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THE TEXAS SHARPSHOOTER FALLACY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2010

Dene Bebbington
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Extract

A man fires a gun several times at the side of a barn and then draws a circle around a cluster of most of the bullet holes. Drawing a target retrospectively like this doesn't prove the shooting skills of the gunman – no one would consider him a sharpshooter if they knew what he'd done. When the equivalent of this happens in other circumstances we call it the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. As with many fallacies, it may not appear fallacious at first inspection.

Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 10 , Issue 27 , Spring 2011 , pp. 71 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2011

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