Post hoc

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

The following is a chapter from the book

Phalluses of Logic: How to Know When Republicans Lie

Correlation does not imply causation.

AKA: false cause, after this therefore because of this

●      I stubbed my toe before watching the game last night and my team won. I should probably stub my toe before each game, just in case.

●      We did it with our socks on and didn’t get pregnant. Socks must prevent pregnancy.

●      The TV show Arrested Development was canceled during the Bush administration and was brought back during the Obama administration. Obama, a true man of the people, brought back Arrested Development.

For your own safety, don’t tell an NFL quarterback that their hard work and talent has no bearing on who wins because your absurd game-day superstition determines the score. Many factors determine if and when a woman will get pregnant—socks are not one of them unless the man is wearing one in a very unorthodox way. Bush did not cancel Arrested Development. It was canceled by The Fox Network, just like Futurama and Firefly. This makes the offensive rhetoric of Fox News only the network’s fourth largest sin.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc (just “post hoc” to his friends) is a fallacy used to claim that one event caused another because they occurred in that order. A happened, then B happened. Therefore, A must cause B. This is fallacious because correlation does not imply causation. In other words, just because two things happen near each other does not mean that one caused the other, or even that they are related in any way. To create a valid argument, you would need to prove how the first event caused the other.

For the purpose of this book, we can group post hoc together with its cousin, cum hoc ergo, propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this.) While post hoc refers to one event causing a future event, the cum hoc label is used when the events occur at the same time, the order they occur in is not deemed important, or the order is unknown.

In our first example, the anti-vaccination crowd maintains that since children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) only begin showing signs after they are vaccinated, the vaccines must be causing the disorder. One problem with that theory is that when infants begin receiving vaccinations (assuming a normal schedule), they would be far too young for ASD symptoms to be recognized. An ASD diagnosis by age two is usually reliable, and sometimes signs can appear by eighteen months or earlier. The CDC suggests first screening for ASD at eighteen months, and for developmental delays in general at nine months. Even by then, the baby will have already received a number of vaccines.

It’s no surprise that symptoms would appear in a child with ASD only after they had been vaccinated. That is the expected order for those events. By the same logic, we could claim anything that eventually happens to children (learning to walk, puberty, hating their parents) is a result of vaccines. We could also use the same fallacy to show ASD is caused by anything that happens in the first eighteen months, like being held, listening to Mozart, or dad freaking out over baby food prices.

Another problem for this theory would be the overabundance of research showing no connection between autism and vaccines. Since their claim is only based on the post hoc fallacy, the anti-vaxers need actual evidence to show a connection. They have so far been unsuccessful in that endeavor.

Post hoc can also be applied to the argument that marijuana is a gateway drug. People who use heroin or cocaine often start with marijuana, so marijuana must lead to harder drug use. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, however, “The majority of people who use marijuana do not go on to use other, ‘harder’ substances.” This suggests that whatever makes people move onto harder drugs is probably not marijuana. The organization also offers this theory:

An alternative to the gateway-drug hypothesis is that people who are more vulnerable to drug-taking are simply more likely to start with readily available substances like marijuana, tobacco, or alcohol, and their subsequent social interactions with other substance users increases their chances of trying other drugs. Further research is needed to explore this question.

People might abuse substances in a certain order, but that doesn’t prove each substance leads you to the next. It also appears that cigarettes and beer could carry the same level of culpability as marijuana, so a gateway-drug argument for keeping marijuana illegal should also carry with it a ban on alcohol and tobacco. The organization admits more research is needed before determining what leads users to hard drugs, but shows that marijuana isn’t it. Apparently no one’s explained this to Gov. Chris Christie. Here he is with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in April of 2015:

Hewitt: Right now, we've got the states of Colorado and Washington flaunting federal law by allowing people to sell dope legally. If you're the President of the United States, are you going to enforce the federal drug laws in those states?

Christie: Absolutely. I will crack down and not permit it.

Hewitt: All right, next . . .

Christie: Marijuana is a gateway drug. We have an enormous addiction problem in this country. And we need to send very clear leadership from the White House on down through the federal law enforcement. Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law. And the states should not be permitted to sell it and profit from it.

Interesting how conservatives are always fervent protectors of states’ rights except for the times they don’t want to be. In March of 2015, Christie said, “It was the states that created the federal government, not the federal government that created the states. We need to get back to that philosophy.” Then in April, he wants to become president so he can tell states they can’t make their own intelligent and research-based decisions regarding marijuana legalization. Christie lands a state’s rights 180° just by thinking about being president.

