Can you outsmart the fallacy that fooled a generation of doctors? - Elizabeth Cox
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 фев 2025
- Dig into the false cause fallacy, which assumes that one event causes another, and learn how to distinguish between correlation and causation.
--
It’s 1843, and a debate is raging about one of the most common killers of women: childbed fever- no one knows what causes it. One physician has observed patients with inflammation go on to develop childbed fever, and therefore believes the inflammation causes the fever. What's the problem with this argument? Elizabeth Cox explores the false cause fallacy and how to dissect claims with skepticism.
Lesson by Elizabeth Cox, directed by TOGETHER.
Animator's website: wearetogether.ca/
Sign up for our newsletter: bit.ly/TEDEdNew...
Support us on Patreon: bit.ly/TEDEdPat...
Follow us on Facebook: bit.ly/TEDEdFac...
Find us on Twitter: bit.ly/TEDEdTwi...
Peep us on Instagram: bit.ly/TEDEdIns...
View full lesson: ed.ted.com/les...
Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Tony, Michelle, Katie and Josh Pedretti, Vaibhav Mirjolkar, Thomas Bahrman, Allan Hayes, Aidan Forero, Uday Kishore, Mikhail Shkirev, Devesh Kumar, Sunny Patel, Anuj Tomar, Lowell Fleming, David Petrovič, Hoai Nam Tran, Stina Boberg, Alexandrina Danifeld, Kack-Kyun Kim, Travis Wehrman, haventfiguredout, Caitlin de Falco, Ken, zjweele13, Anna-Pitschna Kunz, Edla Paniguel, Elena Crescia, Thomas Mungavan, Alejandro Cachoua, Jaron Blackburn, Yoga Trapeze Wanderlust, Sandy Nasser, Venkat Venkatakrishnan, Nicolle Fieldsend-Roxborough, John Saveland, Jason Garcia, Robson Martinho, Martin Lau, Senjo Limbu, Joe Huang, SungGyeong Bae, Christian Kurch, Begum Tutuncu, David Matthew Ezroj, Sweetmilkcoco, Raphaël LAURENT, Joe Meyers, Farah Abdelwahab, Brian Richards, Divina Grace Dar Santos, Jessie McGuire, Abdullah Altuwaijri and Sarah Burns.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
"humanity...
It’s a train wreck, but I can’t look away."
The Most Accurate Description of Humanity I has Ever herd
That's what d
Doctor Who said
Haha me just like a sitcom. So I feel kinda responsible for them you know.
Lol I was more interesting the Titanic on the TV
*heard
@Hanqing Yu Good thing I'm comfortable with Death then :)
Are we going to ignore the fact that most doctors of his time ridiculed and attacked Ignaz Semmelweiss' theory? And that he was later fired from the hospital? And the fact that despite his warnings to obstetricians in Europe, they still adamantly refused to mandate handwashing before conducting deliveries?
Damn, must've been hard to be the right person just because you are the only one who agreed
Somebody read “mastery”
such an outrageous story, indeed
Right, and he ended up in insane asylum cause no one appreciate or gave good reviews on his book.
Amiteash Paul So many examples like this in history, you’d think we’d learn not to be dogmatic and ostracizing but nope, still pretty alive and well.
Ted-Ed: Can you outsmart...
Me: No, but go on.
If you ever take/took AP Psychology they hammer how correlation /= causation into your skull until you can't help but think about it hourly
*bruh same*
I didn't expect to be able to get it but then literally my first guess was, since this was a problem for hundreds of years and back then they were unclean back then my guess is that they bought grime to their patients, I was shoked to find out I had guessed correctly.
@@HopeRock425 everyone got it right because we have all been taught about how we can get infected but yes you are very special congratulations
EXACTLY
Fun fact: after Semmelweis introduced scrubbing, he was fired one year later from the same hospital. They thought that he was crazy and it wasn't scrubbing which reduced the mortality. Even though he proved that it indeed reduced the mortality rate, they didn't like that fact.
Not only that, but his peers bullied him and tortured him severely. They made him go into an institution and led him to an early, meritless death.
That's not very fun
@@kennygiron8876 wait, i thought he's friend just joking around. Damn that was harsh.
The idea that other doctors refuse to do handwash between operation is make me sick. It's not that hard to do, better be safe than sorry especially when being safe is not so hard to do.
mantab sekali Well, back in those days, new theories or ideas that were considered out of the “norm” was not widely accepted and the person who proposed it was usually branded a fraud or something of the sort. People back in those days also didn’t like being proved wrong so seeing this doesn’t really surprise me.
