History Main / FalseCause

* Lawyers in ''OrderOfTheStick'' argue that the Detect Evil spell causes health problems, since a number of people it has been cast on are now dead. Think, why would you cast Detect Evil on someone?

* A film screening with subliminal advertising leads to high sales of soft drink during the interval than a subsequent screening without the same ads. Those analyzing the figures failed to account for the fact that the weather was warmer at one time than the other.

* [[This]] SMBC strip both [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] and mocks this trope.

* Many firearm-related campaigns have their roots in this sort of thinking. For example, the scare regarding Teflon-coated "cop killer" bullets. Armor-piercing bullets are generally harder than standard ammunition, so use a Teflon coating to reduce barrel wear. The scare falsely identified the Teflon coating as the ''[[YouFailPhysicsForever reason]]'' the bullets could pierce armor, resulting in several states banning ammunition with such a coating despite that armor-piercing ammunition was already banned at the Federal level. The Assault Weapons Ban is a similar case, where superficial aspects of a weapon with no bearing on performance (for example, if it had a lug for fitting a bayonet) were used to judge if it was an "assault weapon", as opposed to what the weapon's mechanism was actually capable of.

* Many Christian fundamentalists in the United States like to claim that "since prayer has been banned in public schools" (it hasn't), "[[YourMileageMayVary bad things]]" such as teen pregnancies, divorces, crime, abortions, acceptance of homosexuality, acceptance of Darwinian evolution, etc... have been on the rise.
** Combines this fallacy with CriticalResearchFailure, because teen pregnancy and crime rates have on the whole been falling for many years.

* Biblical literalists use this fallacy in connection with the story of Noah's Ark, reasoning that because many otherwise unconnected cultures have flood myths, there must have been a global flood that led to all of them. This ignores that the most likely place for a city to develop is the flood plain of a river, given the easy access to water and fertile farmland, and that the myths seldom agree in any particular details.
* This is also a common argument for the existence of God (or at least ''a'' god) and dragons. While it is true that thousands of cultures around the globe had stories of both, they are all often so radically different in their portrayals, then they're almost worthless. The only times that they're similar is when they're in the same general region, and even then...

* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Much Apu About Nothing", an isolated bear attack leads the mayor to fund a massive Bear Patrol scheme. Homer claims that the lack of bears proves the Bear Patrol works, at which point Lisa points out that you might as well say that a rock keeps tigers away, since she's holding the rock, and she can't see any tigers. Homer's response? "Lisa, I want to buy your rock."

** It's also an example of why scientific experimentation is important. For instance, it's been shown that immediately after playing a violent video game, people are more aggressive...which still doesn't prove video games cause violence.
*** In this case, it's the difference between simply feeling aggressive and actually committing violence. In regards to video games, such examples that video games cause violence (or aggression at any rate) tends to gloss over that many activities that are in some part physically charged seem to generate aggressive feelings. Football, gambling, riding a bike...
*** As do all frustrating activities. If a game boss kills you repeatedly, you will quickly end up in an aggressive state of mind, but the same applies when you repeatedly fail to put together your new Ikea shelf.
*** This troper knows that the first time she played a video game her sense of reality was slightly warped for about half an hour afterward, causing impulses to do things like drive over a decorative island to get around a traffic light to seem much more rational than they would normally. The possession of sanity helps here.

* Autism and Thimerisol. Oh, where to begin. When they started to include Thimerisol in vaccines, in the early 90s, the rates of autism increased as well (really due to autism becoming more well-known and thus diagnosed more), and despite several studies finding no link between Thimerisol and autism (and removal of Thimerisol from vaccines), people still insist that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

*** In this case, it's the difference between simply feeling aggressive and actually committing violence. In regards to video games, such examples that video games cause violence (or aggression at any rate) tends to gloss over that many activities that are in some part physically charged seem to generate aggressive feelings. Football, gambling, riding a bike...

** This is also subject to the "Ignoring the Common Cause" variant, as showing people progressing from weed to hard drugs doesn't prove that the weed ''caused'' the escalation. Another likely explanation is that the same factor (poor judgment or impulse control, risk-seeking personalities) led to the person taking both drugs, but that they started with weed because it was cheaper or easier to obtain.

* Autism and Thimerisol. Oh, where to begin. When they started to include Thimerisol in vaccines, in the early 90s, the rates of autism increased as well, and despite several studies finding no link between thimerisol and autism (and removal of Thimerisol from vaccines), people still insist that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

[[AC:{{Web Comics}}]]

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]
* One episode of ''JusticeLeague'' features a journalist claiming that since white-collar crime has risen since the League formed, the League clearly causes that crime. (In fact, given the League's style, it's entirely possible that the smarter criminals turn to white-collar rather than blue-collar crime to reduce the chances of Superman slapping them around Metropolis, but his logic still doesn't track.)

[[AC:Real Life]]
* Another prominent example often used in statistics classes: The declining number of storks is responsible for the declining birth rate. In truth, the stork population and the birth rate of humans are usually both being affected by some third factor.

** Combines this fallacy with CriticalResearchFailure, because Tenn Pregnancy and Crime rates have on the whole been falling for many years.
* The "gateway drug" theory relies heavily on this fallacy. Typically, it is noted that out of a sample of heavy drug users, over 95% of them started out using weed (or alcohol). The same claim could be made about bread or water. A less fallacious case for weed as a gateway drug would be citing the percentage of weed smokers who progress to harder drugs. That number is nowhere near as impressively high, though.

* A film screening with subliminal advertising leads to high sales of soft drink during the interval than a subsequent screening without the same ads. Those analysing the figures failed to account for the fact that the weather was warmer at one time than the other.

