History Main / FalseCause

* Queerphobes would use the fact [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/02/17/adults-identifying-lgbt-gen-z/ more Gen Z people identify as queer]] than previous generations as proof that queer people are "[[AllGaysArePedophiles grooming children]]" and that homosexuality is a "choice", ignoring that queer people are far more likely to come out (or at least, have themselves registered as queer even if they are still in the closet) if gay marriage is legal, there's positive representation in fiction, resources/support widely available, or if their parents are less likely to kick them out/treat them badly for being queer, the same reason why LGBT+ people are less likely to come out in Anti-LGBT+ countries. Therefore, it wouldn't be "there's more queer people than there was before" but instead "higher acceptance of the LGBT+ community led to more LGBT+ people coming out."
** People would counter this by using left-handed people as an analogy; for a long time, left-handers were forced to write with their right hand because people thought being left-handed is a sign of being evil. When this belief fell and schools stopped requiring children to use their right hand, there was a "sudden increase" in left-handers recorded.

* 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''.

** People would counter this by pointing out that for a long time, left-handed people were forced to write with their right hand because people thought being left-handed is a sign of being evil. When this belief fell and schools stopped requiring children to use their right hand, there was a "sudden" increase in left-handers.

* Queerphobes would use the fact [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/02/17/adults-identifying-lgbt-gen-z/ a huge amount of Gen Z people identify as queer]] as proof that queer people are "[[AllGaysArePedophiles grooming children]]" and that homosexuality is a "choice", ignoring that queer people are far more likely to come out (or at least, have themselves registered as queer even if they are still in the closet) if gay marriage is legal, there's positive representation in fiction, resources/support widely available, or if their parents are less likely to kick them out/treat them badly for being queer, the same reason why LGBT+ people are less likely to come out in Anti-LGBT+ countries. Therefore, it wouldn't be "there's more queer people than there was before" but instead "higher acceptance of the LGBT+ community led to more LGBT+ people coming out."

* The idea of a "sugar high" is actually a myth. Scientists reckon that part of its origin is that during parties, kids both ate a lot of sugar and were hyper-- but the hyperactivity comes from the fun party atmosphere, not the sugar.

* Played with in ''WesternAnimation/{{Rango}}'', as [[GreekChorus an owl mariachi band]] tells the story of the life and death of the hero, implying that the events of the movie would lead to Rango's death. At the end of the movie, Rango is alive and well, and the owls comment that he will inevitably die some day, as he is as mortal as anyone else.

-->-- '''Pvt. Frazer''' and '''Pvt. Pike''' discuss the perils of treasure-hunting off Samoa, ''Series/DadsArmy'' [[note]]If this were a series in which magic existed, then the witch doctor's curse ''could'' be the cause of Jethro's death. However, Jethro could also have died of disease, or organ failure, or any of the multitude of potential causes of death in 86-year-olds, so Private Frazer's still guilty of this fallacy (there is insufficient evidence that the curse is actually what killed Jethro).[[/note]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': Many of the villagers blame [[MuggleBornOfMages Mirabel]]'s uncle Bruno for their various misfortunes (such as a dead goldfish, gaining weight, or going bald) because he [[{{Seers}} predicted the occurrences ahead of time]]. [[spoiler:He did not cause their misfortunes at all, and is in fact GoodAllAlong. He simply has NoSocialSkills, and it doesn't help that (per WordOfGod) Bruno's visions were so overwhelmingly negative because he's a massive worrywart (not helped by his mother Alma, unable to move past her own trauma, pressuring him to focus on possible threats to the village). To top it off, it's implied that he wasn't actually using his powers to predict the aforementioned misfortunes - he was simply stating likely outcomes of observed behaviors (such as one man enjoying his sweets a little too much, and a lady keeping her fish in a bowl which was way too small for it).]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Encanto}}'': Many of the villagers blame [[MuggleBornOfMages Mirabel]]'s uncle Bruno for their various misfortunes (such as a dead goldfish, gaining weight, or going bald) because he [[{{Seers}} predicted the occurrences ahead of time]]. [[spoiler:He did not cause their misfortunes at all, and is in fact GoodAllAlong. He simply has NoSocialSkills, and it doesn't help that (per WordOfGod) Bruno's visions were so overwhelmingly negative because he's a massive worrywart. To top it off, it's implied that he wasn't actually using his powers to predict the aforementioned misfortunes - he was simply stating likely outcomes of observed behaviors (such as one man enjoying his sweets a little too much, and a lady keeping her fish in a bowl which was way too small for it).]]

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Hero Worship", the ''Enterprise'' finds a child who was the lone survivor of a destroyed starship and [[SurvivorsGuilt thinks he caused its destruction because he accidentally hit a computer console when he was thrown off-balance just before everything blew up]].

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': In "Hero Worship", the ''Enterprise'' finds a child who was the lone survivor of a destroyed starship and thinks he caused its destruction because he accidentally hit a computer console when he was thrown off-balance just before everything blew up.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Numb3rs}}'', Charlie tells Don about the ice cream-rape correlation. As the sales of ice cream goes up, so do the number of rapes. The key is both take place during summer.

