Appeal to novelty

The appeal to novelty (also called appeal to modernity or argumentum ad novitatem) is a fallacy in which one prematurely claims that an idea or proposal is correct or superior, exclusively because it is new and modern. In a controversy between status quo and new inventions, an appeal to novelty argument is not in itself a valid argument. The fallacy may take two forms: overestimating the new and modern, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be best-case, or underestimating status quo, prematurely and without investigation assuming it to be worst-case.

Investigation may prove these claims to be true, but it is a fallacy to prematurely conclude this only from the general claim that all novelty is good.

Chronological snobbery is a form of appeal to novelty, in which one argues that the only relevant knowledge and practices are those established in the last decades. The opposite of an appeal to novelty is an appeal to tradition, in which one argues that the "old ways" are always superior to new ideas.

Appeals to novelty are often successful in a modern world where everyone is eager to be on the "cutting edge" of technology. The dot-com bubble of the early 2000s could easily be interpreted as a sign of the dangers of naïvely embracing new ideas without first viewing them with a critical eye. Also, advertisers frequently extoll the newness of their products as a reason to buy. Conversely, this is satirised by skeptics as bleeding edge technology, which may itself be an example of an appeal to tradition.