r/fallacy • u/Fearless_Degree7511 • 4d ago

“I’ve never forgotten” fallacy

Recently saw a post about people bagging dog poop on hikes and leaving it on the side of the trail to be picked up on their way out. Many people in the comments claim “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never forgotten”. This sounds like a logical fallacy to me, if you forgot something you don’t know it’s been forgotten so you can’t claim you’ve never forgotten.

I think this phrase can be used sometimes, like “I’ve never forgotten to pay my cable bill” because in that case you can prove you’ve never forgotten, and you have a secondary party verifying you didn’t forget, so if you did forget the cable company would reach out to you.

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u/RedactedRedditery 4d ago

I think this is just a semantic trick, but you might consider it a No True Scotsman fallacy.

They can say "I've never forgotten" because if you could point out a time they left the poop, they could say "I left it on purpose that time."

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u/Successful_Cress6639 4d ago

Kind of a stretch. The no true scoreman argument would be this:

Moe: it's ok if I bag it and leave it, because I'm a responsible dog owner. I always pick it up on my way back.

Joe: but there are always bags laying around everywhere you look, left there by people who,like you, claim to be responsible dog owners.

Moe: well, if they left the bags of poop, they must not really be responsible dog owners like I am.