abstract
| - This is a specific kind of Did Not Do the Research, where a pivotal clue in solving a mystery or puzzle is actually erroneous. This is related to Conviction by Contradiction, where a single thing wrong with an alibi is sufficient to prove guilt, but goes further: the key that makes the claim or alibi wrong is itself factually incorrect. For example, a guy's alibi is that he was caring for his pregnant mule, and he is immediately revealed to be lying, since mules can't get pregnant. We've got him! To the jail! Not so fast: while they're rare, fertile female mules do exist; a mule's foal is precisely what the picture to the right depicts. Thus, there's a problem with this "revelation": it's simply wrong. Distantly related to Dan Browned, because if you're going to write a mystery and have the solution all hinge on one fact, the audience is fully justified in expecting that that fact is really a fact. When adding examples, keep in mind that a fact has to be actually wrong to qualify for Conviction by Counterfactual Clue. If there's simply a way to explain away the objection without calling factual rightness into question, it's Conviction by Contradiction. Many examples, especially ones with complex contexts, have some aspects fall into one, and others into the other. This can be sometimes excused by Science Marches On. In many cases, the "clue" started out as Conviction by Contradiction, then science marched it right over here. When this happens but the ultimate conclusion is demonstrated to be correct, it overlaps with Right for the Wrong Reasons, especially when other clues in the story are skipped over, but are both factual and more useful. Oh, for the record, it's male mules that are (as far as anyone knows) always infertile--but then the "clue" wouldn't work at all. Examples of Conviction by Counterfactual Clue include:
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