Fallacy · Bad evidence
Texas sharpshooter
Also called: Painting the target after the shots
Finding a pattern in random data after the fact, then treating it as meaningful.
What it is
The name comes from a joke about a man who fires at a barn wall, then paints a target around the tightest cluster of holes. Look at enough data and some clusters will appear by chance. A real pattern is one predicted before looking, or one that holds up in new data.
An example
After a bad week, someone notices that three of the bad days were Thursdays and decides Thursdays are unlucky. Among seven days, some day was bound to look worst.
How to spot it
The pattern was spotted after looking, and the “prediction” was made once the results were known.
How to answer it
“Would we have predicted that before looking? Does it hold up with new data?”
When it is not a fallacy
A pattern found after the fact is a fair hypothesis. It earns belief only when it is stated in advance and then shows up in data that were not used to find it.
Printable sheet of all fallacies
Cite or share this page
A plain reference you can paste into notes or an essay:
Quest2Reason. “Texas sharpshooter.” https://quest2reason.com/learn/ideas/fallacies/texas-sharpshooter. Accessed 13 November 2026.