When your doctor amputates the wrong leg...
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Original Question
I have seen alternative medicine enthusiasts try to declare that all of conventional medicine is bad news because one time a conventional doctor amputated the wrong leg. I don't doubt that this has happened but this is not a reason to throw conventional medicine out the window and switch everyone to alternative medicine enthusiasts. Is this a Poisoning the Well argument? It might be a straw man too because a doctor amputating the wrong leg is made to represent all of conventional medicine.
Answers
1What they are doing is providing an example of a criterion that makes something "bad news." Because "bad news" is an evaluative term, we can't say they are wrong, but we can say that they have a problem with proportionality, statistical ignorance, risk assessment, and the apparent inability to reasonably weigh pros and cons, among others.
I am not sure if it is a good fit for any fallacy, however. At least none I can think of.
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