"A doctor is a gentleman, and a gentleman's hands are always clean"
-Actual argument used by a doctor offended at Semmelweiss' advice on washing hands.
That is simultaneously hilarious and sad.
Pride > Saving Lives
I just wnna slap that doctor in face.
Upper-class people are weird, man.
@@SuzysRedStripes and lower-class people aren’t? 74 million Americans show too many are.
Correlation _does not_ equal causation.
I’ve heard this so many times and still people fall for it.
my self alone i've seen people fall for it directly after talking about it .
Our brains are wired to do that, it's the origin of superstition, education is our tool to help with that
Yea, but causation does equal correlation.
This can be a start of a great series. The demon's character, the narration, and the artstyle.
Yes, please! TED-ED, please make this happen!
Yes I hope so
great character, narration, art style corelate with great series but might not cause it.
+
This can for sure become a great series
Mixing up corellation and causation is so easy to do. Never assume that observing two things at once means that one causes the other or vice versa. They might not even be related at all.
you just said exactly what the video said, i mean it's okay, i dont want to start an internet argument, but you just basically repeated what the video said
@@tasmaniandebiru Yesyes, but I did so just based on the title, without watching (or remembering) the video ;D
@@TheDhammaHub oh, well that's lucky lol :D
@@tasmaniandebiru basicly adds nothing to your sentence
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
― Daniel J. Boorstin
Dink thiferent
That is ignorance.
Either drink deeply from the well of knowledge, or not at all, for there is nothing more dangerous than the half-informed
@@McBehrer
Ridiculous analogy.
@@Ninjaananas
I see you've drank lightly
“Correlation isn’t Causation” whole of humanity needs to understand this rule!
But it does suggest that one might have a look and investigate the relationship.
Fábio Nakada Exactly... Near Euphoria! 😇
@Fábio Nakada You're conflating correlation and causation.
@Fábio Nakada And a paradise of humanity
Exactly, but people still ramble on about how 5g causes covid but actually they're caused by the same thing, if a neighborhood has a lot of people they would install 5g towers there since there are more people who would use it and in a neighborhood of a lot of people covid cases are more likely
“My fries are cold. Must be because my ice cream melted”
That...that’s a good one
That could totally be the reason if your ice cream dripped all over your fries.
Melting ice cream absorbs heat and they were next to each other. That's a reasonable conclusion.
@@Enaronia It is, but the point is that there's a fallacy in assuming the ice cream melting is what made the fries cold, when in reality, the heat from the fries was transferred to the ice cream, thus causing both events.
@@Penguinmanereikel both the melting of ice cream and the cooling of the fries have a common cause rather then being related .
the room's temperature is both colder then the initial temperature of the fries and hotter then that of the ice cream the result would be all three temperatures approaching themselves (as they are sharing their heat between each others) , resulting in the final result
@@Enaronia Still miss the point I see.
I learnt this in a college philosophy class (I took a few of those) and the example he had to work with was in the summer there is an increase of heart attacks and a consumption of ice cream. We had to break down statements in to premises and conclusions and create logic tables and such. And for a while I was into logical positivism (I’m aware of the criticism, I was more fascinated by the topic than it being applicable). These kinds of classes shouldn’t be a college class but taught early on in high/secondary school.
*TED-Ed is a RUclips Channel*
*TED-Ed is very Popular*
But TED-Ed isn't popular because it is a RUclips Channel
*TED-Ed is popular because it makes Fun and Informative Content*
*A Prime Example of False cause Fallacy*
no, obviously they are a youtube channel because they are popular
@thunder key "fun", may be not but informative certainly
@ZOCCOK also there is no correlation between being a RUclips channel and being very popular. It seems you dont properly understand correlation, I would suggest reading it up.
*Yesn't*
* applauses * :) WHOO
2:25 fun fact: in the 1950’s, because of the strong correlation between cancer and smoking, scientists believed when someone got cancer they became very stressed and thus started smoking to destress, thus correlation not causation
In reality, the reverse is true since smoking causes the cancer.
@@lizardguyNA yeah hence the correlation doesn’t equal causation
Maybe we should have a drinking game where we watch a presidential debate, and every time a fallacy is used, everyone takes a shot.
Not a good idea o.o
Do you want to die of alcohol poisoning?
That would kill everyone
I enjoy living.
So the fallacy causes alcoholism...
Honestly, this Demon Of Reason thing could make a REALLLY GOOD animated series like Adam Ruins Everything.
