I'm Right - You're Wrong: How to Think Clearer, Argue Better and Stop Lying to Yourself by Sia Mohajer

Author:Sia Mohajer [Mohajer, Sia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-12T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 10:

False Cause

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“Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing, ‘look over there’.”

—xkcd catalog30

If I told you the total consumption of sour cream in the US was highly correlated to the number of motorcyclists killed in non-collision transport accidents, would you believe me? What if you were to discover the per capital consumption of chickens had a direct correlation to total US crude oil imports? An even more shocking example is the undeniable correlation of people who died after falling out of fishing boats and the marriage rate in Kentucky. If you want more of these websites check out a wonderful website by – Tyler Vigin.

Clearly, there must be some secret plot occurring throughout the US to arrange such highly similar correlations. Perhaps oil importers are eating only chicken at lunchtime or maybe people have been carelessly eating sour cream on the roads, spilling it everywhere and causing an startling increase in motorcycle accidents.

The above scenarios are all possible; however, the most likely situation is that these are all examples of “false cause”. The false cause fallacy is also commonly referred to as “post hoc ergo propter hoc”, which is Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”.

In a complicated world, we search for meaning. Humans are naturally curious; we want to understand why events take place. When an event occurs, our brains search for possible causes and then usually pick one or two. These causes become our rationales for an event’s occurrence.

Assigning causes to events is an important function of the human brain. Our brain is a giant-pattern-detection machine; it sorts and categorizes complex stimuli to make our human experience a more streamlined process. It examines new events based on their perceived danger, familiarity, and social context. Subscribing causality to current events helps our brains predict future events. If the cause of Event A was Reason B, then the next time we encounter a similar situation to Event A, we will predict Reason B to cause the same situation. This system usually serves us well; it evolved primarily to detect and assess potential threats. Stereotypes and judgments of character work in the same way: Bob was late to the meeting today, therefore Bob will be late to the next meeting. While this model has its flaws, it does help us predict future behavior; whether reliable or not.

The most powerful example of our need to ascribe meaning to an event is the confusion and shock caused by witnessing a horrific accident. When we witnesses a shocking accident that leads to serious injury or death, our first reaction is shock. We are shocked at what we just saw and look for reasons why the event occurred. Although we may have no idea of what really happened, that doesn't mean we can't make assumptions. Causality is rarely a product of thorough consideration—it is usually based on biased evidence. Regardless of how poor our evidence is (and the decisions we base on these assumptions), we have at least assigned casualty to the event.

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