Appeal to Novelty
We assume that something new or novel is automatically better than something old.
Appeal to novelty (argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which one prematurely claims that an idea, product, or technology is superior because it is new. The opposite of the appeal to tradition, it assumes that newer necessarily means better. This drives adoption of unproven technologies, medical fads, and management trends that replace functional systems without evidence of improvement.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Technology Blockchain Everything A company replaces a working database system with a blockchain solution not because it solves a problem better, but because blockchain is new and the executives want to appear innovative.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
Mike sells his solid, older-model guitar to buy a brand-new one from a new manufacturer, convinced the new instrument's recent design makes it superior.
A researcher dismisses established scientific theories and champions a new, fringe hypothesis, believing it must be more accurate because it challenges the old consensus.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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