PHIL 12 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Randomized Controlled Trial, Causal Reasoning, Coroner
Document Summary
Phil 12 lecture 9 introducing causation. 05% likelihood: causal relationship: x causes y. Exam question: outline the steps needed to show that receiving private music tuition, such as piano or cello lessons, is correlated with good performance in the math portion of the sat. Explain further why such correlations may indicate, though need not imply, that learning a musical instrument promotes mathematical aptitude. Interest relativity: what we call the cause of something is a function of what we are interested in/what we have some reason to think of as relevant. Back to correlations: difference making: where there is causation, there should be correlation. If p is correlated with q, then q is always correlated with p. Mill"s methods: five different methods for inferring causes from a set of phenomenon, method of agreement, method of difference, joint method of agreement and difference, method of concomitant variation, method of residues, we don"t look at this one.
