home/glossary/Mcnamara Fallacy

Mcnamara Fallacy

nounid 4966·updated Aug 28, 2026
verified

presum[ing] that (A) quantitative models of reality are always more accurate than other models; (B) the quantitative measurements that can be made most easily must be the most relevant; and (C) factors other than those currently being used in quantitative metrics must either not exist or not have a significant influence on success. Also known as the quantitative fallacy.

MWE

Attested in

No recorded attestations. They are written when an MWE tagging stage is completed, stamped with the pack version and the document’s digest.

Classifications

Entity Type

Requirement72%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5

Sensitivity

95%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5

Information Class

95%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5

Variants

synonym
quantitative fallacy
plural
Mcnamara Fallacies
possessive
Mcnamara Fallacy's
pluralpossessive
Mcnamara Fallacies'

Framework definitions

The McNamara Fallacy1 senseview framework →
§1
presum[ing] that (A) quantitative models of reality are always more accurate than other models; (B) the quantitative measurements that can be made most easily must be the most relevant; and (C) factors other than those currently being used in quantitative metrics must either not exist or not have a significant influence on success. Also known as the quantitative fallacy.
Legacy lexicon import1 senseview framework →
§1 · legacy_primary
presum[ing] that (A) quantitative models of reality are always more accurate than other models; (B) the quantitative measurements that can be made most easily must be the most relevant; and (C) factors other than those currently being used in quantitative metrics must either not exist or not have a significant influence on success. Also known as the quantitative fallacy.
DR-088 backfill from the noun definition column

Outgoing relationships

No outgoing triples
This term is not the subject of any RDF-style relationship yet.

Incoming relationships

No incoming triples
No other term currently asserts a relationship to this one.