Thefallacy of the single cause, also known ascomplex cause,causal oversimplification,[1]causal reductionism,root cause fallacy, andreduction fallacy,[2] is aninformal fallacy ofquestionable cause that occurs when it is assumed that there is a single, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointlysufficient causes.
Fallacy of the single cause can be logically reduced to: "X caused Y; therefore, X was the only cause of Y" (although A,B,C...etc. also contributed to Y.)[2]
Causaloversimplification is a specific kind offalse dilemma where conjoint possibilities are ignored. In other words, the possible causes are assumed to be "A xor B xor C" when "A and B and C" or "A and B and not C" (etc.) are not taken into consideration; i.e. the "or" is notexclusive.[citation needed]
