Sniper fallacy: what does it consist of?

We explain how this fallacy works, with several examples to better understand it.

In the field of logic, fallacies are arguments that appear to be valid but harbor a bias that completely negates their content..

They are often used in debates and discussions, with or without awareness that they are being made. Both their identification and their refutation depend on the expertise and experience of the recipient.

In this article we will address the sniper fallacy, as 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 sniper fallacy?

The sniper fallacy, also known as Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, describes a reasoning that ignores all suggestive indications that an idea is wrong, in order to emphasize the information that seems to support it. Sometimes this is done by distorting reality, interpreting it in a disfigured way to get closer to what is intended..

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

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

The curious name of the fallacy obeys to a metaphor about precision of shooting. It describes an idle man practicing shooting from an elevated position against a barn of his property, forming at the end a network of holes without order or sense. To reduce the blunder and to be able to consider himself as a great sniper, the intrepid gentleman would draw targets a posteriori where the bullet holes were, simulating a deceptive expertise with his weapon.

Five examples of the sniper's fallacy

In order to clarify the concept of the sniper's fallacy, nothing better than the use of a few simple examples. These examples are intended to illustrate what this bias is and how it is explained.

1. The fortune teller

Let us imagine a fortune teller, wrapped in his aura of mystery and predicting from his pulpit a series of sinister predictions for the future. Since he was a prolific prophet, throughout his life he elaborated thousands of texts in which he included copious information regarding the places and times in which all those fateful events would occur, leaving for posterity a legacy of intense fear and uncertainty.

His work was so extensive that it not only occupied dozens of dusty volumes in an obscure and inhospitable library, but also dealt with all kinds of calamities in the most diverse places imaginable. It generated, therefore, such an abundance of information that there was room in it for practically anything. Thus, the course of time allowed him to be right in a percentage of his predictions, which could be explained without any problem by alluding to the laws of probability.

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

2. A man looking for love

There was once a man thirsty to find his better half, his other half.. He had looked for her in the most hidden places, but every woman he could meet seemed inappropriate in some way. He was a very demanding man, to the point that he was beginning to think that there was no one anywhere in the world who could satisfy his amorous expectations. Therefore, he felt somewhat embarrassed and hopeless.

One afternoon, while strolling through the center of the city, he stumbled unnoticed upon a luminous sign that read: "marriage agency". He was surprised that he had never seen it before, because the dense layer of dust and cobwebs that covered it screamed loudly that it had been there for a long time, so he thought it was a sign of destiny. He pressed the doorbell button and someone opened the rickety door without asking.

After a series of formalities, and after leaving a substantial amount of money there, he filled out a very brief form inquiring about his personal tastes and asking about his physical appearance. Size and weight, little else. He returned the papers and was promised that he would hear from a perfect match in a few days. A month passed, however, before a surprise call made his Heart skip a beat: they had found the perfect woman.

They were put in touch and met at a central Italian restaurant. Apparently, according to the information available to the agency, she was someone who matched all the expected parameters: she liked movies and walks on the beach at sunset, and she was a couple of centimeters shorter than him. His heart was pounding. What he did not know at the time was that, after just a couple of sentences with that lady, he would discover that he liked her even less than those he had met by chance.

3. A premonitory dream

A woman woke up, startled, at three o'clock in the morning. She had dreamed of a certain John, or so she thought she heard, chasing her through the dark streets of an unknown city. His voice burst through the walls, echoing in the narrow space that separated them. It seemed as if her legs were not responding, as if a rubber band was pulling from her waist to the shadow that stalked her. "Juan, Juaaaan..." she whispered, louder and louder.

The point is that he could no longer sleep all night. He saw the sun rise, and for some reason he was terrified that this reverie was a warning that something horrible was about to happen. She got up, called one of her best friends and told her that she needed to talk to her about what had happened. Since she was an attentive girl, she replied that she would wait for her at the usual coffee shop at the usual time..

After frolicking for a few more hours in the sheets, she decided to start the grooming routine. She covered the dark circles under her eyes with powdered makeup, untangled her hair and got dressed without thinking too much about what she would wear. Her friend showed up on time, as was usual for her, but she was surprised to see that she was accompanied by someone she didn't know. It was her new partner, a guy she had met on a recent trip and had talked about some other time.

It turned out that the boy's name was Jaime. With a "J", just like the man in that dream. It was just at that moment when an unbearable shiver ran through her body, and a cold sweat drenched her forehead: she concluded that it was a premonitory dream, and that perhaps her best friend could be in grave danger.

4. An absent-minded investigator

One morning, our absent-minded investigator woke up feeling unhappy.. He had been thinking for a long time that he was not happy at all, and he longed to find a way to feel cheerful. He didn't know where to start, so he ended up turning to science, which was what he was best at. In his first research he discovered the island of Okinawa, which apparently was the place where the happiest people lived.

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

So, without hesitation, he rushed to the nearest supermarket and loaded the shopping cart with boxes and boxes of green tea, until the place was out of stock. On the way out, he asked one of the stockers if they still had some left in the stores. He was convinced that he had finally discovered the source of eternal happiness.

5. The lucky number

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

She hurries to the cupboard where she kept the board games, finds a dust-covered Parcheesi and picks up a green cup and a dice. In order to feel calmer, she decides to try to see if the desired number appears on a roll, as it would be the sign that everything would go well. So she puts the die in the bucket, shakes it well and throws.

The die rolls, makes a caper and shows the number six.. He stares at it and decides that it is not a valid roll, because it stood still in a strange way (or so he wanted to think), so he decides to try again. This second time the number two appears. Finally! She thinks... And the fact is that six plus two is eight, but if that sum is divided by the total number of tries it took (two), it is definitely a four. Now it's time to eat the world!

Have you noticed?

Up to this point, this article contains 1725 words. However, the word "dust" has been present in all the examples given (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's fallacy would be to suspect that everything written here is actually about the dust, thereby obviating the 1720 words that have nothing to do with it.

Bibliographical references:

• Comesaña, Juan Manuel (2001). Lógica informal, falacias y argumentos filosóficos. 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.