To justify a policy to which one is attached on self-interested or ideological grounds, one can shop around for a causal or statistical model just as one can shop around for a principle. Once it has been found, one can reverse the sequence and present the policy as the conclusion. This process can occur anywhere on the continuum between deception and self-deception (or wishful thinking), usually no doubt closer to the latter.

Jon Elster, Securities Against Misrule: Juries, Assemblies, Elections, Cambridge, 2013, p. 5