Miriam Boeri, Associate Professor of Sociology at Bentley University, wrote about Christie and others who point to marijuana as a gateway drug. She questions that claim, writing, “As any junior scientist can tell you, correlation does not mean causation.” She also explains that other factors including poverty, mental illness, social environment, and even anti-drug laws and their enforcement can be much more of a gateway to hard drugs than smoking marijuana is.

The gateway theory is a way to distract attention from the real argument. There’s definitely some red herring and slippery slope involved. Your audience might not find marijuana to be scary enough, so you have to connect it to scarier drugs. This is especially odd when the argument is against marijuana for medical use, since we already have prescription drugs similar to heroin (Oxycontin and Vicodin) and cocaine (methylphenidate).

Post hoc loves to come out on rainy days. Whenever a natural disaster strikes, you can count on someone from the religious right blaming the catastrophe on homosexuality. Gay marriage, gay soldiers, families not disowning their gay children—these can all lead to tornadoes, earthquakes, or hurricanes. Scientists might argue that a hurricane is caused by water vapor creating a low-pressure area over the ocean surface, but they're clearly ignoring the obvious. America is becoming less hostile towards the LGBTQ community, and sometimes the weather is bad. There must be a connection!

Pat Robertson, host of the Christian News TV show The 700 Club, blamed 1998’s Hurricane Bonnie on homosexuality. When the storm was predicted to hit Florida, Robertson explained this was clearly punishment for Disney World holding a Gay Days Weekend. His weather-gaydar was off though, as the storm ended up missing Florida and instead hit just about every other state on the east coast. Those would be the states where Disney World had not held their Gay Days Weekend. It gets even better. According to the National Weather Service, most of the damage caused by Bonnie was in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, where Robertson's own show is based.

Since hurricanes are punishments for our sins, we have to wonder what Robertson did to invoke the wrath of the heavens. Maybe it was his time spent posing as a faith healer. Or when he compared non-Christians to termites. Could be that child he had before he was married. Or the time he called Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists “the spirit of the Antichrist.” Or the time he called feminism a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.”

Whatever the reason, the big question is why didn’t Robertson simply use the power of prayer to keep the hurricane away? We can’t know why for certain, but it might have a little something to do with what happened the last time he tried to publicly pray the weather away. In 1985, Robertson did pray for Hurricane Gloria to avoid his show's headquarters in Virginia. His prayers came true that time as Gloria hit states north of Virginia, resulting in $9 hundred million in damages and causing eight deaths.

It’s not only homosexuality that can cause natural disasters, according to Robertson. In 2010, a terrible magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the country of Haiti. Estimates for the resulting death toll range between around one hundred thousand to one hundred sixty thousand. Given the awful nature of this event, Pat Robertson felt it was important to explain the real reason for this earthquake. If you guessed seismic waves caused by the breaking of underground rock, you would be incorrect. The culprit here was a pact with the devil made by the Haitians during a 1791 slave rebellion. Events like this make you think that maybe post hoc isn’t a fallacy after all. If Haitian slaves make a deal with the devil and a catastrophic earthquake hits only 219 years later, how could there not be a connection?

To be fair to Robertson, we should emphasize that he is not the only right-wing nutcase making such claims. For example, the lesser-known John McTernan makes Robertson look reasonable and sane by comparison.

McTernan, founder of Defend and Proclaim the Faith ministries, believes that Hurricane Sandy was God’s way of punishing the U.S. for not being able to find anyone better than Obama or Romney for president. On October 28 2012, McTernan posted to his blog:

A pro-homosexual Mormon along with a pro-abortion/homosexual, Muslim Brotherhood promoter, Hard Left Fascist are running for president. And there is no cry of repentance from God’s people! I see this storm as a warning from the LORD to call His church to repentance, This might be the last call from the Holy God of Israel.

You’re probably wondering, why don’t we just put an end to homosexuality and see if natural disasters continue? That’s definitely what you were thinking. Luckily for you, a pastor by the name Charles Worley has laid out his own plan to rid the nation of gays and lesbians. On May 13 2012, Worley had these fine words for the congregants of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, NC:

Build a great, big, large fence, 150 or 100 mile long. Put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified till they can't get out. Feed 'em. And you know what? In a few years they'll die out. You know why? They can't reproduce.

Worley may not have thought this one all the way through, but hey, nothing says Christian values like an internment camp. He does seem oddly concerned about his homosexual captives having something to eat though, which is nice. In this short excerpt from his rant, he pushes the food twice. He’s like the Jewish grandmother of bigoted psychopathic pastors. 

