Cherry picking
Encyclopedia
Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. It is a kind of fallacy of selective attention, the most common example of which is the confirmation bias
. Cherry picking may be committed unintentionally.
The term is based on the perceived process of harvesting fruit, such as cherries
. The picker would be expected to only select the ripest and healthiest fruits. An observer who only sees the selected fruit may thus wrongly conclude that most, or even all, of the fruit is in such good condition.
Cherry picking can be found in many logical fallacies
. For example, the "fallacy of anecdotal evidence
" tends to overlook large amounts of data in favor of that known personally, "selective use of evidence" rejects material unfavorable to an argument, while a false dichotomy picks only two options when more are available.
s are expected to present the strongest case consistent with the facts, they are not permitted to suppress evidence that might support the innocence of the defendant.
Additionally, in common law
, guilt has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt and thus the introduction of 'cherry picked' evidence by the defence is regarded as entirely appropriate, because, while such data may not prove something in general, it may be successful in introducing the needed minimum level of doubt to successfully defend the case.
However, when a person with a supposedly neutral position cherry picks, for example journalists, scientists, and judges, that is generally regarded as inappropriate.
If an automobile insurance company insured only good drivers by cherry picking them from among all drivers this would enable a company to gain an advantage over a company that insures all drivers. To prevent automobile insurance companies from cherry picking only the good drivers and leaving poorer drivers without any insurance, most states in the U.S.A. use an assigned risk
scheme to require automobile insurance companies to insure a certain number of drivers with poor records.
In the process of privatization of public infrastructure, “cherry picking” refers to the selective stripping of profitable assets, while neglecting the supply and facility maintenance in large areas.
environment, especially one in which employees earn commission
, cherry picking is the act of assisting only customers who appear to be interested in making large purchases, with the goal being an increase in personal sales performance, and therefore more commission. This is generally regarded as poor salesmanship, as it is a form of discrimination and profiling
by making assumptions about people's buying habits based on their appearance, age, or ethnicity.
will give desired, predictable results which may be misleading or even completely contrary to actuality.
, Testimony before the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, March 8, 2011 http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/comments_dr_richard.pdf
"Good science looks at all the evidence (rather than cherry picking only favorable evidence), controls for variables so we can identify what is actually working, uses blinded observations so as to minimize the effects of bias, and uses internally consistent logic." http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/a-skeptic-in-oz/
of revision control
, cherry picking is used to describe the action of selecting which patch
es (or changeset
s, or commit
s) should be ported from one branch
to another.
in hope of receiving the object in play (ball
, puck
etc.) and redirecting it towards the goal. The tactic can degrade the quality of game play, so to prevent or discourage the practice, several team sports have an off-side
rule. Ice hockey
, for example, requires that a player not enter the offensive zone before the puck. (See Loafing
.)
, cherry picking was a tax avoidance
scheme based on tax deduction
s for company contributions to a superannuation fund. Such a fund was notionally for the benefit of employees, but the benefits (the "cherries") were picked by the company or its owners.
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
. Cherry picking may be committed unintentionally.
The term is based on the perceived process of harvesting fruit, such as cherries
Cherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....
. The picker would be expected to only select the ripest and healthiest fruits. An observer who only sees the selected fruit may thus wrongly conclude that most, or even all, of the fruit is in such good condition.
Cherry picking can be found in many logical fallacies
Fallacy
In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...
. For example, the "fallacy of anecdotal evidence
Anecdotal evidence
The expression anecdotal evidence refers to evidence from anecdotes. Because of the small sample, there is a larger chance that it may be true but unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise unrepresentative of typical cases....
" tends to overlook large amounts of data in favor of that known personally, "selective use of evidence" rejects material unfavorable to an argument, while a false dichotomy picks only two options when more are available.
Acceptability
When a person is assigned to advocate a particular position, then cherry picking might be seen as entirely appropriate. For example, defense lawyers are free to present any evidence supporting the innocence of their client. By contrast, while prosecutorProsecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
s are expected to present the strongest case consistent with the facts, they are not permitted to suppress evidence that might support the innocence of the defendant.
Additionally, in common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
, guilt has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt and thus the introduction of 'cherry picked' evidence by the defence is regarded as entirely appropriate, because, while such data may not prove something in general, it may be successful in introducing the needed minimum level of doubt to successfully defend the case.
However, when a person with a supposedly neutral position cherry picks, for example journalists, scientists, and judges, that is generally regarded as inappropriate.
In business
Cherry picking is also used to refer to business policies of picking out profitable customers from a large base. An example of this use is that by insuring only healthy people and refusing to insure those who were unhealthy or are likely to become unhealthy, a health insurance company can cherry pick the most profitable customers.If an automobile insurance company insured only good drivers by cherry picking them from among all drivers this would enable a company to gain an advantage over a company that insures all drivers. To prevent automobile insurance companies from cherry picking only the good drivers and leaving poorer drivers without any insurance, most states in the U.S.A. use an assigned risk
Assigned risk
Assigned risk means a driver of a motor vehicle, or a class of such drivers, who would be denied insurance coverage by insurance companies, but are required to be covered under U.S. state law...
scheme to require automobile insurance companies to insure a certain number of drivers with poor records.
In the process of privatization of public infrastructure, “cherry picking” refers to the selective stripping of profitable assets, while neglecting the supply and facility maintenance in large areas.
Retail
In a retailRetail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
environment, especially one in which employees earn commission
Commission (remuneration)
The payment of commission as remuneration for services rendered or products sold is a common way to reward sales people. Payments often will be calculated on the basis of a percentage of the goods sold...