This is the backbone of statiscs, you can't really understand it without understanding this concept.
Except you can THINK you understand it and even make arguments that hold up to surface level scrutiny which is honestly way more dangerous than someone just admitting they don't understand it
Callum L Alexander I think that’s sort of the Dunning-Kruger effect
@@wipmegrandma8780 And that is how the story that vaccinations causes autism was born.... so don't for a second think this isn't going on till this day!
@@wipmegrandma8780 counter the argument on deeper level then, so their surface level argument become invalid, sounds easy to me.
*Demon* of reason and this has 666 likes
This reminds me of the guy who thought comic books made kids into troublemakers because he found that a lot of kids he worked with who are troublemakers read comic books but what he didn’t realize is that back in the 90s everyone read comic books
Who is voicing the demon, because their voice is so soothing.
TedEd liked your comment but didnt anwser it, heh.
There's this thing called credits.
Credits said
'Narrator
Jack Cutmore-Scott'
Does this 'Jack-cutmore' has any audiobook?? Or anything like that!
I find the voice horribly grating…
5:04 I mean in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics, the ice cream played a rather miniscule role in making the fries going cold and vice versa.
Ok so can we have a series with the demon of reason? i love him!
Me too
Same
They technically do
Is this "Demon of Reason" the legendary TED that has been so hidden since the beginning of time.
@@kbye2321 That would be me.
Edit: K bye posted about something or another and I replied to them. I don't know because I have horrible memory.
That is a common misconception, but no TED is actually a trio of which the demon of reason is just a part. He is the D. For Dave.
@@leotamer5 That would leave T for TODD and E for Ed. Now I head rumors that TODD is actually 4 different parties with 2 actually people and other two also being acronyms for different people and parties. This just continuously extends to every sentient organism in the universe.
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
That is intresting.
Stop spamming quotes (you have 71 comments ,most, if not all of which are the same format that presumably holds no relevance to the videos)
@thunder key ...inflation?
What about the 70 other spam comments?
FRIEDRICH MY MAN
@thunder key his a youtuber too so it feels like his trying to farm off ted-ed
Love this style of narration. Please turn it into a series. We want more. 😊
I love how it's the "demon of reason" as people who use reason, skepticism, and rational thought are seen as demons by a great many people
And many times called "anti-nationalist" also if used in politics
Nothing wrong with being a demon (daemon). One of the meanings is, "A guardian spirit; inspiring or inner spirit." -- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
Besides, Unix and Linux users have a long association with daemons. They do most of our work. 😁
or well that's my opinion , if you think otherwise i'd be happy to listen and maybe learn
it probably comes from the idea of Laplace's demon en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon
@@tricktrick4940 Realpolitik am I right
Love this concept! It's so fun to watch!
I'd love this amazing demon to have an overarching series called "Demon of reason".
I wish more people would teach concepts in this manner.
Awesome work as always Ted-ed! You are truly the Masters of your craft👌🏼🤘🏼
2:06 I love how the background music stops when the Demon of Reason is saying "Actually, don't answer that."
Is a nice little detail to add to the joke.
Imagine the number of women who died because the correct theory was not accepted. Then imagine the number of people who are dying RIGHT NOW because we are not thinking critically
Who else loves the way the demon's teeth move when he talks?
Oh my God....that's absolutely horrifying
indeed...
Charles Meigs would certainly fit right in with the World Health Organization.
@@mayonnaise9332 the teeth moving part, lol i am joking.
@@patrickmccarthy6430 please try managing COVID-19 yourself
1:58 "And we all know that's not true, right? -actually dont answer that-"
my favorite part
I actually wouldn't mind if they continuously used this demon/narration/method again for future videos
Never thought I'd get so many likes from such a simple comment lol
Maybe the use of an angel would also be cool. Two characters of opposing dichotomies, teaching us about reason, logic, and humility to further expand our knowledge. Like our very consciences.
@@dominicansolx
yeah..
I couldn't agree more 🙌
I love this guy!
@@dominicansolx The Demon of Reason and the Angel of Conjecture
This is my new favourite type of ted ed video style so simple and fun yet informative!
