It's Fallacy Friday: Ecological Fallacy.

Ecological Fallacy 

The ecological fallacy is a logical error of interpretation that involves deriving conclusions about the nature of individuals solely on an analysis of group data. Often this slip in logic comes from a clear misunderstanding of distribution which specifically assumes it is equal across individuals in a group. For example, a study of the last US election will find that states with higher median household incomes voted less often for Republican candidate Mitt Romney, but an assumption that individuals with higher incomes vote Democratic would be false. Higher income on the individual level is actually associated with voting Republican. During debates in Phi Kappa Hall, presenting empirical evidence such as statistics is vital, but speakers first need to understand what a particular statistic means. Reading an author’s explanation of his or her data method and familiarizing yourself with basic concepts in statistics will help eliminate making  false assumptions on the floor and give your argument te logic fitting of a Phi Kappan.