

List of fallacies Other types of fallacy

Famous quotes containing the words overwhelming and/or exception:

“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
—Harry Mathews (b. 1930)

“There are those who would build the Temple,
And those who prefer that the Temple should not be built.
In the days of Nehemiah the Prophet
There was no exception to the general rule.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)