An ecological fallacy (or ecological inference fallacy) is a logical fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data where inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inference for the group to which those individuals belong. Ecological fallacy sometimes refers to the Fallacy of division which is not a statistical issue. We concentrate below on four common statistical ecological fallacies: confusion between ecological correlations and individual correlations, confusion between group average and total average, Simpson's paradox, and confusion between higher average and higher likelihood.
Read more about Ecological Fallacy: Correlation of Groups and Individuals, Group and Total Average, Simpson's Paradox, Mean and Median, Legal Applications
Famous quotes containing the words ecological and/or fallacy:
“The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.”
—Midge Decter (b. 1927)
“I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)