Pattern
The form of the post hoc fallacy can be expressed as follows:
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- A occurred, then B occurred.
- Therefore, A caused B.
When B is undesirable, this pattern is often extended in reverse: Avoiding A will prevent B.
Read more about this topic: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Famous quotes containing the word pattern:
“It was her stern necessity: all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast, and flower,
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one. Beheld far off, they differ
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is just possible that the tensions in a novel of murder are the simplest and yet most complete pattern of the tensions on which we live in this generation.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Each child is an adventure into a better life—an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)