Friday, November 19, 2010

Cause and Effect

The cause and effect website was very useful in my opinion because of the example it used. The example of  how the bike swerved to avoid an illegally parked truck, but then caused an accident made it a lot easier to understand, because this is something that we can easily relate to. The example also went on to give more premises, which could actually change the cause of the accident, which was really interesting to me because of how one little thing could completely change the cause.

The site was also useful because it gave us a clear cut way to see the strength of a causal argument, which were:
1. How acceptable or demonstrable the implied comparison is.
2. How likely the case for causation seems to be.
3. How credible the "only significant difference" or "only significant commonality" claim is.

Using these three factors, one is able to judge the strength of a causal argument. Once the strength is measured, one will be able to easier make a decision on the cause, which is helpful in cases such as the one the example laid out.

1 comment:

  1. I wrote about this section of the website too, except specifically for number two. You are right, using these three points will make the causal argument. Number two stood out to me the most because some cases may happen, but not all of them are actually likely to happen. In some cases, there may be other factors that are more likely to cause things. In this cause, there may be other things that may cause that accident. However, in this case, I think the cause and effect relationship is strong enough to establish the cause and effect. Who knows though, maybe there was a small detail that they missed so it's really possible there is a different cause and effect in the accident situation.

    ReplyDelete