Texas sharpshooter

You drew the target around the bullet holes.

Wrong: “Our campaign worked—look at the three regions that grew.”

Right: “What happened across all twelve?”

Three winners out of twelve is what randomness looks like.

Named for the shooter who fires at a barn and paints the target afterwards. In practice it’s running many comparisons and reporting the ones that landed, which guarantees a result whether or not anything is there.

How to answer it: ask what was predicted in advance, and how many things were measured. A hypothesis chosen after the data is a description, not a test.

Now go predict it first.