* The logic behind the "roleplaying games cause suicide via Satanism" scares is a particularly bad version of this. Not only is there no causation from games like ''D&D'' to suicide, there's no correlation, either. Teens who play ''D&D'' are actually ''less'' likely to commit suicide, since they have, you know, '''''friends'''''. Also more often than not the reason a Satan-like monster is depicted on the cover of such games is to show you what you're fighting ''against''.
* Pretty much any story of "The Curse of..." something, be it a TV show or Tutenkamen's tomb, seems to be based on how, ultimately, everyone dies of ''something''.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "A Smith in the Hand", Stan (who becomes addicted to [[ADateWithRosiePalms masturbating]] after accidentally doing so while applying ointment to his penis) comes to the conclusion that he watches TV all the time and masturbates all the time, therefore TV causes him to masturbate. He then tells Steve that he constantly thinks about sex because he watches too much TV.

* ''LightNovel/MyNextLifeAsAVillainessAllRoutesLeadToDoom'': The story starts with eight-year old Catarina realizing that she's the AlphaBitch character in a RomanceGame named ''Fortune Lover'', whose events will happen when she will be fifteen. Two of the possible main story branches have Maria, the ''Fortune Lover'' PlayerCharacter, end up with Catarina's fiancé Geordo or Catarina's adoptive step-brother Keith. Both those scenarios end with Catarina either exiled or dead due to her general abuse of Maria and/or an outright murder attempt on her. Wanting to keep this from happening, Catarina acquires various skills to be able to find a job after her exile and counter the means by which she gets killed. She also figures out it's a good idea to act much nicer to Geordo and Keith than her ''Fortune Lover'' counterpart did and ends up BecomingTheMask. When all three of them enter the WizardingSchool in which ''Fortune Lover'' is set and meet Maria, Catarina dreads the prospect of Geordo or Keith falling for Maria and killing Catarina to preserve the relationship even if she doesn't bully and/or try to kill Maria. What Catarina misses is that she wasn't killed and/or exiled to be taken out of the picture, but ''in response'' to her abuse and murder attempt, both actions that her current self would never dream of doing.

* ''Series/LawAndOrder'':
** This exact argument is used in an episode where some kids attacked a woman and killed her. The kids played a video game with a similar attack, therefore, the video game caused them to attack the woman.
** In another episode, the defense lawyer for the serial killer of the week used a MediaWatchdog witness to try to prove his client's violent actions were caused by violent TV. The prosecution destroys the argument by pointing out that if violent TV created violent people then everyone in the courtroom would be violent because ''everybody'' watches violent TV.

* Discussed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HLtFv_KqoE this TED-Ed video]] featuring the "Demon of Reason" character, using the example of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Delucena_Meigs Charles Meigs]]' claim in 1843 that abdominal inflammation was what led to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postpartum_infections childbed fever]] women contracted and [[DeathByChildbirth usually died to after giving birth]]. The Demon of Reason promptly expresses that Meigs not only failed to consider other possibilities (such as [[ContrivedCoincidence coincidence]], [[RussianReversal fever causing inflammation]], or an unknown shared cause between the two), but that he also failed to consider whatever cause ''the inflammation itself'' could have had in the first place. By contrast, Meigs' contemporary [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Sr Oliver Wendell Holmes]] theorized that an unknown contaminant-- discovered to be [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus_agalactiae streptococcus bacteria]] in the decades following-- was what caused the fever, and that it was being spread from patient to patient by doctors who had autopsied previous childbed fever victims without cleaning their hands afterwards.

* Discussed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HLtFv_KqoE this]] Ted-Ed video.

* The logic behind the "roleplaying games cause suicide via Satanism" scares is a particularly bad version of this. Not only is there no causation from games like ''D&D'' to suicide, there's no correlation, either. Teens who play ''D&D'' are actually ''less'' likely to commit suicide, since they have, you know, '''''friends'''''. Also an amazing amount of CriticalResearchFailure, since more often than not, the reason a Satan-like monster is depicted on the cover of such games is to show you what you're fighting ''against''.

** In "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? [[ComicallyMissingThePoint "Lisa, I want to buy your rock."]]

* It's sometimes argued that "''Franchise/HarryPotter'' is a corrupting influence" because of the spectacular way in which Harry Potter actor Jamie Waylett went bad. Of the dozens of cast and hundreds of crew, ''one'' person went bad, and that's not near enough to "prove" malignancy. There's no way anyone can know is Waylett wouldn't have turned out the way he did anyway, or that he wasn't already headed in that direction before being cast in the ''Harry Potter'' movies. To use an example from the series proper, this would be like saying "all wizards in Voldemort's class will turn out evil because Voldemort turned out evil."

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2334 Percy imperiously demands food, and Pooch begs for it. Eating, both of them think that it works every time.]]

* The idea that formula is "baby poison" and therefore that breastfeeding is the only way to go. This idea came about back in TheSeventies, and it had to do with a marketing campaign from one of the major formula-producers, Nestle. They were marketing this product in poor countries, where clean water was hard to come by, and where people were often not educated about germ theory and why it's important to sterilize baby bottles. In addition, the formula was expensive for these women, which led them to dilute it to stretch their supply,(reducing its nutritional value). The result of all this was an uptick in these countries in infant mortality, because those babies were dying from diseases and parasites (from the contaminated water), and malnutrition (from diluted formula). This led to a general distrust of baby formula, conspiracy theories, a push for mothers to breastfeed, and a long-running boycott against Nestle.