Ok, Friends and students. I thought I didnt want to talk about this until the appropriate time arrives. I guess, the time has arrived since the MH370 investigators are already going into the analysis of causal relationships. For example, you now read headlines like: Diego Garcia map is in pilots flight simulator, Pilot is staunch PKR supporter, Anwar now admits pilot is related to him, so on, so forth. This is where good investigators (and good scientists; and good judges, if I may add?) hold on to the maxim: Correlation is not causation. To establish causation, the burden of proof is on the investigators. They have to prove that a cause is BOTH, NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT to bring about an effect. We call it the necessity and sufficiency tests. The cause or causes must pass BOTH tests. One example - Fire. Its well known that fire wont occur if any one of three causes is not present: heat, oxygen, and fuel (anything that can feed on the heat and oxygen--dry leaves, dry piece of cloth, etc.) We call this the fire triangle. So, combined, the three causes are NECESSARY to cause fire. If physical evidence indicate that all three were present preceding a fire incident, all pass the necessary tests. The next question is to ask whether their presence is SUFFICIENT to cause fire. Heat may be present, but if it didnt reach a high enough temperature, fire wont happen. So too with oxygen. If there wasnt enough content of oxygen in air at the particular point in time, fire wont occur either. Careful with what you read. Run the necessity and sufficiency tests when someone says to you: Yeah, B happened because A happened. Otherwise, you may be making a mistake in your judgement due to what we call, fallacy in reasoning. Faham tak? Tak faham, tanya. As usual, no question is a stupid question. Fire away! #raising_quality_in_the_way_the_masses_think
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 07:22:00 +0000
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