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Non Causa Pro Causa
The questionable cause—also known as causal fallacy, false cause, or ''non causa pro causa'' ("non-cause for cause" in Latin)—is a category of informal fallacies in which the cause or causes is/are incorrectly identified. In other words, it is a fallacy of reaching a conclusion that one thing caused another, simply because they are regularly associated. Questionable cause can be logically reduced to: "A is regularly associated with B; therefore, A causes B." For example: "Every time I score an A on the test its a sunny day. Therefore the sunny day causes me to score well on the test." Here is the example the two events may coincide or correlate, but have no causal connection. Fallacies of questionable cause include: * Circular cause and consequence * Correlation implies causation (''cum hoc, ergo propter hoc'') ** Third-cause fallacy ** Wrong direction * Fallacy of the single cause * ''Post hoc ergo propter hoc'' * Observational interpretation fallacy * Regression fallacy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, Latin influence in English, including English, having contributed List of Latin words with English derivatives, many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin Root (linguistics), roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, the sciences, List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes, medicine, and List of Latin legal terms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informal Fallacy
Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually ''appear'' to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. These misleading appearances are often connected to various aspects of natural language, such as ambiguous or vague expressions, or the assumption of implicit premises instead of making them explicit. Traditionally, a great number of informal fallacies have been identified, including the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of amphiboly, the Fallacy of composition, fallacies of composition and Fallacy of division, division, the false dilemma, the fallacy of begging the question, the ad hominem fallacy and the appeal to ignorance. There is no general agreement as to how the various fallacies are to be grouped into cate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Causality
Causality is an influence by which one Event (philosophy), event, process, state, or Object (philosophy), object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the cause is at least partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is at least partly dependent on the cause. The cause of something may also be described as the reason for the event or process. In general, a process can have multiple causes,Compare: which are also said to be ''causal factors'' for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Some writers have held that causality is metaphysics , metaphysically prior to notions of time and space. Causality is an abstraction that indicates how the world progresses. As such it is a basic concept; it is more apt to be an explanation of other concepts of progression than something to be explained by other more fun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circular Cause And Consequence
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'). This differs from the fallacy known as ''post hoc ergo propter hoc'' ("after this, therefore because of this"), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one. As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not necessarily imply that the resulting conclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'). This differs from the fallacy known as '' post hoc ergo propter hoc'' ("after this, therefore because of this"), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one. As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not necessarily imply that the resulting c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Third-cause Fallacy
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase ''cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'). This differs from the fallacy known as ''post hoc ergo propter hoc'' ("after this, therefore because of this"), in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one. As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not necessarily imply that the resulting conclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallacy Of The Single Cause
The fallacy of the single cause, also known as complex cause, causal oversimplification, causal reductionism, root cause fallacy, and reduction fallacy, is an informal fallacy of questionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes. Fallacy of the single cause can be logically reduced to: "X caused Y; therefore, X was the only cause of Y" (although A,B,C...etc. also contributed to Y.) Causal oversimplification is a specific kind of false dilemma A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false ... where conjoint possibilities are ignored. In other words, the possible causes are assumed to be "A xor B xor C" when "A and B and C" or "A and B and not C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
''Post hoc ergo propter hoc'' (Latin: 'after this, therefore because of this') is an informal fallacy that states "Since event Y ''followed'' event X, event Y must have been ''caused'' by event X." It is a fallacy in which an event is presumed to have been caused by a closely preceding event merely on the grounds of temporal succession. This type of reasoning is fallacious because mere temporal succession does not establish a causal connection. It is often shortened simply to ''post hoc fallacy''. A logical fallacy of the questionable cause variety, it is subtly different from the fallacy '' cum hoc ergo propter hoc'' ('with this, therefore because of this'), in which two events occur simultaneously or the chronological ordering is insignificant or unknown. Post hoc is a logical fallacy in which one event seems to be the cause of a later event because it occurred earlier. ''Post hoc'' is a particularly tempting error because correlation sometimes appears to suggest causality. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Observational Interpretation Fallacy
The observational interpretation fallacy is the cognitive bias where associations identified in observational studies are misinterpreted as causal relationships. This misinterpretation often influences clinical guidelines, public health policies, and medical practices, sometimes to the detriment of patient safety and resource allocation. The term was introduced in a 2024 study published in the ''Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice''. Researchers highlighted multiple historical instances where conclusions drawn from observational data led to changes in medical practice, which were later refuted by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The phenomenon emphasizes the challenges of distinguishing correlation from causation, particularly in the absence of robust experimental controls. The role of cognitive bias Researchers aiming to use observational data to infer causation must control for confounding variables, as failing to do so can lead to spurious correlations, which then ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regression Fallacy
The regression (or regressive) fallacy is an informal fallacy. It assumes that something has returned to normal because of corrective actions taken while it was abnormal. This fails to account for natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special kind of the post hoc fallacy. Explanation Things like golf scores, the earth's temperature, and chronic back pain fluctuate naturally and usually regress toward the mean. The logical flaw is to make predictions that expect exceptional results to continue as if they were average (see Representativeness heuristic). People are most likely to take action when variance is at its peak. Then after results become more normal they believe that their action was the cause of the change when in fact it was not causal. This use of the word "regression" was coined by Sir Francis Galton in a study from 1885 called "Regression Toward Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature". He showed that the height of children from very short or very tall parents would move t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred. This fallacy is the philosophical or rhetorical application of the multiple comparisons problem (in statistics) and apophenia (in cognitive psychology). It is related to the clustering illusion, which is the tendency in human cognition to interpret patterns where none actually exist. The name comes from a metaphor about a person from Texas who fires a gun at the side of a barn, then paints a shooting target centered on the tightest cluster of shots and claims to be a sharpshooter. Structure The Texas sharpshooter fallacy often arises when a person has a large amount of data at their disposal but only focuses on a small subset of that data. Some factor other than the one attributed may give all the elements in that subset some kind of common property (or pair of common properties, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
