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False Cause: Difference between revisions
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* The "gateway drug" theory relies heavily on this fallacy. Typically, it is noted that out of a sample of heavy drug users, over 95% of them started out using marijuana (or alcohol). The same claim could be made about bread or water. A less fallacious case for marijuana as a gateway drug would be citing the percentage of marijuana smokers who progress to harder drugs. That number is nowhere near as impressively high, though.
** This is also subject to the "Ignoring the Common Cause" variant, as showing people progressing from weed to hard drugs doesn't prove that the weed ''caused'' the escalation. Another likely explanation is that the same factor (poor judgment or impulse control, risk-seeking personalities) led to the person taking both drugs, but that they started with weed because it was cheaper or easier to obtain.
* Want to drive a Psychology major insane? Tell him Prozac can cause suicide. After he stops frothing at the mouth, he'll try to explain:
** And if you want to see him frothing more, that's when you double back and hit him with the same. By pointing out that you were actually talking about dependency (both mental and chemical), and implying that any attempt to raise the question is caused by a single sensational news flash is a typical example of how ''false cause'' is used [[Hard_on_Soft_Science|in rhetorics of "soft sciences"]].
* When a laptop processor overheats, the cooling fan spins faster to try and compensate, a normal responses coded in the system BIOS. When this happens, a large number of people will call in technical support insisting for a new fan because it's "clearly heating up the system by spinning too hard."
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