Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: The Differences Between Abraham Lincoln And John F. Kennedy

707 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Comparing and contrasting Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is based on the misconception that randomness is taken into account when attempting to determine cause and effect. The book You Are Not So Smart cites many examples, the most known being the similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Author, David McRaney, gives numerous similarities between the two presidents such as both were born and elected one-hundred years apart, they were both killed on a Friday while next to their wives, and they were both succeeded by a man with the last name Johnson. It is easy to be in awe of the similarities, but it is the differences that go unnoticed. It turns out there are way more differences than there are similarities between the two men. The truth about the Texas …show more content…

The brain also works in patterns which make it extremely easy to draw conclusions between to two things, it provides meaning and allows you to place the blame on something. The brain’s ability to make “something out of nothing” helps to navigate our chaotic world. Even our ancestors used the genetic predisposition to adapt to change and survive. Their creation of patterns for food and protection is what causes us to apply the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.
After thinking about the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, it surprised me to realize that I do not commit this fallacy as much as I thought I would. There are often times that I think or speak about random topics and create some sort of relation between the two which is the fallacy; however, upon mentioning the idea, I follow up by saying that there most likely is no correlation between the two and that I am just trying to match the similarities. Though I do not often commit the fallacy, there is one particular instance in which I did commit the …show more content…

I had often kept the idea in mind that girls tend to search for partners that are in the likeness of their fathers, so when there were many similarities between my father and now boyfriend, I could not help but be in awe. Some of the similarities ranged from them both having the same basketball number and favorite candy to having the same sense of humor and upbringing. Though the similarities are not astounding or out of the ordinary, at the time I thought it was crazy just how much he was like my dad. Looking back, with the fallacy in mind, the similarities are nothing more than a coincidence. For instance, them having the same basketball number in high school is likely to happen because there is not an infinite amount of numbers to choose from. It is fun to think that the similarities are due to fate or destiny, but I know that these things are just chance and I just happened to meet someone similar to my

Show More
Related

  • Comparing John F. Kennedy's Inauguration Speech, And Antony

    241 Words  | 1 Pages

    Since the beginning of mankind, humans always use their skills of persuasion in order to prove a point to an audience. John F. Kennedy and William Shakespeare, though it is a 362 year difference, wrote and announced work displaying persuasion values. John F. Kennedy, in his Inauguration Speech, and Antony, a character in the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar, uses the tools of language and persuasion in order to deliver the audience their intended reasoning. In both of the speeches, some of the tools that make these speeches effective is the tone, the rhetorical devices, and persuasive appeals.

    Read More

  • Historical Misconceptions About Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy

    2305 Words  | 5 Pages

    All Presidents have faced the challenge of keeping people united in times of conflict and turmoil; this specifically applied to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. They were faced with solving delicate situations involving segregation and the civil rights of American citizens in two different centuries. While there has been the enduring impression that both presidents held high ideals with regard to the African American population, a closer examination of history could lead one to believe that Lincoln was the false freer of the enslaved and Kennedy was the false figurehead for the Civil Rights movement.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Six-Legged Meat Of The Future

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    An example is “For instance, swine and humans are similar enough that they can share many diseases” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). The authors create a Hasty Generalization fallacy by concluding that because humans and swine are similar, they share diseases. Furthermore, this makes the audience feel lost because the authors do not provide evidence of how “swine and humans are similar” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Similarly, the author says that “Because insects are so different from us, such risks are accordingly lowered” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Again, the author fails to provide a connection between how the risk of getting an infection is lowered because humans and insects are different. The authors also create a Hasty Generalization fallacy because they conclude that the risk of humans getting infected is lowered just because insects and humans are different. In summary, the use of fallacies without providing evidence and makes the readers feel

    Read More

  • The John F. Kennedy Conspiracy

    1823 Words  | 4 Pages

    On November 22, 1963 President John F. Kennedy arrived in Dallas to a crowd of excited

    Read More

  • Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy Examples

    356 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Research Paper

    645 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the evening of April 15, 1865, America lost one of the greatest presidents of all time. Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the united states. His most known accomplishment was writing the emancipation proclamation. The emancipation proclamation allowed all slave to be freed in the seceding states. He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in ford’s theater during his second term in office. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination was unjust because he was killed for being an eloquent opponent of slavery, and he wanted to unite America; however, the confederate sympathizers disagreed with these actions.

    Read More

  • Lee Harvey Oswald

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    1. Often, it is concluded that a lone gunman couldn’t have made the shots in the short seconds of the shooting (Rubinstein 4).

    Read More

  • Lincoln-Douglas Debate

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every single moment that takes place in history arguably leaves an effect that lasts much longer than just the initial outcome. The Lincoln Douglas Debates are by far one of the truest examples of this happening. The seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas that took place in 1858 had extreme importance in Illinois that created effects that decided the presidential election of 1860.

