Posted by: James M. Martin
12/23/2007, 16:37:05
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I like the literal translation of the Latin term for the causality fallacy known as "post hoc, ergo propter hoc": "after this, therefore because of this." In my own arguments, I almost always explain it by demonstrating the absurd results such thinking can lead to. Imagine an ancient, primitive tribal people ruled by a dynastic king. After a magnificent harvest, one day there is a total eclipse of the sun and the king takes sick and dies. Believing that this was necessary to appease the gods to insure against crop failure and famine would not grip the populace, from that point on in the history of the tribe, whenever there was a total eclipse of the sun, the people ritually murdered their king. Lucky was the king who made through his reign without a total eclipse and thus avoided this regicide. And to think that none of the rulers would have died but for belief in some silly superstition.
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