Inflation of Conflict
The fallacy of assuming that because the experts of a field of knowledge disagree on a certain point, the scholars must know nothing, and therefore the legitimacy of their entire field is put to question.
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Origin
The fallacy was catalogued under this name in a chapter by Andy Wible in Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy (Wiley, 2018), edited by Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce. The underlying pattern is considerably older: by the 1950s, the tobacco industry had refined it into a public relations strategy, manufacturing the appearance of scientific controversy to delay regulation. Wible's 2018 chapter gave the maneuver a formal name within the philosophical catalogue of fallacies.
Updated February 22, 2026