Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy The name of this fallacy comes from its most common illustrative example. A target shooter claims that he can always hit the bull’s-eye. He aims at the side of a barn, shoots a hole in the wood, then goes up and draws a target around the hole he just made, giving himself a bull’s-eye. What this analogy refers to is when someone chooses the criteria for success or failure after they know the outcome. It becomes a form of post hoc reasoning, deciding that a certain piece of evidence is evidence for the conclusion you desire, but you decide that only after you know what
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