Logical Fallacy

False Cause Fallacy

The false cause fallacy presumes that a real or perceived relationship between things means one is the cause of the other.

Why isn't correlation enough?

Correlation can arise from reverse causation, a common third cause, or pure coincidence. Jumping to causation skips ruling these out.

Scenario

Pointing to a fancy chart, Roger shows how temperatures have been rising over the past few centuries, whilst at the same time the numbers of pirates have been decreasing, thus, pirates cool the world and global warming is a hoax.

Redressing the Fallacy

If your interlocutor says something like “B always occurs when A occurs, so A must cause B,” ask them how they know that B doesn’t cause A. Just because two things are correlated, it does not mean there is a causal relationship between them. It often helps to come up with an absurd example that clearly shows the disconnect between correlation and causation. The Spurious Correlations project by Tyler Vigen has many absurd examples.