samichange wrote:
Hi mike
Specific question with regard to option C-
When we question the purported relationship between cause and effect, does it necessarily mean that reverse may be true OR can we also mean that cause DOES NOT lead to the said effects.??
Thanks
Dear
samichange,
My friend, I'm happy to respond.
It could mean a few different things.
Consider these three particularly poor arguments.
Argument #1:
The fluctuation of the ocean's tides generates a force that causes the Moon move around the Earth. Argument #2:
On any given day, the SF Bay Area BART Trains may be on schedule or may be minutes off from their schedule. Any delay in these BART trains causes a drop in the NY Stock Exchange that day, adversely affecting the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Argument #3:
Beer sales are highest when ice cream sales are also highest. Eating ice cream must cause people to want to drink beer. All of those are absurdly bad arguments. In each of them, we would have every reason to question the purported relationship between cause and effect described in the argument.
In Argument #1, a valid objection would be to say: the tides don't cause the Moon's motion. Instead, the Moon's motion causes the tides. Here the object to "P causes Q" would be the statement "Q causes P." The original argument reversed cause & effect.
In Argument #2, a valid object would be to say: delays on the BART trains have
absolutely nothing to do with the behavior of the stock market. They are completely independent and unrelated.
In Argument #3, a high school statistics book classic fallacy: it's not that P causes Q or that Q causes P, but both are caused by a third thing. In this case, the hot summer weather causes a rise in both beer sales and ice cream sales. They appear together and in fact are highly correlated because they are both caused by the same thing.
It turns out, there is a large variety of relationships that two phenomena could have, and a causal relationship, a relationship of cause and effect, is only one possible relationship. If two phenomena are not in a cause and effect relationship, they could have any one of a large number of other relationships.
You asked a question. I just answered it. But the fact that you asked the question didn't "
cause" me to answer it. We have a relationship other than the relationship of causality. Many different alternatives for the relationship between two things are possible.
Does this make sense?
Mike
Thanks Mike for the detailed and helpful reply....
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