Superstitious beliefs, such as that breaking a mirror brings bad luck for seven years, are examples of
1. Appeal to unreliable authority.
2. Begging the question.
3. False cause
4. None of the above
The correct answer and explanation is:
Correct Answer: 3. False cause
Superstitious beliefs, such as the idea that breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck, are classic examples of a logical fallacy known as “false cause.” This type of fallacy occurs when someone assumes a cause-and-effect relationship between two events simply because one event follows another or is associated with it, without any real proof that the first caused the second.
In the case of the broken mirror superstition, the belief suggests that the act of breaking a mirror somehow directly causes bad luck for seven years. However, there is no empirical or rational basis for connecting the breaking of a reflective surface with a prolonged period of misfortune. The idea lacks evidence and fails to consider more logical explanations for subsequent events. For instance, if someone breaks a mirror and then later experiences negative events, the superstition attributes the cause of those events to the broken mirror rather than to chance or other real-life factors.
This kind of fallacious thinking is based more on tradition, cultural myths, or emotional influence rather than reason or scientific understanding. False cause fallacies are widespread in human thinking, particularly in superstitions and pseudoscience, where correlation is often mistaken for causation.
This differs from other fallacies in the question. An appeal to unreliable authority involves trusting a source that lacks credibility or expertise. Begging the question is a circular argument where the conclusion is assumed in the premise. Since the broken mirror belief does not involve those fallacies, the correct categorization is false cause.
Superstitions like this persist because people often remember the times bad things happened after breaking a mirror and forget the times nothing happened. This selective memory reinforces the illusion of a causal connection.