.........

If you enjoyed this segment, read the full book HERE! 

---

Non Sequitor

The following is a chapter from the book

Phalluses of Logic: How to Know When Republicans Lie

Arriving at a conclusion that is not supported by the argument.

AKA: it does not follow, invalid inference, irrelevant reason, non-support

• That place must be the worst restaurant in the whole world. I went there once and they got my order wrong.
• I know Donald Trump will make America great again because it says so on his hat.
• If the White House were truly built by slaves, why would it be called the White House? Think about it.

Non sequitur is when an argument doesn’t actually lead to it’s conclusion. There may be little to no evidence provided, or the the evidence could be irrelevant. Non sequitur can work in a variety of ways and will often overlap with other fallacies. The constant is that a conclusions is stated that the argument doesn’t actually support.

Let’s start with an example from Sarah Palin in 2014:

Wait, I thought fast food joints…Don’t you guys think that they’re, like, of the devil or something? That’s what… Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don’t believe in, thought you wanted to, I dunno, send them to Purgatory or something. So they all go vegan and, uh, wages and picket lines, I dunno, they’re not often discussed in Purgatory, are they?

This might sound like Palin’s unprepared response to an evil reporter’s gotcha question, part of a conversation secretly recorded without her knowledge, or something she said while having a stroke. In fact, this is from a video Palin posted to her own website, The Sarah Palin Channel. There was no ploy to make her look bad involved here. She actually created and disseminated that video of her own free will.

Palin was responding specifically to a speech by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in which she said “We believe that fast food workers deserve a livable wage and that means when they take to the picket line we are proud to fight alongside them.” Despite the mangled sentences in Palin’s response, the basic argument comes across: Fast food employee wages should not be increased because liberals don’t like fast food employees. This is non sequitur. The idea that liberals hate fast food employees in no way supports the conclusion that employee wages must remain unchanged. There are some other issues with Palin’s argument as well:

• Liberals have historically pressured the fast food industry over health concerns, false advertisement, pollution, sustainability, and indeed employee compensation and working conditions. 
• It’s possible to dislike a company or industry without blaming every individual employee.
• Wanting fast food employees to suffer less than a livable wage to punish them because of decisions made by industry leaders is non sequitur in itself.
• The vast majority of democrats and liberals are not vegetarian or vegan.

Even if Palin’s argument that liberals hate fast food employees were somehow true, it still wouldn’t be a logical reason for keeping wages low. Even if based in truth, it would still be a non sequitur argument.

For another example we look at Brock Turner who was convicted of sexually assaulting his unconscious victim behind a dumpster. For the three felonies he was found guilty of, Turner faced a maximum of 14 years in prison and a minimum of 2 as prescribed by law. The prosecution asked for 6 years. Judge Aaron Persky however only sentenced Turner to 6 months and Turner was ultimately released after serving only 3 months.

Judge Persky was criticized not only for the lenient sentence, but also for the non sequitur justifications he made for it. Judges can ignore the minimum sentence, but there should be a reason given for why the particular case is extraordinary and deserving of such extreme leniency. While Persky rambled off a number of reasons why the man convicted of three felonies deserved to get off easy, none of the arguments actually showed that this case was unique or unusual in any way. The judge’s arguments could be reasons to stay in the middle or lower end of the 2-14 year range, but they don’t explain why a man convicted of three felonies should serve only 3 months. One reason Persky gave was that since Turner was 20 years old, and prison is scary, it would be wrong to send him there for too long:

Number five is the likely effect of imprisonment on the defendant and his or her dependants. Obviously, a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. And that may be true in any case. I think it’s probably more true with a youthful offender sentenced to state prison at a young age.

The legal range of 2-14 years in prison was not meant for a special class of people Turner doesn’t belong to. It’s meant for people convicted of the three felonies he was found guilty of. Perhaps Turner’s relative youth provides an argument for bringing him closer to, or even as low as, the minimum of 2 years, but there’s no logic in claiming his age as a reason to go significantly lower than the prescribed minimum sentence.

While “youth” can be objective (don’t tell mom she’s old, even if she is) there is an age at which we became adults in the eyes of the law. Turner was legally an adult. Still in college and only 20 years old, sure, let’s get closer to that minimum sentence.  Still, there’s no logic in reducing the sentence of a legal adult below the minimum sentence due to his “youth.”
There’s also a case of special pleading here, since the judge is focusing on Turner’s “youth” while ignoring the victim’s. Her youth didn’t prevent Tuner from sexually assaulting her behind a dumpster while she was unconscious, so why should Turner’s youth prevent the judge from sentencing him to the appropriate penalty? Wouldn’t her youth make this crime even more heinous, and more deserving of a heavy sentence?

