Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Recently, I was told about a 31 year old patient. He had some inability to move his eyes in certain directions, and the only other thing I was told was that the patient was on a particular medication. In the end, it turned out that his ailment had nothing to do with the medication. However, the only finding in his medical history was that he was on that particular medication, and the patient had apparently insisted that his symptoms started after he took the medication. That is why I remind myself that the fact that some event happened before a problem started is not a reason to think that the event caused the problem. That is to say that the Latin phrase “post hoc ergo propter hoc” is a fallacy.