Introducing the New Phrase, the Rochester Fallacy

Introducing the New Phrase, The Rochester Fallacy

By Warren Boroson

I’d like to introduce a new phrase into the English language.

The new phrase: The Rochester Fallacy.

It means focusing on the case rate and not the base rate. Focusing on what may be misleading exceptions rather than the broad historical picture. Seeing  black swans and ignoring all the white ones.

You see this a lot in the way people invest. They buy a hot stock—although it has an utterly abysmal long-term record. Okay, whatever’s happened recently may BE more important. Maybe a stock is more valuable now because a lawsuit has been settled, or the company’s idiot in chief has retired. Still, remember the old saying: Trees don’t grow to the sky. Hot stocks cool off. They regress to the mean.

Why Rochester?

When I was a kid—many years ago—people would say that blacks are poor. They don’t enjoy the financial benefits of living in rich America.

And I, along with the other kids, would scoff. “Hey, look at Jack Benny’s Rochester! He must make a ton of money! He must be a multi-millionaire! So, how can you claim that black people aren’t wealthy? And what about Joe Louis? And Paul Robeson?”

Well, Rochester belonged in the black (!) swan category. Blacks in general were much poorer than whites. They still are.

Today I told a group of people that young beautiful women generally don’t amount to much. They get praise and attention and rewards in general just by looking so pretty. They don’t have to become famous writers or famous scientists. (I’ve actually seen a study that claimed to prove this.)

Nonsense! replied one woman. Hedy Lamarr was beautiful and invented something or other! Madame Curie was smart as well as good-looking! (Well, I would venture to say, not quite in the same class as Hedy.)

Well, I replied, something should be considered true, at least tentatively, if it’s true at least 60% of the time. That means it’s statistically significant—statisticians tell me.  In giving me these unusual cases of good-looking women who have achieved something, you’ve fallen victim to the Rochester Fallacy…. No, I didn’t actually say that. I hadn’t invented the phrase, the Rochester Fallacy, yet.

A few years ago, I wrote an article urging people to have lawyers on call, and in choosing a lawyer to look for a large firm, not a solo practitioner—other things being equal. One reason: You want other lawyers looking over the solo practitioner’s shoulder.

A bunch dumbass solo lawyers then came down on me like a ton of pricks. (That’s not a typo.) All of them knew this poor schlub who consulted a big law firm and got into trouble—when a solo would have been so helpful. The Rochester Fallacy.

 

I’ll actually name one dumbass lawyer: Carolyn Elefant of Washington, D.C.  I’ll single her out because 1. she used “who” instead of “whom” in her email, 2. she misspelled my name, and 3. she keeps posting and re-posting her reply, so that it’s high up whenever anyone checks out my name.

     By the way, I’ll bet that she’s not good-looking.