Jen started eating at McDonald’s recently. Jen has recently lost weight. It seems that her McDonald’s have it has cost her weight loss. What kind of fallacy is this

Answer 1

Hello Herman!

This is the very common correlation= causation fallacy. In this fallacy, the argument falsely assumes that the correlation between two things (in this case the rise in Jen eating McDonalds with her recent weight loss) implies causation (in this case that the McDonalds has caused the weight loss). In an argument such as this one the fallacy can be very obvious because we are familiar with the things being discussed (McDonalds and weight loss). However, in arguments where we are unfamiliar with the topic, it can be much more difficult for us to suss out this fallacy.

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