Another point Persky made was that he believed Turner was sorry about assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, even if Turner wasn’t actually sorry. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, that’s because it doesn’t make any sense:

And so you have Mr. Turner expressing remorse, which I think, subjectively, is genuine, and [Jane] not seeing that as a genuine expression of remorse because he never says, “I did this. I knew how drunk you were. I knew how out of it you were, and I did it anyway.” And that – I don’t think that bridge will, probably, ever be crossed.

Persky suggests that Turner has never said and probably never will say in plain and simple terms that he is solely responsible for the assault. Yet the judge still arrives at the conclusion that Turner is remorseful. And not just the normal level of regret that any felon might feel, especially after being exposed in the media and tried in court. Persky is claiming that Turner’s remorse is so unusually pure and true that it should knock years off of his sentence, even bringing him well below the prescribed minimum. This leap is about as non sequitur as it gets. How does a judge claim that a felon hasn’t fully apologized or accepted responsibility while also calling him extraordinarily remorseful? Perhaps if Turner actually accepted full responsibility and the victim accepted the apology, the judge could begin to consider a lighter sentence. Yet with no full apology from Turner or acceptance from the victim, the judge makes the non sequitur conclusion that Turner is remorseful enough to fall below the minimum sentence.

Persky explained further:

I’m not convinced that his lack of complete acquiescence to the verdict should count against him with respect to an expression of remorse because I do find that his remorse is genuine.

No judge, that would be incorrect. Turner cannot feel remorse for the felonies he committed if he does not accept responsibility for them. How could anyone feel remorse for something without first acknowledging that they did the thing they are feeling remorseful for? How does a judge claim that the felon’s refusal to accept responsibility does not affect his ability to express true remorse?
Persky also pointed to Turner’s character as reason for the severely reduced sentence.

I find another factor reasonably related to the sentencing decision is the character evidence – provided both at trial and in connection with this sentencing hearing – the character evidence with respect to Mr. Turner’s past up until the point of the incident. And, in fact, there was some character evidence post-incident related to what he’s been doing since the criminal proceeding has been ongoing.

It’s not unusual for these factors to be considered. Just like Turner’s age, his character could help the judge decide where the sentence should fall within that 2-14 year range. Still, the sentence for a man convicted of three felonies should probably be more about punishment for the crimes instead of rewards for actions unrelated to the crimes. It’s another non sequitur. The argument, he seems like a nice guy, does not support the conclusion that he shouldn’t even be sentenced to at least the two year minimum. Sexual assault is not defined as something done by a person with at least three other negative qualities aside from the fact that they sexually assaulted someone.

One of the ways Persky learned about Turner’s character was through a series of letters submitted by friends, family, and other acquaintances. While Persky was the target of widespread backlash for his sentencing, Turner’s father was also criticized for parts of the character letter he submitted:

His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.

Turner’s father refers to the sexual assault as 20 minutes of action. Make of that what you will, but his point seems to be that the punishment shouldn’t be too harsh because the crime didn’t last very long. This argument is non sequitur. The fact that the assault did not last especially long does not support the conclusion that Turner should not be handed the expected penalty. There is not supposed to be a correlation between jail time and how long felonies take to commit. Turner was not charged with wasting a significant amount of someone’s time. He was found guilty of assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object. These actions are not considered felonies because of how long they last.

The 20 minutes is really a guess or an allusion though as we don’t know for sure exactly how long Turner assaulted his victim for. However long it took, we can say for sure that you could have murdered someone faster. Probably a few people. Even with a knife, you could murder someone and spend less time doing it than Brock Turner spent assaulting his victim. You would still be convicted to murder and sentenced based on the fact that you murdered someone. You wouldn’t get rewarded by a judge for how quickly you killed your victim.

However long Turner spent assaulting his victim, he would have continued for even longer if not for the two men who were walking by and noticed Turner was sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. One of the men said, “What the fuck are you doing? She's unconscious,” prompting Turner to run away. The two men chased him down and held him until the police arrived.
And it’s a good thing too. Imagine if the assault had gone on for a little longer! Then they’d have to give Turner an appropriate sentence, right? They couldn’t let him get away with sexual assault that lasted a bit longer, that would be completely non sequitur.

If you enjoyed this chapter, get the full book here!