• Hallucinogen
    250
    I can't find it in RationalWiki.
    It's basically an overstatement.
    Imagine causal factors a, b and c that cause effect x.
    We don't know what their causal weights are.
    But someone insists a is the greatest.
    I notice a lot of political discussions degenerate towards this conversation-ender.
    They're insisting that a is the greatest factor, so that they can drive to the conclusion that a is what needs to be increased or decreased, in order to decrease some social ill or whatever else. That's the motivation to commit the error. It's either empirically true or it isn't, but we don't have that information and they're insisting they know without any evidence.
  • _db
    3.6k
    Not really a fallacy, more like just bad reasoning. If there's not enough evidence to support an empirical claim, then there isn't a good reason to believe it.

    Also, "Rational"Wiki >:O
  • Jeremiah
    1.5k
    There is no logical fallacy that I am aware of; however, observation does not prove causation, especially if you expect there are confounding variables.

    It basically just boils down to people arguing over opinions, and has very little to do with a scientific approach. That said, they could very well be right, if a, b and c are all explanatory variables of the response variable x, then one of the explanatory variables could have significantly more influence than the others.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k


    1. Fallacy of oversimplified cause

    2. Cherry picking
  • Hallucinogen
    250

    Seems like fallacy of the simplified cause is the closest answer.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    Seems like fallacy of the simplified cause is the closest answer.Hallucinogen

    It happens a lot with me. I'm the cause of everything that's bad (so people around me say). Worst part is, I think it's true. LOL
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