4.

5 Arguments from Causality

Hello again! In this unit we will talk about arguments from causality, or causation. The inductive
argument from causality states that, because there is a correlation between two events, then one was
caused by the other. In more schematic terms,

A and B happened together (or A happened before B).

Therefore A causes B.

A simple example of argument from causality would go like this: “Four of the guests I had last night felt
sick after they got home. It may have been the lasagna.” The correlated events, “having lasagna for
dinner” and “feeling sick after”, give rise to the conclusion that the dinner caused the people to feel sick.

For those of you who are not familiar with correlation, it’s a term used in statistics that means a
relationship between two sets of variables, A and B. They may tend to happen together (positive
correlation) or they may tend to not happen together (negative correlation) or they may vary without a
significant relationship (zero correlation).

Man evolved to look for the causes of things. This is illustrated in a funny example in the book “Critical
Thinking – A Student’s Introduction”: if a ball passes by me, my first instinct would be to see who threw
it. If a ball passes by a cat, depending of the animal’s mood the cat will either chase the ball, or continue
to just sit there. The cat will not look for the source of the ball, for the cause of the event. This human
feature, to search for explanations for phenomena, is the basis of our knowledge, as we have discussed
in the previous units of this chapter.

However, sometimes we may be wrong in linking correlation with causality. It’s a fallacy, we will study it
next week, and it has a fancy name: post hoc ergo propter hoc (in Latin that means “after this, therefore
because of this”). You may call it simpler “correlation does not imply causation”. But can that be?
Because we have two events, A and B, that are correlated. They clearly happen together most of the
times. Well, besides B being caused by A (our initial inference), there are four more possibilities:

1. A does not cause B, but B causes A: “I am heavier and I need more energy than you, that’s why I eat a
lot”, when clearly the causation is the other way around: “I eat a lot, therefore I am fat.”

2. A and B cause each other: “In the US, the crisis made real estate prices sink.”, when, in reality, the
two events (the decrease of real estate prices and the development of the crisis) were each a catalyst
for the other.

3. A third event, C, causes both A and B. For this I have a funny example: “Sleeping on the bathroom
floor with your shoes on gives you a headache in the morning.”, when in reality the cause of both is
getting drunk.

4. The correlation is just a coincidence. I found the perfect example, a chart that shows a very good and
funny correlation between the decreasing market share of Internet Explorer and the decreasing murder
rate in the US between 2006 and 2011. I could not confirm the sources, but you can find the link below.
It’s funny to read on social media platforms the passion with which some people were looking for
causation.

What questions should we ask when we hear or read an argument from causality? There are four
important questions. Let’s go through them using an example:

“Children who eat dinners with their families get better grades in school. So, eating meals at home with
the parents produces better academic achievement.”

The four questions we should always ask in case of an argument from causality are:

1. Are the premises true?

2. How strong is the correlation?

3. Can we make sense of the causality?

4. What causes what?

1. Are the premises true? What is that statement based on? Who says that? Maybe a food producer? In
our case, the premise is true, and the source is the University of Michigan.

2. How strong is the correlation? How many children were observed? Over how much time? In this case,
the findings are the results of a comprehensive study on American children made between 1981 and
1997.

3. Can we make sense of the causality? Why would mealtime with parents be such a good predictor for
grades? Well, my guess is that children intellect grows better if the child feels safe, feels that he belongs,
feels that he is heard and understood. And what better time to ensure that than family dinners?

4. What causes what? Could it be that smarter children prefer family dinners over TV or computer game
dinners? Or perhaps the education level of the family causes both the child to be more open to learning
in school and his parents to understand the value of quality family time? I don’t know…

Now, what should we be careful about when we prepare our own argument from causality? Basically,
we should expect doubt, because causality cannot be easily proven. And, besides, as you saw in the last
example, always expect complexity! The Buddhists say that one cause is never enough to bring about an
effect and that causes never bring about a single effect. It’s always a multitude of causes that produce a
multitude of effects. It’s not that eating a lot makes me fat. Eating a lot, not exercising, having particular
genes, eating unhealthy foods and many others, combined, makes me fat. Also, eating a lot makes me
not only fat; it makes me vulnerable to illness, tired, unhappy, and so on. This is the complexity I was
talking about.
When do we use arguments from causality? In everyday life, when we get to understand cause and
effect and we control our behavior accordingly, in science, obviously, in public policy, and so on. You can
have some fun reading, and maybe analyzing, an interesting article from The Independent linked below
that shows a correlation and infers causation between the increasing success of the erotic book Fifty
Shades of Gray and the increasing number of situations when London firefighters were called to free
naked people who could not open their recreational handcuffs anymore.

Recap:

The four questions we should always ask in case of an argument from causality are:

1. Are the premises true?

2. How strong is the correlation?

3. Can we make sense of the causality?

4. What causes what?

When we construct an argument from causality, prepare for doubt and complexity.

And now, homework details: As I mention in a previous unit, your homework for this week is to come up
with a theory. You must follow the steps learned in the first two units and give details about each step,
you must clearly state your hypothesis or hypotheses, and you must design a clever test to validate
them. Your topic can be a playful one or a more scientific one. Some topics may be if smiling is
contagious, if Coca Cola really is such a powerful cleaner for oxidized coins, about the relationship
between running and losing weight, and so on. You obviously may inspire from these themes if you’re
stuck with no idea, but I am sure you critical thinkers will come up with brilliant original validated
theories. This homework should be a text, not longer than 1.000 words, and it will be peer-reviewd. So,
in order to get your grade, you will need to grade some of your colleagues’ papers. I believe this will be
an interesting experience for you. Good luck and see you next week!