I need some help with philosophy and logic here.
The author states there are "so many legitimate cases" but can't find any that stand up to scrutiny. Simple deduction would tell you your theory is false - and there ARE NOT so many legitimate cases as you believe.
Its like saying - "there are so many legitimate cases of people who can turn themselves into werewolves, so why can't I find a case that stands up to scrutiny?"
Question - what is the term of for this kind of logical fallacy?
Affirming the Consequent
The first problem is that it precedes from a false premise:
Given that there are so many legitimate incidents to choose from.
There is no reason to believe this premise is true. It is neither intuitively obvious, nor a fact in evidence.
Second: even if we stipulate that we will accept the hypothetical for the sake of advancing the argument, there is a logical fallacy, called confusion of necessity and sufficiency.
Correct reasoning would be: If there are many legitimate incidents, then many high profile cases will hold together.
However, this statement says nothing about why high profile cases could fall apart. There is nothing in the premise that suggests that there are not many cases that fail to hold together, simply that there should be many that do. [Even if many rapes reported are legitimate, there can still be many which aren't. Common sense and correct reasoning.]
Correct reasoning would be the denial of the consequent, NOT the premise, and what that implies:
many high profile cases do NOT hold together.
Therefore, conclude (correctly, and without requiring any fact not in evidence):
there are many incidents which are NOT legitimate.
“Its like saying - “there are so many legitimate cases of people who can turn themselves into werewolves, so why can’t I find a case that stands up to scrutiny?”
Question - what is the term of for this kind of logical fallacy?”
An existential fallacy, maybe.
I believe this is called “begging the question” ... when one assumes as fact that which is the subject of debate.
The loaded or complex question.
Answering the question requires you first to implicitly accept its assumed premise, e.g. "Given that there are so many legitimate incidents to chose from..."