# 16. Rigging the obvious ## 16.5. Methodology/Refinements/Sub-species ### 16.5.4. Post hoc fallacy A manipulator can alter the victim's understanding of cause and effect in demonstrating that something happened as an obvious result of a previous event. The post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. Post hoc reasoning is the basis for many superstitions and erroneous beliefs. It is also used as a manipulative means of delivering an apparently "obvious" conclusion to an unsuspecting victim. Many events follow sequential patterns without being causally related. Perhaps you have a cold. So you drink lots of fluids and two weeks later your cold goes away. Was that because of your fluid intake? A solar eclipse occurs so you beat your drums to make the gods give back the sun. The sun returns, proving to you the efficacy of your priest's religious power, or does it? You use a water diviner and start drilling where he points and then you find water. The water diviner is truly a semi-magician or was it just coincidence? You imagine heads coming up on a coin toss and heads comes up, you muse on your powers of prediction. Or was it just luck? But such sequences of events don't establish the causality any more than simple correlations do. Coincidences happen. An occurrence after an event is not sufficient to establish that the prior event caused the later one. To establish the probability of a causal connection between two events, controls must be established to rule out other factors such as chance or some unknown causal factor. Anecdotes aren't sufficient because they rely on intuition and subjective interpretation. A controlled study is necessary to reduce the chance of error from self-deception or deliberate external manipulation. The tendency of the general public to believe in the "obvious" causal links between events is very useful to the manipulator, because it provides a fertile, gullible audience to sell a hidden agenda. For instance, in economics, it is truly amazing how often employment figures suddenly rise prior to budget announcements or elections. The improved employment figures are implied to be the result of the good economic stewardship of the ruling party. Employment figures may (or may not) be better but the relationship between the timing of the budget / election and the publication of the figures is a deliberate decision made by a manipulator knowing that the public will readily accept the relationship between the improved economy and the actions of the government. It's self evident, obvious!