The belief in cause and effect is
well held by the general public. We all get the experience of stubbing our toe
and then having it hurt after. This is a
very basic form of cause and effect. Something happened and there was a result.
When taken to the logical extreme people will often think that this means all effects
have a cause, though just because something happened does not mean that what preceded
it was the cause. This is called Post hoc
ergo propter hoc, is a logical fallacy that is the equivalent of stubbing your
toe then experiencing a headache. Then blaming your headache on stubbed your toe.
The best way to avoid this is to
make sure that your conclusion is based on real evidence. Make sure that event
two was caused by event one. This effort to prove causation not correlation
will help keep you from falling in this logical hole and being misled. When you
stubbed your toe then experience a headache there is a correlation between the
two, but what it you also hit your head at the same time? This would be
causation.
The Group
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