PHIL 114 Quiz: Scientific Studies and Causal Arguments
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If the other possible cause accidentally accompanies the potential cause under investigation, then reject premise (5). Why: since subjects were randomly assigned to the experimental group, there can be no relevant cause of their being in that group. Thus, there can"t be something that independently caused them to get the cause and to get the effect: it is not so unlikely the correlation is accidental, in the sense described in the text. Why: the correlation could be accidental, since there could be some factor, c1, that the experimental group got along with, it could be c1, rather than c, which brought about the. Call whatever it is that got the subjects into the experimental group x. The experimental group and the control group thus differ with respect to x. Common errors in causal reasoning: example: smoking doesn"t cause lung cancer.
