Exception that proves the fool

I found out about this panel from this widget blog. The author Lawrence isn’t too harsh on Michael Arrington, but that’s just because Lawrence is too nice. Here is Michael Arrogant Arrington going off:

Mike’s opening comment: ” User Generated Content is something that I used to think was great.”

Mike: The videos watched on YouTube are copyrighted, not user generated. YouTube is little more than a way for people to watch professionally generated content.

Mike: I will challenge you (the panelists) to convince me that I am wrong. Revver is my primary target, as they have no copyrighted content.

Micki: Every video on Revver reviewed by people to check for copyrights and hate speak.

Diet Coke and Mentos video case study. 3 weeks the video made $35K from advertising. Then Mentos reached out, video up to $80K. Total revenue brought on by Revver? Not telling.

Mike: Exception that proves the rule. If you look at MySpace, they are now being sued by Universal. UGC is a red herring, it’s really about copyrighted content. What does the rest of the panel think?

I’ve heard that statement used incorrectly so many times & it’s one of the few grammar/logic/whatever things that bugs me when it’s abused. Somebody from Yahoo Answers sums it up best.

The phrase is simply a fallacious cliche. Exceptions disprove rules.

The fallacy is usually used by those who have previously committed the fallacy of “sweeping generalisation”. Someone points out an exception that disproves the generalisation and the original arguer then uses this empty cliche to dismiss the objection.

Example:

A: Exercise is good for you.
B: What about my friend John who went out jogging and got run over by a bus?
A: That’s the exception that proves the rule.

There, she proved you’re wrong Mr. TechCrunch. I don’t totally disagree in his premise - youtube really is only popular because of it’s copyrighted content, but his statement on UGC is off. He’s good at creating sensationary headlines & statements, but everything isn’t black & white.

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