Logical Fallacies - False Cause

Culturally, this is one of the most common fallacies there are.  It's not used in arguments so much as misunderstanding the world around us.  In Latin, the Fallacy of False Cause is known as "post hoc ergo propter hoc," or "it happened after, so it happened because."  You go to a restaurant for dinner, and shortly thereafter get a stomach ache.  The obvious conclusion is that the restaurant must have had some bad food, but that is logically fallacious.  If it is food poisoning, the symptoms can occur immediately, but often occur a day or two later.  And it might be a virus or something else.  Nevertheless, we humans tend to be particularly prone to drawing these kinds of fallacious conclusions.



The connection doesn't have to be time, although it often is.  As human beings, we crave cause and effect, and so look for it everywhere.  We see it in stereotyping.  "He likes to cook, and he's gay.  Well that explains it."  A classic false cause fallacy.  Being gay does not make one a good cook or anything else that was considered feminine in Victorian or Edwardian England.  But those fallacious conclusions are still reached regularly.

Here are a couple important examples.  First, the "I read about a child molester, and he was gay" situation in which people unfortunately conclude that homosexuality leads to pedophilia.  This is a huge false cause fallacy.  In reality, Those homosexually oriented are no more likely to be pedophiles than those heterosexually oriented.  Second, consider a newly married couple.  After the glorious marriage and honeymoon, there is usually a period of euphoria and excitement.  But, eventually, that period ends, and a couple is in danger of "falling out of love."  This period of let-down is common and perfectly normal in marriage, and the couple will have to decide to work on strengthening their relationship if they want to be happy together, or they could be unhappy together, or they could separate.  If one partner is homosexually oriented, however, a common reaction is that this feeling is caused by the orientation, that a gay person must not be able to sustain love with someone of the opposite gender.  But that's the fallacy of false cause.  I'm not saying every couple has to make the same choices, but the argument that the situation is caused by orientation is a fallacious one.

So be careful of making causation claims due to some kind of a temporal connection between two matters.  It's very easy to be mistaken.