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Logical fallacies - Because of that other thing in the past

I will present three widely used logical fallacies that share the same principle: my statement is true because I am pointing to some other thing that was present or also true. This other thing doesn't have a correlation to the thing I want to prove. These fallacies improperly use something prior in time as proof of a claim.

Illusory causality

"You ate this snack last night. Therefore, you feel ill today."

In this fallacy, causality is confused with correlation. Just because an event occurred before another event, doesn't mean that it caused it. As humans, we love to have a clear line of reasoning in our heads to explain why things happen, which makes it easy for premature conclusions to form. This is an easy fallacy to disprove but also an easy one to fall into, even if you are aware that it exists.

Appeal to nature

"We have always hunted and killed for food. It is a natural process and rooted in our genes. Therefore, it is right to continue doing it."

People are very selective when it comes to picking a natural process that is fitting for their argument when using this fallacy. We have many advancements that try to annul or overcome the "errors" of nature. Death is natural, so is rape in many species, yet we try to avoid them. On the other hand, we make use of many things today that are unnatural, but good for us, like taking medication or treating cancer. Additionally, naturality is hard to define, which makes it easy to pick exactly the parts of nature that are supposed to support my argument.

Appeal to tradition

"We have always done it that way!"

It is used to justify bad practices or habits in the present because we did them in the past. We find many parallels to the fallacy "Appeal to nature". Because often, something that we see as natural is also something that we have been doing for a long time. Look at genital mutilation of young girls for example, which is still practiced in many parts of the world under the umbrella "tradition". Bad practices in the past should be questioned and challenged so that we can move forward without them, which makes our society a better place.