"Post hoc ergo propter hoc"....

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Thursday December 04, 2008 · 5:45 AM PST

2008/12/04 · 05:45

MURCHISON: Homicidal maniacs at large

For two or three years running, it seems, all we've heard from the political left in the United States, concerning the war on terror, is -- Aren't we awful?

Blog and editorial commentary around presidential election time tilted heavily to the view that it was high time we restored constitutional liberties after their trashing by the George W. Bush administration.

If the Mumbai bloodbath fails to refocus some American eyes on the complexity and immense risk involved in combating homicidal maniacs, what, frankly, will?

But surely much of the credit for our thus-far-clean record of public safety is owing to stringent federal measures to catch or head off terrorists: domestic surveillance included; Guantanamo included; the Patriot Act included; conceivably even waterboarding. (As if the momentary terrorizing of a terrorist, for the sake of prospectively vital information could offset the prospect of preserving American lives and property!)

*Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because (on account) of this", is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) which states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one." It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause, coincidental correlation or correlation not causation. It is subtly different from the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, in which the chronological ordering of a correlation is insignificant.

Post hoc is a particularly tempting error because temporal sequence appears to be integral to causality. The fallacy lies in coming to a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors that might rule out the connection. Most familiarly, many superstitious beliefs and magical thinking arise from this fallacy.

Ah yes...magical thinking indeed. Murchison either never took a course in Logic in college. Or if he did, he missed the class that dealt with this particular fallacy. Or my likely, he doesn't give a crap. Neocon conservatives like him will go to their graves defending Bush & Co.'s raping of the Constitution and destruction of civil liberties. The "See. Nothing bad has happened because of all the things Bush did to defend us." argument is fatuous at best, dangerous at worst. It is like that old joke about the guy in Times Square walking about blowing a trumpet all day. Somebody asks him why and he says it keeps the elephants away. The other guy says, "But there are no elephants in Times Square." Trumpet guy says, "See!"

The darker side of this fallacious argument is that it is used to ameliorate the underlining belief that the ends justify the means. And that supposition, my dear friends, has been used by tyrants and despots throughout history. Apparently Mr. Murchison is just trying to uphold tradition.

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