Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy Examples

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is committed when an individual finds a pattern that leads them to make an assumption. An example of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy can be seen when an individual reads Nostradamus’s prophet on “the son of Germany” and assumes that he had a vision of Hitler. This fails to take into account the fact the Nostradamus made more than 1,000 vague predictions, most of which were rubbish. With more than 1,000 predictions, it is logically possible that at least one actually coincided with a historical event. Another example is shown when the makers of a sugar drink present research that shows that of nine countries where the drink is sold the most, five of these countries where rated in the top twelve healthiest countries

in the world. This research leads the makers to think that the sugar drink is healthy since it is consumed most in the healthy countries. The researchers don’t take into account whether the consumers are healthy they instead look at the clusters that appear to indicate that it is a healthy drink because it is being consumed in a country that has a high rating in how healthy the residents are. This fallacy leads us astray because it causes us to ignore the difference and focus on the similarities, which leads us to a flawed conclusion. In committing this fallacy we insert meaning into something that occurred randomly. The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy is the opposite of cause and effect; what happened leads us to make assumptions of why it happened. I commit the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy when I convince myself that there is meaningful reason to why the clock is always at 1:23 when I look at it. I used to think that these numbers meant something significant but now I realize that I just happen to always look at the clock at the same time each day. We can avoid the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy by looking at information that might disapprove our assumption. We must also stop looking for a deeper meaning and accept the fact that things don’t always happen for a reason, sometimes things just happen.