Philosophy 1200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 40: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, Lung Cancer, Scientific Method
6 Aug 2020
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Document Summary
A main goal of science is to explain why things occur. Typically this requires finding causal connections between events. Many problems associated with causal reasoning have been identified. We then look specifically at mill"s methods, which help structure experimental design. The first issue is to determine what we mean by the cause of some event. Of course, every event has many background conditions that must be in place for it to occur. E. g. for a fire to occur oxygen must be present. We usually seek a single cause. There is a correlation between events when they occur together. Correlations are observable and relatively easy to establish; they are suggestive of causation but they are not a guarantee of causation. For example, the correlation between smoking and lung cancer was not enough for legal purposes to have tobacco companies pay damages. A causal link was needed.
