Muhammad Wang fallacy

The Muhammad Wang fallacy (also known as the Goomba fallacy) is an informal fallacy in which a collection of individuals is mistakenly treated as if it were a single, internally consistent entity. This leads to the false conclusion that the group or dataset holds contradictory beliefs or characteristics, when the apparent contradiction is explained by distinct subgroups holding differing beliefs or characteristics.

A visual example of the fallacy, featuring a teacher and two students.

It is named after the claim that "Muhammad Wang" must be a common full name as it pairs the most common first name in the world, Muhammad, with the most common surname, Wang. The fallacy comes from the fact that Muhammad is usually only found among Arabic communities, while Wang is usually only found among Chinese communities, making the full name exceptionally uncommon.

See also

• Goomba fallacy
• Association fallacy
• List of fallacies
• Error
• Jumping to conclusions