We live in an ignorant and terribly uneducated age. Regrettably, propaganda and social engineering occupies a great deal of the curriculum bandwidth and has been substituted for true education and providing people the tools of learning.
One symptom of the affliction of widespread ignorance is the tolerance of logical errors or fallacious arguments. In public discourse people are now allowed to get away with murder.
One of the most common fallacies of our time is False Cause. It is simple. The co-incidence of two factors or events is taken as evidence or proof that the one causes the other. The fallacy lies in that mere co-incidence does not establish a causal relationship: causal relationships have to be proven, not asserted. How could anyone make such a stupid mistake? How could anyone be sucked in by such shoddy thinking? Millions, literally.
Consider the following fable to illustrate the fallacy and its folly.
Scientists in Loco Land, a small landlocked African country, had been studying the length of the days, and nights. They had taken innumerable observations of the time of sunset, and noticed that at certain times of the year, the sun set later each evening, and at other times of the year, it set earlier. This was indeed a puzzle.The fallacy of False Cause. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. After the event, therefore, caused by the event. The sun set later after the beating of the drum; therefore the drum caused the later time of sunset. As you read the fable, no doubt many of you thought, how could anyone be so stupid. Precisely. Yet almost everywhere, on every hand, people are sucked in by this particular fallacy.
They searched their cultural archives, and found that this phenomenon had been occurring for centuries and that many explanations had been put forward, none entirely satisfactory. However, they determined to solve the matter once-and-for-all. Therefore, they purchased some sophisticated scientific instruments, clocks and the like, and began to make some precise and more regular measurements.
They noticed that for months the sun went down earlier each evening. But, then, the results of their observations changed. Suddenly, after a period when the sun appeared to go down at around the same time, it then began to go down later each day. By the time six weeks or so had passed, the trend was irrefutable. The days were getting longer. But, what had caused the change?
There had to be something new, something different, which had caused the sun to go down later each night. It became a bit urgent. They began to fear that night time would disappear completely; the nation would not be able to sleep. Tempers would fray. Crime would rise. Huge social dislocation might occur. Some even suggested that they were facing the end of civilisation as they knew it.
Suddenly, the most eminent and respected of the scientists, had a Newtonian-apple moment. He was focusing upon what might be new, what might have caused the change in the time of sunset. A week or so ago, he had been wandering in the streets, thinking, thinking. At the time of sunset on that particular day, he noticed a small boy beating a drum. As the boy beat the drum the sun went down for the day.
He spent several days asking some questions, and found out that the boy had had a birthday recently, and his mother had bought him a drum. No-one else had one. It was a great hit. When was his birthday? About six weeks ago. And when did he beat the drum? He went out and beat it every evening as the sun was going down. Any other time during the day? No—just in the evening. It was the only spare time he had to play with his drum.
Excitedly the scientist rushing back to tell his colleagues. He had found the answer. The sun had started going down later each day, and almost to the day, that the boy had started beating his drum. The boy's drumming was causing the sun to delay its setting. It had to be. It was the only new factor.
His colleagues were both ecstatic and humbled. They knew they were in the presence of greatness. Together they saluted their colleague, and nominated him for a Noble prize. It was duly granted, to much fanfare.
The fallacy of False Cause is a fallacy of presumption. It presumes a causal relationship from co-incidence of factors. The fallacy is ubiquitously on display in social and scientific research. People who eat pork are significantly statistically more likely to get heart disease. Ergo, pork is a cause of heart disease.
Maybe. Maybe not. The mere coincidence of the factors does not establish a causal relationship. It has to be proven to be established. Otherwise, it just remains an empty, unreliable, and shoddy presumption.
The biggest mother of all fallacies of False Cause is found in the debate over climate change and global warming. The global temperature is (was—it hasn't risen since 1998) rising. Are there any “new” factors that might explain this phenomenon. Yes. Industrialisation has released significant “new” carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Human industrialisation is causing global warming. This claim is as fallacious and stupid as the claim about the sun and the boy's drum—as it stands.
The mere co-incidence of the two factors does not prove causality. Guesses and hunches do not count. In order to be believed and accepted it has to be proven that man made carbon dioxide atmospheric release is the cause of global temperature warming. The mere observation of the co-incidence of the two factors being offered up as evidence that the one caused the other is a childish fallacy.
It is shameful that respected scientists and public figures are allowed to get away with such shoddy, primitive thinking. Instead of being lambasted, ridiculed, and shamed they are treated as enlightened prophets and guides. Such is the unenlightened decrepitude of our age.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. After the event, therefore caused by the event. The Fallacy of False Cause. One of the most common fallacies of all in our superstitious, pseudo-scientific age.
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