A field guide to the ways reasoning breaks
Causal errors
Also called Regression to the mean ignored
Crediting an intervention for an improvement that was a return to normal after an extreme.
He improved after the pep talk, not because he was having an unusually bad run.
Ask what the baseline was and whether the starting point was unusually high or low.
Named for the statistical phenomenon identified by Francis Galton in the 1880s: measurements taken after an extreme value drift back toward the average on their own. The fallacy is to hand that drift to whatever happened in between — a lecture, a remedy, a punishment.
The coach screamed at the team after their worst loss; they won the next game, so screaming works.
My back pain was at its absolute worst when I booked the chiropractor, and a week later it was much better.
We sent the underperforming branch to a training seminar and their numbers improved the next quarter.
The stock plunged, the CEO gave a defiant interview, and it rebounded — the interview restored confidence.