Fallacy of the sniper: what is it?

In the realm of logic, fallacies are arguments that seem valid but harbor a bias that completely nullifies their content.

They are often used in debates and discussions, with or without an awareness of what is being done. Both their identification and their refutation depend on the expertise and experience of the recipient.

In this article we will address the fallacy of the sniper, since it is one of the most common. It can occur especially in the context of future predictions or decision making.

• Recommended article: "The 10 types of logical and argumentative fallacies"

What is the fallacy of the sniper?

The sniper fallacy, also known as the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, describes a reasoning that obviates any suggestive indication that an idea is wrong, to make an emphasis on that information that seems sustain it. Sometimes for this reality is distorted, interpreting it in a disfigured way to get closer to what is intended.

• Related article: "The 10 types of arguments to use in debates and discussions"

In this way, almost all information can be susceptible to manipulation attempts to adapt to particular ideas or theses, establishing forced coincidences. It is a cognitive bias associated with apophenia, which consists of the erroneous perception of logical or regular patterns where really there is only randomness (for example a series of random numbers where a progressive or multiplicative order is inferred when this does not is so).

This fallacy implies a devaluation of all the dissenting information regarding the matter on which we wish to convince, as well as a magnification of the importance of that which affirms it. An example could be found in the way in which star constellations are interpreted, since it involves drawing a succession of imaginary lines to link stars whose position is absolutely random, deliberately ignoring celestial bodies that could distort the figure wanted.

The curious name of the fallacy obeys a metaphor about shooting precision. It depicts an idle man conducting target practice from an elevated position against a barn on his property, eventually forming a pattern of holes without any order or meaning. To reduce the folly and be considered a great sniper, the intrepid lord would draw He placed some targets wherever the bullet holes were, simulating a deceptive skill with his weapon.

Five Examples of the Sniper Fallacy

In order to clarify the concept of the sniper fallacy, nothing better than the resource of some simple examples. Through these examples it is intended to illustrate what this bias is and how it is explained.

1. the fortune teller

Imagine a fortune teller, enveloped in his aura of mystery and foretelling from his pulpit a series of ominous predictions for the future. Being a prolific prophet, throughout his life he produced thousands of texts in which he included copious information regarding the places and moments in which all these tragic events would occur, leaving for later a legacy of intense fear and uncertainty.

His work was so extensive that he not only occupied dozens of dusty tomes in a dark and inhospitable library, but he dealt with all kinds of calamities in the most diverse places imaginable. He therefore generated such abundant information that there was room for practically anything in it. In this way, the passage of time allowed him to hit a percentage of his predictions, which could be explained without any problem by referring to the laws of probability.

However, given the fascination of his figure and the severity with which he used to point out his words, there were many who interpreted such successes as an irrefutable sign of his visionary capacity. What they did not notice, however, was the thousands of misguided volumes that remained forever in clouds of dust. and mouse droppings.

2. A man looking for love

Once upon a time there was a man thirsty to find his better half, his other half. He had searched for her in the most remote places, but every woman he might meet seemed inappropriate in some way. And it is that he was a very demanding man, to the point that he began to think that there was no one anywhere in the world who could satisfy his loving expectations. Because of this, he felt somewhat embarrassed and hopeless.

One afternoon, while she was walking through the center of the city, she inadvertently ran into a luminous sign that read: “marriage agency”. She was surprised that she had never seen it before, for the thick layer of dust and cobwebs that covered it screamed loudly. strength that she had stayed there for a long time, so she considered that it was a sign of the destination. She pushed the bell button and someone opened the rickety door without asking.

After a series of formalities, and after leaving a substantial amount of money there, she filled out a very short form in which she inquired about her personal tastes and wondered about her appearance physical. Size and weight, little else. She returned her papers and was promised that she would hear about a perfect match in a few days. A month passed, however, until a surprise call made his heart reel: they had found the perfect woman.