[[AC:{{Western Animation}}]]

* Many firearm-related campaigns have their roots in this sort of thinking. For example, the scare regarding Teflon-coated "cop killer" bullets. Armour-piercing bullets are generally harder than standard ammunition, so use a Teflon coating to reduce barrel wear. The scare falsely identified the Teflon coating as the ''[[YouFailPhysicsForever reason]]'' the bullets could pierce armour, resulting in several states banning ammunition with such a coating despite that armour-piercing ammunition was already banned at the Federal level. The Assault Weapons Ban is a similar case, where superficial aspects of a weapon with no bearing on performance (for example, if it had a lug for fitting a bayonet) were used to judge if it was an "Assault Weapon," as opposed to what the weapon's mechanism was actually capable of.
* This fallacy was used by Frederic Wertham to establish the comics code. He noted that juvenile delinquents tended to read comic books, so comic books must cause juvenile delinquency. Of course, during this time period comic books were more popular in America than they had ever been before or since. The typical child read about 5 comics a week, and adults, many of whom had picked up the habit during WWII when comics were sent overseas to servicemen, were not far behind.

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* This fallacy often comes up in discussions of violence related to video games. The claim is that violent video games cause or encourage violent behavior in real life. The other possible sources of correlation include, but are not limited to; that violence-prone people tend to enjoy violent games; that some violent people prefer non-social activities that include games; that video games are simply becoming ubiquitous enough that almost ''every'' child plays them, so naturally the violent ones did too.

* Many firearm-related campaigns have their roots in this sort of thinking. For example, the scare regarding Teflon-coated "cop killer" bullets. Armour-piercing bullets are generally harder than standard ammunition, so use a Teflon coating to reduce barrel wear. The scare falsely identified the Teflon coating as the ''reason'' the bullets could pierce armour, resulting in several states banning ammunition with such a coating despite that armour-piercing ammunition was already banned at the Federal level. The Assault Weapons Ban is a similar case, where superficial aspects of a weapon with no bearing on performance (for example, if it had a lug for fitting a bayonet) were used to judge if it was an "Assault Weapon," as opposed to what the weapon's mechanism was actually capable of.

:: A less well-known but equally commonly used sibling fallacy to Post hoc, Cum hoc is saying that because A and B occur together, A causes B. The difference between Post hoc and Cum hoc is that Post hoc has a clear temporal relationship: A happens first, then B, while Cum hoc does not have that temporal relationship; the two things may occur at the same time. Many examples that are called Post hoc are really Cum hoc. Like Post Hoc, Cum Hoc ignores the possibility that there may be one or more additional factors that affect both A and B, or even that B may be in fact causing A.

*[[http://www.xkcd.com/111/ This xkcd strip]] using the rise of both Firefox and Wicca to imply that Firefox causes witchcraft. It's addressed directly in [[http://www.xkcd.com/552/ this strip]].
*One episode of ''JusticeLeague'' features a journalist claiming that since white-collar crime has risen since the League formed, the League clearly causes that crime. (In fact, given the League's style, it's entirely possible that the smarter criminals turn to white-collar rather than blue-collar crime to reduce the chances of Superman slapping them around Metropolis, but his logic still doesn't track.)

* This fallacy often comes up in discussions of violence related to video games. The claim is that violent video games cause or encourage violent behavior in real life. The other possible sources of correlation include, but are not limited to; that violence-prone people tend to enjoy violent games; that some violent people prefer non-social activities that include games; that video games are simply becoming ubiquitous enough that almost ''every'' child plays them, so naturally the violent ones did too.
* Many firearm-related campaigns have their roots in this sort of thinking. For example, the scare regarding Teflon-coated "cop killer" bullets. Armour-piercing bullets are generally harder than standard ammunition, so use a Teflon coating to reduce barrel wear. The scare falsely identified the Teflon coating as the ''reason'' the bullets could pierce armour, resulting in several states banning ammunition with such a coating despite that armour-piercing ammunition was already banned at the Federal level. The Assault Weapons Ban is a similar case, where superficial aspects of a weapon with no bearing on performance (for example, if it had a lug for fitting a bayonet) were used to judge if it was an "Assault Weapon," as opposed to what the weapon's mechanism was actually capable of.

* This fallacy was used by Frederic Wertham to establish the comics code. He noted that juvenile delinquents tended to read comic books, so comic books must cause juvenile delinquency. Of course, during this time period comic books were more popular in America than they had ever been before or since. The typical child read about 5 comics a week, and adults, many of whom had picked up the habit during WWII when comics were sent overseas to servicemen, were not far behind.
* This has also been used to argue that listening to country music causes higher suicide rates, since places with a higher percentage of country music listening tend to also have a higher percentage of suicide.
* A similar argument is that ''slow'' country songs lead to alcoholism. This began when someone noticed that alcohol consumption in bars increased when bands played slow songs. Did it occur to this genius that people simply stopped dancing and ordered more drinks at that time?
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster#Pirates_and_global_warming Pastafarianism]] claims that pirates prevent global warming, as the number of pirates is decreasing while temperatures increase, as a parody of this type of thinking to demonstrate the flaw in logic.
* A particularly absurd example: The pretty-much-undefinable ''Column 8'' in the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' once featured a letter correlating the difficulty of the newspaper's Sudoku with the ''price of petrol''.
* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode "Much Apu About Nothing", an isolated bear attack leads the mayor to fund a massive Bear Patrol scheme. Homer claims that the lack of bears proves the Bear Patrol works, at which point Lisa points out that you might as well say that a rock keeps tigers away, since she's holding the rock, and she can't see any tigers. Homer's response? "Lisa, I want to buy your rock."

* Averted in ''{{Scream}}'', unique given the characters' particular [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy self-awareness]].
-->'''Billy:''' Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative!
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