What Fallacy Is Thinking It Won't Happen...

I think because of this example I just created a new type of fallacy, the False Induction fallacy.

Does anyone disagree?

Thank you!

Hoyle's Fallacy: A fallacy of logos, falsely assuming that a possible event of low (even vanishingly low) probability can never have happened and/or would never happen in real life

Going back to the basics we use on this site, for there to be a fallacy there has to be an argument of some sort.  Taking the robbery example, there really isn't an argument beyond it never has happened, therefore it can never happen.  That's a statement of belief ... and, I suggest, a false statement.  Expressed as a series of propositions and a conclusion, an argument from this situation could look something like this:

Premise 1: If something (being robbed) has never happened before, it won't happen in the future.

Premise 2: I've never been robbed.

Conclusion: Therefore, I won't be robbed in the future.

Expressed that way, there doesn't seem to be a logical fallacy, just a questionable Premise 1.

Of course, a more detailed version of the argument might go like:

P1: Being robbed is more likely if one puts oneself in situations that encourage robbery (walking alone down dark alleys, hanging out in the middle of the night in a "sketchy" part of town, flashing valuables, etc. ...)

P2: I always avoid situations that encourage robbery

P3: I've never been robbed.

Conclusion C1: "I won't be robbed in the future.", would present a logical fallacy – a non sequitur because actually being robbed in the future doesn't follow through this argument.  (Note that P1 doesn't talk about actually being robbed, it talks about the likelihood of being robbed.  Something new that wasn't a thread connecting any of the premises has been introduced out of nowhere at the conclusion.)

Conclusion C2: "I'm not likely to be robbed in the future.", would follow from the premises and, assuming we accepted P1 and P2 as true, we'd be justified in concluding that the likelihood of being robbed in the future is low.  (That's what car insurance companies do when they use past driving history in determing the rate to charge clients.)  Perhaps it's interesting to note that P3 (never having been robbed in the past) doesn't really plan into this argument – because even with low likelihood, events can happen.

As others have mentioned, if one were conducting a study about robberies, discovering how many robbery victims have been robbed in the past might help form an inductive conclusion about what leads to being robbed or how to prevent robberies; however, it likely wouldn't support the claim that to be robbed, one must have been robbed in the past.

However, the bottom line for me is that I don't understand the logic string involved in "is hasn't happened before; therefore, it won't every happen" ... and, in my experience, it doesn't apply.

This would be the process of induction. I am not sure how fallacious this is because the quality of  inductive reasoning exists on a continuum. For example, if I choose 10 red marbles in a row from a jar, it would be reasonable to say that the next one will be red as well. It is less reasonable if I chose 5 initially and even less reasonable if the number is 2.

Now, if I have never been robbed in my 50 years on this earth, and I have maybe 40 more years to go, what is the probability that I won't in the future? If I say I "certainly" won't (0% probability), I would be using inductive reasoning poorly—a problem more with statistical thinking rather than reasoning. If I said I "probably" won't be robbed, that may be accurate.

The speeding ticket example is even less problematic because if one is a slow driver, they are likely to remain a slow driver and never get a speeding ticket.

The real problem is in expressing the certainty when it should be an expression of probability (perhaps we can say this is a fallacy: alleged certainty ).