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)
“Although the pattern prevailed,
The breaks were everywhere. That she could think
Of no thread capable of the necessary
Sew-work.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Swift while the woof is whole,
turn now my spirit, swift,
and tear the pattern there,
the flowers so deftly wrought,
the border of sea-blue,
the sea-blue coast of home.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)