Texas sharpshooter fallacy

The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred.[1] This fallacy is the philosophical or rhetorical application of the multiple comparisons problem (in statistics) and apophenia (in cognitive psychology). It is related to the clustering illusion, which is the tendency in human cognition to interpret patterns where none actually exist.

The name comes from a metaphor about a person from Texas who fires a gun at the side of a barn, then paints a shooting target centered on the tightest cluster of shots and claims to be a sharpshooter.[2][3][4]

  1. ^ Bennett, Bo, "Texas sharpshooter fallacy", Logically Fallacious, retrieved 21 October 2014, description: ignoring the difference while focusing on the similarities, thus coming to an inaccurate conclusion
  2. ^ Barry Popik (2013-03-09). "Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy". barrypopik.com. Retrieved 2015-11-10.
  3. ^ Atul Gawande (1999-08-02). "The cancer-cluster myth" (PDF). The New Yorker. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
  4. ^ Carroll, Robert Todd (2003). The Skeptic's Dictionary: a collection of strange beliefs, amusing deceptions, and dangerous delusions. John Wiley & Sons. p. 375. ISBN 0-471-27242-6. Retrieved 2012-03-25. The term refers to the story of the Texan who shoots holes in the side of a barn and then draws a bull's-eye around the bullet holes