Appeal to motive
Occurs when a claim is dismissed by speculating about the speaker's motives instead of addressing the claim itself.
EmotionalCausal
Intermediate
High school
Category
Causal
Faulty claims about what caused what, or what causal link has actually been shown.
Circular cause and consequence
Occurs when a feedback loop is treated as if it fully explains, proves, or justifies a result, even though the loop may be contingent, breakable, or not sufficient for th...
CausalEvidential
Foundational
Middle school+
Correlation is not causation
Occurs when someone treats a correlation, coincidence, or time pattern as if it already established that one factor caused the other.
Causal
Foundational
Middle school+
Gambler's fallacy
Occurs when someone thinks past outcomes of independent events make a future independent outcome more or less likely than it really is.
MathematicalCausal
Advanced
Advanced undergraduate
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Occurs when someone infers that because one event happened before another, the earlier event caused the later one.
Causal
Foundational
Middle school+
Regression fallacy
Occurs when movement back toward a normal range after an extreme result is credited to some intervention that may have had little or nothing to do with it.
CausalMathematical
Advanced
Advanced undergraduate
Retrospective determinism
Occurs when, after an outcome happens, people claim it was inevitable or obvious all along even though the uncertainty beforehand was real.
CausalPerspectival
Intermediate
High school
Single cause fallacy
Occurs when a complex outcome is explained as if one cause alone did the work, while other relevant causes are ignored or illegitimately minimized.
CausalConceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Slippery slope
Occurs when someone claims that a relatively small first step will trigger a chain of worsening outcomes without showing why that chain is likely, stable, or hard to stop...
CausalConceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Wrong causal direction
Occurs when a real association is noticed but the direction of causation is reversed.
Causal
Foundational
Middle school+