Not quite - that's the Correlation Fallacy due to misuse or ignorance
of statistical rules.
As in -
“Global Warming has increased steadily of the last two hundred years.
In the same period, the number of genuine swashbuckling pirates has
dwindled to almost zero. Clearly there is a direct (inverse)
correlation. Global Warming is caused by the decrease in pirate
numbers.” Paraphrased from Bobby Henderson in his riotously funny
critique and parody of Intelligent Design – ‘The Gospel of the
Flying Spaghetti Monster’.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc means 'it came after it so it must be
caused by it'
It's a fallacy of assuming a cause (Non causa, pro causa).
"Every time I wash my car, it rains. Therefore, washing my car brings
on the rain."
Sounds daft but in South Australia, thousands of farmers were ruined
by the 'Rain follows the plough' idea.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 28/12/2007, at 8:27 AM, Moose wrote:
> Mike wrote:
>>
>> I'd be interested in seeing this list. My favorite being the much
>> abused _post hoc ergo propter hoc_
>>
> Is that like the proposition I've made that eating causes death? As
> far
> as I can tell, everybody who eats dies.
>
> While there is anecdotal evidence that some people who don't eat die,
> there's been no proper statistical evidence, nor proper study of
> alleged
> individual cases to be sure other factors weren't involved.
>
> Also, we don't know the latency. Most people who have allegedly died
> from not eating were known to have eaten for many years before not
> eating. Stopping smoking starts to lower the risk of lung cancer, but
> only slowly, for example.
>
> Moose
>
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