Starters, Nonstarters & False Starts

The Post Hoc Fallacy

Imagine you’re out for Chinese food. You get a fortune cookie with your bill. You crack it open, and the fortune says, “Something really great is coming your way.” You’re not superstitious, so you make nothing of it. But your boss emails you later that day to tell you that you are getting a raise. You probably won’t infer a connection between the fortune and the good news. But it does give you pause.

Remember Your Umbrella?

If you did conclude that the fortune was somehow causally linked to the good news, you would be committing the false cause fallacy. This is a broad category of fallacies that draws a causal connection between two things when the evidence is too...