From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An overwhelming exception is a logical fallacy similar to a hasty generalization. It is a generalization which is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications which eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led one to assume.

Examples:

• “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” (The attempted implication (fallaciously false in this case) is that the Romans did nothing for us). This is a quotation from Monty Python‘s Life of Brian.