1:22 my psychology teacher's favourite sentence lol
i love it too
"My psychology teacher's favourite sentence:"
"So, you watched my MasterClass-"
I haven't heard my psych teacher say that yet.. I'll wait 😁
As someone who is studying economics, you just explained spurious correlation, reverse causality and endogeneity (omitted variable bias). This is one of my favourite part of econometrics! It goes back to simple and direct logic
This style of animation is by far the best amongst others made by Ted-Ed, it's so satisfying, I didn't wanted this video to end, they should make entire documentaries in this fashion
wonderful job, well done, keep it up
I love this style and narration, it made me hypnotized to focus and watch the full videos
As humans, we are a lazy lot. False cause fallacy doesn't expend a lot of brain juice after all!
actually, you are using a fallacy: the human is lazy. You need to comprove why the human is lazy
this is true because I am lazy
@@Nugcon must be because you are human hahaha
@@zoecruz2673 it's most likely because we want everything to be done as efficiently as possible since we are generally impatient. and i think the impatience comes from the fact that the person or people have to do it due to necessity or the want to do it like how people want the restaurant chefs to cook faster because they are starving. but then again, i might be using the fallacy myself so who knows lol
@@zoecruz2673 or why does it necessarily causes the false cause fallacy after all
Titanic: *shipwreck*
Nobody:
Demon of Reason: *A trainwreck*
The demon is a reference to Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World
, a book on scientific & skeptical thinking
Would you recommend this book?
the chapter " the dragon in my garage", excellent book btw
its reference to descartes
thanks mate
GENIUS. Ted-Ed is my free school with animation & storytelling skills to die for.
A demon wearing a diaper and having ice cream😂 Ted animator’s had a lot of fun animating this😂😂
This specific kind of fallacy is called "post hoc ergo propter hoc" (after this, therefore because of this) because a crucial part of the fallacy was that the inflammation was observed prior to the fever. It is just one of a broader family of false cause fallacies.
West Wing taught me that phrase!
The voice actor for the demon is as good as the narrator of Kurzgesagt.
Now now, let's not get ahead of ourselves
I second you.
@@kbye2321 completely agree with you
Or that acambaiting guy, Manuel Gerraro Tourneur (or was it Merton Snerden?)
Who is to say both aren't one and the same?
I asked my grandma what causes childbed fever and she told me it's caused by extreme sadness after giving birth and when I asked how did she know, she said, "most women she knows got extremely sad after giving birth and developed this fever" and I was like... -.-
I mean sounds like she described baby blues.
"My fries are cold,must be because my Ice cream melted."
Ha ha... Loved the ending!!
"My fries are cold. It must be because my ice cream melted." This is the best series on RUclips
Unfortunately there are only like 6 videos of it
It’s amazing how something so simple and common as a doctor washing their hands today was so... (what’s the word?) taboo back in the day.
Not taboo...they just didn't think they had to. And they never considered themselves as the common factor in these deaths.
Hand washing was not taboo. What was taboo was the thought that doctors were making their patients sick. People in authority often see themselves as infallible in that area and questioning them means that they are not infallible.
I'll probably look back to this video in the future. It is the first video (and comment section) who thought me the "correlation does not imply causation" wisdom. Thank you so much y'all.
"Ah, humanity...it's a train wreck." Such a mood. I stan the demon of reason. 😂
That is a whole another level of creativity
World: the earth is warming because of green house effect
Me: it is warming because my ice Cream melt everytime I bring it.
Well Greenhouse effect is the proven cause of Climate change By hypothetico-deductive method
Do your research It's a fact
@@vsaratha4508 wooosh, he used the same concept that the video talked about
Every time my icecream melts, I notice that the room feels very warm. And come to think about it, when icecream melts at picnics, the weather has often become quite hot too!
Good heavens...how many years have I been complicit in this crime against nature?
@@vsaratha4508
The greenhouse effect only causes the climate. The climate is effected by the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which people produce more of causing the climate to change (e.g climate CHANGE) the greenhouse effect only controls the climate, not why it's getting worse
This is the best video demonstration ive ever seen. So perfecttt with the voice !
Moral of the story: *NEVER BELIEVE ANY THEORY BLINDLY*
Yep, methodological naturalism
like most conspiracy theories
@Abdul Rahman Irfan Sheikh If you say that unironically, then congrats, you don't know what a theory means.
Hypothesis
Unless if it's Game Theory!
Would really like to see much more content related to this topics, specially different type of fallacies with this type of examples, really nice video
The animations keep getting better and better
I'm loving the story telling setup!!
This is channel is the greatest example for me.
How is this not the best educational RUclips channel
It has been a while since Elizabeth Cox wrote one. I always enjoy these.
