Post Hoc Fallacy

Once again, I'm procrastination strayed me away from writing on this blog. Well actually, the mere truth is that I have been quite busy with works and extra-curriculum. Nevertheless, I never did stopped reading articles and interesting facts in order to learn something new.

Few days ago, I realised how much of English I've learnt in the past two years which I have not yet used it. So it's time to clean up my dusty brain and regenerate the old brain cells. They have been hibernating for far too long.

Anyways, coming back to the original topic, today I shall remind myself of...

POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOG!!

I remembered reading this in TOK but never did take much notice of it. basically it means : one thing leads to anthr.

This fallacy involves concluding that A causes B bcuz A occurs bfore B, and there is insufficient evidence to warrant such a claim.

It is evident in many cases that the mere fact that A occurs before B in no way indicates a causal relationship.
--> For example, suppose Jill, who is in London, sneezed at the exact same time an earthquake started in California. It would clearly be irrational to arrest Jill for starting a natural disaster, since there is no reason to suspect any causal connection between the two events.

While such cases are quite obvious, the Post Hoc fallacy is fairly common because there are cases in which there might be some connection between the events.
--> For example, a person who has her computer crash after she installs a new piece of software would probably suspect that the software was to blame. If she simply concluded that the software caused the crash because it was installed before the crash she would be committing the Post Hoc fallacy.

In such cases, the fallacy would be committed because the evidence provided fails to justify acceptance of the causal claim. It is even theoretically possible for the fallacy to be committed when A really does cause B, provided that the "evidence" given consists only of the claim that A occured before B.

The key to the Post Hoc fallacy is not that there is no causal connection between A and B. It is that adequate evidence has not been provided for a claim that A causes B. Thus, Post Hoc resembles a Hasty Generalization in that it involves making a leap to an unwarranted conclusion. In the case of the Post Hoc fallacy, that leap is to a causal claim instead of a general proposition.

Post Hoc fallacies are typically committed because people are simply not careful enough when they reason. Leaping to a causal conclusion is always easier and faster than actually investigating the phenomenon. However, such leaps tend to land far from the truth of the matter. Because Post Hoc fallacies are committed by drawing an unjustified causal conclusion, the key to avoiding them is careful investigation. While it is true that causes precede effects (outside of Star Trek, anyways), it is not true that precedence makes something a cause of something else. Because of this, a causal investigation should begin with finding what occurs before the effect in question, but it should not end there.

Examples of Post Hoc

1) I had been doing pretty poorly this season. Then my girlfriend gave me this neon laces for my spikes and I won my next three races. Those laces must be good luck...if I keep on wearing them I can't help but win!

2) Bill purchases a new PowerMac and it works fine for months. He then buys and installs a new piece of software. The next time he starts up his Mac, it freezes. Bill concludes that the software must be the cause of the freeze.

3)Joan is scratched by a cat while visiting her friend. Two days later she comes down with a fever. Joan concludes that the cat's scratch must be the cause of her illness.

4)The Republicans pass a new tax reform law that benefits wealthly Americans. Shortly thereafter the economy takes a nose dive. The Democrats claim that the the tax reform caused the economic woes and they push to get rid of it.
4) The picture on Jim's old TV set goes out of focus. Jim goes over and strikes the TV soundly on the side and the picture goes back into focus. Jim tells his friend that hitting the TV fixed it.
5) Jane gets a rather large wart on her finger. Based on a story her father told her, she cuts a potato in half, rubs it on the wart and then buries it under the light of a full moon. Over the next month her wart shrinks and eventually vanishes. Jane writes her father to tell him how right he was about the cure.

THIS IS AMAHZUNG!! if i was the one doing this, it will simply be a blob of colourful sands

Junko Furuto: A tale of torture

After years and year, alright probably not years, but months of hiding myself from the world of blogging, I’m finally back with a new blog (FINALLY MY VERY OWN BLOG –UNSHARED!) that will now be filled with random posts and random rants. I’m going to start it of by lamenting how lethargic i’m feeling today. One reason wud probably be due to the windy and gloomy weather. No, i’m not complaining, but the weather makes one feel pleasurable to crawl into a ball and hide underneath the blanket. One should know what happens after that. Another reason could probably be because of college. Ironically, i actually hv a half day class today, but I felt insisted on finding a pair of boots and a big bag –which i bought neither- resulted to me walking aimlessly around the city centre like a lost, stranded little girl. It does not really help when one is already small.

