"Get worse before it gets better" fallacy

What it is

A claim that gets worse before it improves is unfalsifiable: if things worsen it is "part of the process", and if they improve the claim is confirmed.

Related

• Confirmation bias bias
  If the claim can be confirmed by both worsening and improvement, every outcome counts as evidence for it.
• Sunk-cost fallacy bias
  Believing that things will pay off later justifies enduring costs now.

Appears in

• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly#12: The It'll-get-worse-before-it-gets-better fallacy

References

• Wikipedia: "Get worse before it gets better" fallacy en.wikipedia.org
• The 99 thinking errors in Rolf Dobelli's The Art of Thinking Clearly en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: List of cognitive biases en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia: Cognitive bias codex en.wikipedia.org

More in “Deciding and acting: incentives, loss and commitment”