Golden Mean Fallacy

This is something that I was vaguely aware of, but didn't realize had an actual name.

Generally speaking, when I'm faced with a situation and someone maintains that its cause/explanation can be one of two very different things, my instinctual response is that the truth most likely lies somewhere in between the extremes.  After all, the extremes are the outliers, and simple statistics combined with a dash of Occam's Razor suggests that answers are usually in the vast middle compromise, the Golden Mean.

This in and of itself isn't such a big deal.  After all, most things are somewhere in the middle.  However, it is possible to fall into a trap where you start to think that every question is automatically solved by applying the Golden Mean, and this trap is called (naturally enough) the Golden Mean Fallacy, or slightly more formally an Argument to Moderation (from the Latin argumentum ad temperantiam).  As long as you remember that it is just a tool for reasoning and not a universal law, though, you're probably safe. 

The examples that Wikipedia lists are somewhat facetious, in my opinion, but definitely illustrative. "Bob says we should buy a computer. Sue says we shouldn't. Therefore, the best solution is to compromise and buy half a computer."  Sort of a cross between argumentum ad temperantiam and reductio ad absurdum, I guess. Or at least something in between the two...