, cherry picking is the act of assisting only customers who appear to be interested in making large purchases, with the goal being an increase in personal sales performance, and therefore more commission. This is generally regarded as poor salesmanship, as it is a form of discrimination and profiling
Profiling
Profiling, the extrapolation of information about something, based on known qualities, may refer specifically to:* Profiling practices * Forensic profiling, used in several types of forensic sciences* Offender profiling...
by making assumptions about people's buying habits based on their appearance, age, or ethnicity.
In statistics
Cherry picking can refer to the selection of data or data sets so a study or surveyStatistical survey
Survey methodology is the field that studies surveys, that is, the sample of individuals from a population with a view towards making statistical inferences about the population using the sample. Polls about public opinion, such as political beliefs, are reported in the news media in democracies....
will give desired, predictable results which may be misleading or even completely contrary to actuality.
In science
“Choosing to make selective choices among competing evidence, so as to emphasize those results that support a given position, while ignoring or dismissing any findings that do not support it, is a practice known as “cherry picking” and is a hallmark of poor science or pseudo-science.” – Richard SomervilleRichard Somerville
Richard C. J. Somerville is a climate scientist who is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA, where he has been a professor since 1979.-Early life:...
, Testimony before the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, March 8, 2011 http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/comments_dr_richard.pdf
"Good science looks at all the evidence (rather than cherry picking only favorable evidence), controls for variables so we can identify what is actually working, uses blinded observations so as to minimize the effects of bias, and uses internally consistent logic." http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/a-skeptic-in-oz/
In revision control
In the jargonJargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
of revision control
Revision control
Revision control, also known as version control and source control , is the management of changes to documents, programs, and other information stored as computer files. It is most commonly used in software development, where a team of people may change the same files...
, cherry picking is used to describe the action of selecting which patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
es (or changeset
Changeset
In revision control, a changeset is a way to group a number of modifications that are relevant to each other in one atomic package, that may be canceled or propagated as needed. This is one synchronization model....
s, or commit
Commit (data management)
In the context of computer science and data management, commit refers to the idea of making a set of tentative changes permanent. A popular usage is at the end of a transaction. A commit is an act of committing.-Data management:...
s) should be ported from one branch
Branching (software)
Branching, in revision control and software configuration management, is the duplication of an object under revision control so that modifications can happen in parallel along both branches....
to another.
In sports
Cherry picking in sports is the tactic of waiting close to the opponent's goalGoal (sport)
Goal refers to a method of scoring in many sports. It can also refer to the physical structure or area of the playing surface where scoring occurs....
in hope of receiving the object in play (ball
Ball
A ball is a round, usually spherical but sometimes ovoid, object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch, marbles and juggling...
, puck
Hockey puck
A puck is a disk used in various games serving the same functions as a ball does in ball games. The best-known use of pucks is in ice hockey, a major international sport.- Etymology :The origin of the word "puck" is obscure...
etc.) and redirecting it towards the goal. The tactic can degrade the quality of game play, so to prevent or discourage the practice, several team sports have an off-side
Offside (sport)
Offside is a rule used by several different team sports regulating aspects of player positioning. It is particularly used in field sports with rules deriving from the various codes of football, such as association football, rugby and field hockey, as well as in ice hockey.Offside rules are...
rule. Ice hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
, for example, requires that a player not enter the offensive zone before the puck. (See Loafing
Loafing (ice hockey)
Loafing, floating, or cherry picking in ice hockey is when a player, the floater , literally loafs — spends time in idleness — or casually skates behind the opposing team's unsuspecting defencemen while they are in their attacking zone. It is very similar to the cherry picking tactic sometimes used...
.)
In Australian taxation
In the 1970s and early 1980s in AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, cherry picking was a tax avoidance
Tax avoidance
Tax avoidance is the legal utilization of the tax regime to one's own advantage, to reduce the amount of tax that is payable by means that are within the law. The term tax mitigation is a synonym for tax avoidance. Its original use was by tax advisors as an alternative to the pejorative term tax...
scheme based on tax deduction
Tax deduction
Income tax systems generally allow a tax deduction, i.e., a reduction of the income subject to tax, for various items, especially expenses incurred to produce income. Often these deductions are subject to limitations or conditions...
s for company contributions to a superannuation fund. Such a fund was notionally for the benefit of employees, but the benefits (the "cherries") were picked by the company or its owners.
See also
- Biased sampleBiased sampleIn statistics, sampling bias is when a sample is collected in such a way that some members of the intended population are less likely to be included than others. It results in a biased sample, a non-random sample of a population in which all individuals, or instances, were not equally likely to...
- Confirmation biasConfirmation biasConfirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true.David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term "myside bias" referring to a preference for "my" side of an issue...
- Fallacy of quoting out of contextFallacy of quoting out of contextThe practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning....
- Golden sampleGolden sampleA golden sample is a sample produced by a manufacturer that is perfect in almost all ways so that when sent to the media it can be tested and receive a high standard review. The term golden sample can also be used to describe a product that is a very rare find and is perfect in almost all ways and...
- Hasty generalizationHasty generalizationHasty generalization is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables...
- Informal fallacyInformal fallacyAn informal fallacy is an argument whose stated premises fail to support their proposed conclusion. The deviation in an informal fallacy often stems from a flaw in the path of reasoning that links the premises to the conclusion...
- Quote mining
- Selection biasSelection biasSelection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...