Appeal to Novelty

Disciplines > Argument > Fallacies > Appeal to Novelty

Description | Discussion | Example | See also

Description

X is new. Therefore it is better than that which it seeks to replace.

Newer is better. X is always better in all ways than X-1.

Example

This new YPod is much better than the old XPod.

This year's model has twenty new features.

Discussion

This is an assumption of the modern (or maybe not so modern) notion of progress, that just because something is new it is good and superior and can replace what has gone before.

Novelty is one of the forces of fashion (although social approval is the real founding force).

We live in an age of hope, where we believe that technology and progress will save us from the problems we are creating. Global warming, overcrowding, disease and more afflict us, yet we continue like lemmings, in the blind belief that science will find the way, as it has done so for the past century or so. Anything new is thus greeted with interest and sometimes a hint of desperation...

Against novelty, some people become weary of the new, having long experience of new things being badly designed and full of defects. It also disturbs the comfort of the tried and true and requires cognitive effort to learn new ways.

Classification

Appeal, Assumptive

Also known as

Ad Novitam