    Read More

  • Emma Gonzalez's Speech To Guns In America

    830 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Since the Founding Fathers added the Second Amendment to the Constitution, our guns have developed at a rate that leaves me dizzy. The guns have changed but our laws have not.” This statement is shown in the passage,”Famous Speeches: "We call BS," Emma Gonzalez's speech to gun advocates” by:Emma Gonzalez. The U.S. has made fantastic achievement to one's society today but, the gun violence has gone through the roof over these past few years. Most causes from gun violence have came from school problems, and family struggles and should be resolved. In addition,two articles,”Famous Speeches: "We call BS," Emma Gonzalez's speech to gun advocates” by:Emma Gonzalez and, “Issue Overview: Guns in America” by:Bloomberg, have shown some comparabilities

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Robert F. Kennedy's Speech

    302 Words  | 1 Pages

    I am extremely sure that Robert F. Kennedy developed his argument perfectly because of the fact that he used a lot of emotion in his speech and he related to the crowd of people that he was speaking to. Yes he did support his claims with strong evidence such as, "For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with-be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act". When he said this he was claiming that all those folks who were African American had the right to be mad and sad because someone who meant so much to them. Yes after reading his speech his rhetoric did indeed successfully persuade the crowd not to riot and instead have peaceful protest just as Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted it to be. In a video

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of President Kennedy's Speech

    301 Words  | 1 Pages

    While reading President Kennedy lists for waiting to send Americans to the moon by the end of the 1960s, what I consider of his point of view is that he was trying to maybe encourage them to try something new such as going to the moon. He was also talking about some of the stuff he wanted to accomplish while going to the moon for example he probably wanted the rocket to be 300 feet tall, for it to go 240,00 miles away from the control station which was located in Houston. He also wanted it to come down the atmosphere at a speed of 25,00 miles per hours. I think that his arguments and rhetoric persuasive was fair I guess, he did make some fair points and also some convincing ones, I think that this speech made us go to the moon such as when

    Read More

  • Lincoln Kennedy Patternicity Research Paper

    380 Words  | 1 Pages

    Suppose someone is thinking of a friend that they haven’t talk to in a while and immediately after, that friend calls on the phone. A more logical explanation would be the rules of probability. Think of all the times that friend was on her mind in a month, with probability, it is likely that the friend would call sometime when she was thinking of her. Confirmation bias is another reason why we so easily believe myths. We often forget to consider information that would rule out our hypothesis. This can be seen in the Lincoln Kennedy conspiracy. There are numerous similarities in both President’s deaths, but there are also differences that are nearly never considered. Some of these are that President Lincoln was a Republican, had a beard, and was killed in Washington, D.C, whereas President Kennedy was a Democrat, did not have a beard, and was killed in Dallas, Texas. Myths are believed so easily because we want to believe them. Believing in them give is control over uncontrollable

    Read More

  • Abraham Lincoln's Assassination Essay

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    An Eyewitness Account of Abraham Lincoln’s Assassination is the first-hand account from General Sawyer. General Sawyer attended Ford’s Theater with a friend the night of the assassination. The source was written after the assassination that night in Sawyer’s hotel room. After watching the first act of the play Sawyer and his friend Bates moved up to the private box so he was easy to spot. Sawyer sat across from his private box to try and get a better view of Lincoln. “After sitting there a few minutes a report of a pistol was heard and a man of about 5 ft. 9 inches dressed in a black suit of clothes leaped onto the stage apparently from the President’s strike the stage fairly on his feet, but appeared to stumble slightly…Every one leaped to

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay On School Shootings

    2037 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The more energy they have to gin up to execute their plan, the harder it will be to do so” (Newman). When “Would be shooters” are faced with a challenge they most likely don’t go through with their plan. The dedicated shooters are those who intend on finding guns and shooting people, those who have the drive. “Totally dedicated shooters” are the type of people who wont give up whether the guns are accessible to them legally or illegally. Dedicated shooters have a plan of action and intend on going through with it. These types of people likely suffer from mental illnesses. “The abnormally high level of school shootings in America is not solely a gun issue a mental health issue, or a media issue, but rather a problem caused by a combination of mental illness problems, social inequality, gun control policies, and the structure of schools”(Gupta, 2016). Structural inequalities in the United States cause stress, which lead people to turn to radical measures. Factors such as economic change, racism and social changes cause constraints on behavior. Mental health is also a leading factor to school shootings. “Metzl and MacLeish’s research shows that up to 60 percent of mass shootings in the United States since 1970 involved shooters displaying symptoms of mental illnesses—including paranoia, depression, and delusions—and the evidence suggests that

    Read More

  • Abraham Lincoln's Argument Analysis

    555 Words  | 2 Pages

    Based on both of the readings, Abraham Lincoln has the more persuasive argument. He starts off by stating that the writing itself is very broad and therefore does not limit the Declaration to any one group of people, but rather everyone in the country as a whole. Even though Thomas Jefferson was for state independence, Douglas’ argument is not very concrete in the fact that allowing for states to choose whether or not they should be a slave or free state would start a war that Abraham Lincoln wanted to start.

    Read More

More about Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: The Differences Between Abraham Lincoln And John F. Kennedy

Open Document