post hoc fallacy
(noun)
flawed logic that assumes just because A occurred before B, then A must have caused B to happen
Examples of post hoc fallacy in the following topics:
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The Regression Fallacy
- The regression fallacy fails to account for natural fluctuations and rather ascribes cause where none exists.
- The regression (or regressive) fallacy is an informal fallacy.
- It is frequently a special kind of the post hoc fallacy.
- Assuming the pain relief was caused by the doctor is fallacious.
- Incidentally, some experiments have shown that people may develop a systematic bias for punishment and against reward because of reasoning analogous to this example of the regression fallacy.
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Correlation is Not Causation
- This fallacy is also known as cum hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "with this, therefore because of this," and "false cause. " Consider the following:
- As with any logical fallacy, identifying that the reasoning behind an argument is flawed does not imply that the resulting conclusion is false.
- The cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy can be expressed as follows:
- This is a logical fallacy because there are at least five possibilities:
- While well-established, this relationship is still susceptible to logical fallacy due to the complexity of the system.
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Independence considerations in conditional probability
- Casinos do employ this practice; they post the last several outcomes of many betting games to trick unsuspecting gamblers into believing the odds are in their favor.
- This is called the gambler's fallacy.
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Further Discussion of ANOVA
- Follow-up tests are often distinguished in terms of whether they are planned (a priori) or post hoc.
- Planned tests are determined before looking at the data, and post hoc tests are performed after looking at the data.
- Post hoc tests, such as Tukey's range test, most commonly compare every group mean with every other group mean and typically incorporate some method of controlling for type I errors.
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Elements of a Designed Study
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Kruskal-Wallis H-Test
- Therefore, a researcher might use sample contrasts between individual sample pairs, or post hoc tests, to determine which of the sample pairs are significantly different.
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Comparing Three or More Populations: Randomized Block Design
- If the $p$-value is significant, appropriate post-hoc multiple comparisons tests would be performed.
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Glossary
- When the comparison among means is decided on after viewing the data, the comparison is called an "unplanned comparison" or a post-hoc comparison.