My computer science teacher was going on and on about how violent video games cause school shootings. Her argument was that every school shooter had played call of duty before. I rose my hand and said that asking a teenage boy if they play call of duty is like asking if they had breakfast that morning. Because school shooters also play call of duty that doesn’t necessarily mean that call of duty causes school shootings. A lot of kids play call of duty. And there aren’t that many school shooters in comparison. I felt very proud of myself that day.
I will have to bring up that at my school, me included, no one really eats breakfast 😂
How to be the Demon of reason in real life: be the fact checking friend
fact check for long and you won't have that many friends
please don't ask me why i know that
At the end I was expecting him to catch another similar fallacy but in more recent events. Great video!
This should definitely be a series, I wanna see more of the demon of reason.
Thank you for everything TedEd
Okay but can you for a moment think how CRAZY it must've been for people to hear "yup it's an invisible thing that doctors carry around from patient to patient if they're not clean" before we knew microorganisms existed? And for it to be true?? It amazes me how scientists must think outside the box and seem crazy to reach important breakthroughs
Kind'a like UFOs? Yeah I know, I know
He did provide evidence that cleaning caused less death though.
Ted-Ed needs to bring this guy back
Yes, yes, yes....
But remember...
Correlation is a sign of WHERE to look for causation. If the cause isnt known, start investigating anything that correlates.
Because it is also a fallacy to ignore correlations.
Skepticism and the tendency to ask logical questions should be the thing that human should never abandon.
Demon of reason: *rhetorical question*
Charles Meigs: “And I’ll give you a rhetorical answ-“
Demon of Reason: *no*
the sound effect of the demon teleporting is sooooo satisfying
true
Someone: "Are you smart enough..."
Me: no
I love it. Especially the voice and the character. Not to mention the intellectual biases that should be taught in every school
When you are too egoistic to even admit you were wrong and keep on killing people accidentally
egoistic? I guess he was just supporting his own argument rather than supporting an alien one, which he thought was entirely false. His students and other medical professionals also supported him, it would have been derogatory for him to leave his argument.
Woah, this trully an episode with new concept. Love this one!
Ted ed should make a whole series out of this dragon dude with the same animation and voice and the humour at the end.
Vandana Rajput It’s a demon .....
The Demon of Reason
the animation is just amazing. more of this please
I loved this video structure, will there be more “episodes” of this demon of reason?
THIS IS SO INTERESTING
News Reporter: "Nobody knows what causes childbed fever"
Me: Childbirth
fever
"The leading cause of divorce is marriage." - Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS
I used to have a book that listed 2-3 dozen types of logical fallacies. It was super useful and interesting, and I tried to memorize all of them.
*you know what... don't answer that*
I died laughing at this, The demon if reason do good at this one tbh
I have no idea what kind of tv has those programs one after another proving your point, but I want it.
Your passion about your channel “TED-ed” inspired us to start our OWN RUclips Journey🙏
@Alexnader Hamiltun I am the AL-EX-NA-DE-R
Really? You guys look more inspired by watchmojo
Top 10 most expensive yachts... Really? That's the best you can offer? :|
Thanks Ted Ed for making me feel insignificant again! Always loves these.
3:59
Thats what I thought, a bacterial infection caused inflammation and fever. Non sterilization of tools.
We want more of this!!!
I love the demon of reason!
This needs a series, I love this character
I remember reading about this in San Kean’s “The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons.” It boggles my mind that doctors would dig around in dead bodies and then go straight into pulling out babies.
Really love the narration... Please produce more in this format
My favorite part about this video is that everyone who likes it already gets the point, and the people that need to learn this point just learned that hair growth causes tooth growth. I can see the Facebook posts already.
I cannot get bored of your content, Ted-Ed, love the experiment with this new formula
I rarely hit the like button, but this video deserves it.
Keep this series going. Its fantastic actually
If I remember correctly, the story of Smmelweis doesn't have a good ending. Rather, Smemmelweis was redeculed for his hygene theory by the medical community even though he had proof for it, and then he died at an insane asylom. I guess that in the world where The Demon of Reason intervened he changed the timeline. (We should really call him the angel of reason)
Honestly after watching one video in this series of the demon of reason, I had to look for other, which wasn't hard with the help of you tube algorithm. But my, the characterization and story telling is amazing. Wow, this is beautiful
“My fries are cold... must of been because my ice cream melted”
Ok, that was a good one
This could become an amazing series
The demon narrator is as good as Steve Taylor on Kurzgesagt.
Wait that's the narrator's name, the guy who voices every single Kurzgesagt episode (at least the recent ones)?
I vote this be a regular thing. This has been the most entertaining TED-ED video I have seen