Title: The Presidential Curse and the Election of 2020 | Skeptical Inquirer
Headings: The Presidential Curse and the Election of 2020
The Presidential Curse and the Election of 2020
Timothy Redmond
References
Timothy Redmond

Content: Despite the fact that he was elected in 2000, he survived several assassination attempts and even a brief bout of unconsciousness after choking on a pretzel. As of this writing, Mr. Bush remains alive and well. President Reagan waves from the White House after his return from the hospital. Reagan wore a bullet-resistant vest under his red sweater. So too, however, is belief in the Curse of the Prophet. This conviction is, in part, sustained by four common logical fallacies: ( 1) confusing correlation with causation, (2) the lottery fallacy, (3) cherry picking, and (4) moving the goalposts. Confusing correlation with causation is a fallacy that assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they occur together (Novella et al. 2018). For instance, proponents of the Curse of the Prophet believe that because being elected president in twenty-year intervals from 1840–1960 was correlated with dying while in office, something about the former must have caused the latter.