So I came back with a growling stomach, had something to eat and decided to surf around the internet. With my eyes half opened, i came across this horrid picture of a girl being abused and an intriguing title called “ Junko Furuta: The girl who went through 44 days of torture.” Although the event happened years ago, the torture that she had to face was demonic and unimaginable. At the age of 17, she was abducted by four hooligan youths (absolutely bored of life, i supposed) who raped her and kept her captive for their “personal pleasure”. I’ll just copy paste the timeline of her past tortures.

DAY 1: November 22, 1988: Kidnapped
Kept captive in house, and posed as one of boy’s girlfriend
Raped (over 400 times in total)
Forced to call her parents and tell them she had run away
Starved and malnutritioned
Fed cockroaches to eat and urine to drink
Forced to masturbate
Forced to strip in front of others
Burned with cigarette lighters
Foreign objects inserted into her vagina/anus
DAY 11: December 1, 1988: Severely beat up countless times
Face held against concrete ground and jumped on
Hands tied to ceiling and body used as a punching bag
Nose filled with so much blood that she can only breath through her mouth
Dumbbells dropped onto her stomach
Vomited when tried to drink water (her stomach couldn’t accept it)
Tried to escape and punished by cigarette burning on arms
Flammable liquid poured on her feet and legs, then lit on fire
Bottle inserted into her anus, causing injury
DAY 20: December10, 1989: Unable to walk properly due to severe leg burns
Beat with bamboo sticks
Fireworks inserted into anus and lit
Hands smashed by weights and fingernails cracked
Beaten with golf club
Cigarettes inserted into vagina
Beaten with iron rods repeatedly
Winter; forced outside to sleep in balcony
Skewers of grilled chicken inserted into her vagina and anus, causing bleeding
DAY 30: Hot wax dripped onto face
Eyelids burned by cigarette lighter
Stabbed with sewing needles in chest area
Left nipple cut and destroyed with pliers
Hot light bulb inserted into her vagina
Heavy bleeding from vagina due to scissors insertion
Unable to urinate properly
Injuries were so severe that it took over an hour for her to crawl downstairs and use the bathroom
Eardrums severely damaged
Extreme reduced brain size
DAY 40: Begged her torturers to “kill her and get it over with”
January 1, 1989: Junko greets the New Years Day alone
Body mutilated
Unable to move from the ground
DAY 44: January 4, 1989: The four boys beat her mutilated body with an iron barbell, using a loss at the game of Mah-jongg as a pretext. She is profusely bleeding from her mouth and nose. They put a candle’s flame to her face and eyes.
Then, lighter fluid was poured onto her legs, arms, face and stomach, and then lit on fire. This final torture lasted for a time of two hours.
Junko Furuta died later that day, in pain and alone. Nothing could compare 44 days of suffering she had to go through.
When her mother heard the news and details of what had happened to her daughter, she fainted. She had to undergo a psychiatric outpatient treatment . Imagine her endless pain.
Her killers are now free men. Justice was never served, not even after 20 years.
They deserve a punishment much greater than they had put upon Furuta, for putting an innocent girl through the most unbearable suffering.
This story from 1989 is true. Please spread her story around. Everyone should know about the existence of Junko Furuta’s unimaginable and incomprehensible suffering, and this is why this group has been made.
Invite your friends. Never let her story be forgotten. If this story changes the life of at least one person then it has been worth it.
Rest In Eternal Peace,
Junko Furuta
1989-Eternity


The worst is when u know the culprits did not received the sufficient amount of punishment. 20 years imprison only?? Seriously?? I’ve no words to say.
What is justice then? Simple term with no meanings...
mental note: need to google/wiki justice