Post hoc fallacy of cause – UGC NET Question

The post hoc fallacy, often summarised as “after this, therefore because of this”, mistakes mere temporal order for genuine causation. It assumes that because event A precedes event B, A must have caused B, ignoring other possible causes or coincidental sequences. Proper causal reasoning requires additional evidence such as mechanisms, controlled comparisons or repeated patterns, not just timing. Thus the error described in the stem is the post hoc fallacy.

Option A:
Option A, slippery slope, warns that a small initial step will lead inevitably to a chain of increasingly severe consequences, usually without adequate support for the inevitability. It does not centre on inferring causation solely from temporal sequence.

Option B:
Option B is correct because post hoc specifically captures the confusion between succession in time and causation. Recognising this fallacy reminds us that correlation, especially when inferred only from “came after”, is not sufficient to establish cause.

Option C:
Option C, red herring, distracts from the main issue by introducing an irrelevant topic, but it does not rely on any assumption about the order of events.

Option D:
Option D, weak analogy, draws an inference from a comparison where the similarities are not strong or relevant enough to support the conclusion; again, it is different from the time-based error in question.