Which fallacy involves making a claim that is too broad to be proven or disproven?

The term that describes a claim that is too broad to be proven or disproven is overgeneralization. This fallacy occurs when a conclusion is drawn from a too-small or unrepresentative sample, leading to a generalized statement that cannot be reliably validated. For instance, if someone claims that "all teenagers are irresponsible" based on a few instances of teenage behavior, they are overgeneralizing from incomplete evidence. This type of claim makes it difficult to provide counterexamples, as the statement attempts to encompass a wide range of situations and individuals in a singular assertion.

On the other hand, hasty generalization involves jumping to conclusions based on insufficient or unrepresentative evidence; it is a specific type of overgeneralization that focuses on quickly arriving at a broad conclusion. Ad populum suggests that a claim is true simply because it is popular or widely accepted, while circular reasoning involves a statement that supports itself without providing actual evidence. These definitions highlight the distinctions between these fallacies and why overgeneralization is the most fitting answer to the question posed.