They contacted them and they met in a downtown Italian restaurant. Apparently, according to the data available to the agency, he was someone with whom she coincided in all the expected parameters: she liked the movies and walks on the beach at sunset, and she was a couple of centimeters shorter that he. Her heart was pounding. What she didn't know at that moment was that, after barely exchanging a couple of sentences with that lady, she would discover that she liked her even less than the ones she had been able to meet by chance.

3. a premonitory dream

A woman woke up with a start at three in the morning. She had dreamed of a certain Juan, or so she thought she heard, who was chasing her through the dark streets of an unknown city. Her voice exploded off the walls, echoing in the narrow space that separated them. It seemed that her legs did not respond to her, as if a rubber band pulled her from her waist to the shadow that stalked her. "Juan, Juaaaan..." she whispered, getting louder.

The point is that she couldn't sleep all night. He watched the sun rise, and for some reason he was terrified that this dream was a warning that something horrible was about to happen. He got up, called one of her best friends and told her that he needed to talk to her about what happened. Since she was an attentive girl, he replied that he would wait for her at the usual cafeteria at the usual time..

After romping around in the sheets for a few more hours, he decided to start the grooming routine. He covered the dark circles under his eyes with powder makeup, untangled his hair, and dressed without giving much thought to what he would wear. Her friend showed up on time, as was her custom, but was surprised to see that she was accompanied by someone he didn't know. It was his new partner, a boy he met on a recent trip and they had talked about at another time.

It turned out that the boy's name was Jaime. With “J”, just like the man in that dream. It was just at that moment when an unbearable chill ran through his entire body, and icy sweat drenched himself. his forehead: he concluded that it was a premonitory dream, and that perhaps his best friend could be in serious trouble. danger.

4. a clueless investigator

One morning our clueless researcher woke up feeling miserable.. She had been thinking for a long time that she was not entirely happy, and she longed to find a way to feel happy. She didn't know where to start, so she ended up turning to science, which was what she did best. In his first investigation, he discovered the island of Okinawa, which apparently was the place where the happiest people lived.

He spent the whole morning reading about her. It was one of the regions in which the most centenarians had been registered. A long and happy life: there could be nothing better. Among all those pages on Asian anthropology, which constituted a collection of dozens of brainy research on the insular customs of traditional Japan, one detail particularly caught his attention. attention: the tea. And it turns out that these people drank a lot of green tea, to the point that most drank infusions (made with the powder of the plant) absolutely every day.

For this reason, neither short nor lazy, he went out with a shotgun to the nearest supermarket and loaded the shopping cart with boxes and boxes of green tea, until he left that place out of stock. On his way out, he asked one of the replenishers if they still had a little more left in the stores. He became convinced that, at last, he had discovered the source of eternal happiness.

5. the lucky number

A young girl is going to take her driving test. She feels nervous, and for some strange reason she thinks of his lucky number: four.

She rushes to the closet where she kept the board games, she finds a ludo covered in dust and picks up a green cup and dice. In order to feel calmer, he decides to try if such a long-awaited number appears in a spread, as it would be a sign that everything would be fine. So she puts the dice in the bucket, shakes it well, and rolls.

The die rolls, does a caper and shows the number six. He stares at it and decides it's not a valid roll, because he's just standing there a little weird (or so he wanted to think), so he decides to try again. For this second occasion the number two appears. At last! She thinks... And it is that six plus two equals eight, but if that sum is divided by the total number of attempts that he needed (two), it is definitely a four. Now yes: To eat the world!

You have realized?

Up to this point, this article contains 1725 words. However, the word "dust" has been present in all the examples that have been presented (it has appeared five times), and although it represents only 0.003% of the text, it would be possible to think that it has special relevance.

A sniper fallacy would be to suspect that everything written here is actually about dust, thereby ignoring the 1720 words that have nothing to do with him.

Bibliographic references:

• Comesaña, Juan Manuel (2001). Informal logic, fallacies and philosophical arguments. Buenos Aires: Eudeba.
• Damer, E. (2005). Attacking Faulty Reasoning. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
• d. h. Fischer, Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought, Harper Torchbooks, 1970.
• Walton, Douglas (1992). The Place of Emotion in Argument. The Pennsylvania State University Press.