071 - The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

071 - The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy

When you desire meaning, when you want things to line up, when looking for something specific, you tend to notice patterns everywhere, which leads you to ask the question, “What are the odds?” Usually, the odds are actually pretty good.


For instance: Does the Bermuda Triangle seem quite as mysterious once you know that just about any triangle of that size drawn over the globe just about anywhere planes and ships frequently travel will contain as many, if not more, missing planes and ships?

Drawing circles (or triangles) around the spots where randomness clusters together seemingly chance events is called The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, and it is one of the easiest mistakes to make when trying to understand big, complex sets of data.

Though some things in life seem too amazing to be coincidence, too odd to be random, too similar to be chance, given enough time (and enough events) randomness will begin to clump up in places. Since you are born looking for those spots where chance events have built up like sand into dunes, picking out clusters of coincidence is a predicable malfunction of a normal human mind, and it can easily lead to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Listen as three experts in reasoning and logic explain why it is so easy to find what you are looking for when you go anomaly hunting in a large set of data.

This episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast is the fifth in a full season of episodes exploring logical fallacies. The first episode is here.

• Show Notes: http://bit.ly/1Nokeze

• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/youarenotsosmart

• Donate Directly through PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/DavidMcRaney

SPONSORS
• Mac Weldon: https://www.mackweldon.com/
• The Great Courses Plus: https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/smart
• SquareSpace: http://www.squarespace.com - Offer Code SoSmart

Patreon: http://patreon.com/youarenotsosmart


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avsnitt(335)

073 - Bayes' Theorem

073 - Bayes' Theorem

We don’t treat all of our beliefs equally.For some, we see them as either true or false, correct or incorrect. For others, we see them as probabilities, chances, odds. In one world, certainty, in the ...

8 Apr 20161h 28min

072 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Rebroadcast)

072 - The Dunning-Kruger Effect (Rebroadcast)

In this episode, we explore why we are unaware that we lack the skill to tell how unskilled and unaware we are. The evidence gathered so far by psychologists and neuroscientists seems to suggest that ...

24 Mars 20161h 5min

070 - The No True Scotsman Fallacy

070 - The No True Scotsman Fallacy

When your identity becomes intertwined with your definitions, you can easily fall victim to something called The No true Scotsman Fallacy.It often appears during a dilemma: What do you do when a membe...

25 Feb 201635min

069 - The Black And White Fallacy

069 - The Black And White Fallacy

Obviously, the world isn't black and white, so why do we try to drain it of color when backed into a rhetorical corner? Why do we have such a hard time realizing that we've suggested the world is devo...

11 Feb 201629min

068 - The Strawman Fallacy

068 - The Strawman Fallacy

When confronted with dogma-threatening, worldview-menacing ideas, your knee-jerk response is usually to lash out and try to bat them away, but thanks to a nearly unavoidable mistake in reasoning, you ...

28 Jan 201628min

067 - The Fallacy Fallacy

067 - The Fallacy Fallacy

If you have ever been in an argument, you've likely committed a logical fallacy, and if you know how logical fallacies work, you've likely committed the fallacy fallacy. Listen as three experts in log...

14 Jan 201641min

065 - Survivorship Bias (rebroadcast)

065 - Survivorship Bias (rebroadcast)

The problem with sorting out failures and successes is that failures are often muted, destroyed, or somehow removed from sight while successes are left behind, weighting your decisions and perceptions...

17 Dec 201531min

Populärt inom Utbildning

rss-bara-en-till-om-missbruk-medberoende-2
historiepodden-se
det-skaver
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
allt-du-velat-veta
nu-blir-det-historia
johannes-hansen-podcast
roda-vita-rosen
rss-viktmedicinpodden
rss-foraldramotet-bring-lagercrantz
sektledare
i-vantan-pa-katastrofen
not-fanny-anymore
sa-in-i-sjalen
rss-max-tant-med-max-villman
rss-sjalsligt-avkladd
rss-basta-livet
rss-traningsklubben
rikatillsammans-om-privatekonomi-rikedom-i-livet
alska-oss