Fallacious Folderol

This one time, way back in the day when I lived off of cold cereal, I got intensely sick. [Spoiler alert: If you can’t see where this is going, you might want to skip a little.] The coup d’état of stirring residents within my gut brought me to my knees. Hunched over a toilet bowl, the musty smell of porcelain swirling in my nostrils commenced the grand finale with a fiesta of flavors, a shindig of scents, and a celebration of colors flamboyantly and fiercely gushing into their early grave. May they rest in peace. They were much too young. Their colors were still vibrant and their texture was so clear I could still see their laughter lines, and their scares of sacrifice. Why would that ambrosia we call Trix betray me? The fear of a coup de grâce to my current illustrious health keeps me from ever wanting to eat Trix, those delectable little devils, ever again.

I am a living, breathing fallacy. I pride my health on not eating Trix. I blame Trix for making me sick. Let me spare you the graphic details, but the most likely reason I was sick was food poisoning from that cheap, open past curfew, restaurant that only my friends’ and my adolescent budgets could afford. Betos.

Even though I am aware that my morning bowl of cereal is unlikely to be the mastermind culprit, I am still buying into the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Or is it an illogical fallacy?

“Post hoc ergo propter hoc” can be roughly translated as, “if A happened before B, A caused B.” In a way this fallacy is best friends with ‘hasty generalization’, but is more of a hasty conclusion. This isn’t quite ‘guilty by association’ either, but it is a slightly similar fallacy of which you are probably more familiar with.

What really separates this fallacy from its friends is its focus on time.

We can see this fallacy almost anywhere, especially in politics, courtroom dramas, or anywhere that people are pinning blame on someone/something. It has happened in the history of American Presidents even. When the economy goes through a change (positive or negative) during any president’s first term it is easy for people to think, “Inauguration happened prior to the change, therefore the president caused the change.” Instead of considering the prior presidents’ policies or other possible factors.

 This fallacy can be recognized by asking yourself a few questions every time you see fingers pointed or blame being laid.

Example: “The death of Franz Ferdinand was the cause of WWI.”
                Now, I’m no history buff, but this is an actual claim.

Questions: “What are other causes of war?” “What else was taking place around the world?”
“What events led to his death?” “How did those events change after his death?”
I’m not going to claim that his assassination wasn’t a factor in the start of WWI, but it could be easily debated that his death wasn’t THE cause.

In the case of the Archduke I am not so easily persuaded, but in the case of the Trix I am still tricked. A few of use suffered a similar food coup the next day, but because the evidence of the most recent event—eating cereal— was staring me in the face, I am still convinced that it was the cause.