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:
“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)
“We took advantage of [the Indians’] ignorance and inexperience to incline them the more easily toward treachery, lewdness, avarice, and every sort of inhumanity and cruelty, after the example and pattern of our ways.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“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)