Cause and Effect

1). What was useful about the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises?

I found that the Cause and Effect website reading and exercises were very helpful in understanding the material in Chapter 15.  When I first read Chapter 15, I was kind of overwhelmed by all the examples and sections that we had to read, but once I read the site and did some of the exercises on the website, I had a lot of “ohhh” moments, when I started understanding the material better, and it really helped clear up some of the questions I had. I especially liked the link on post hoc reasoning! In the book it says that there are two mistakes in evaluating cause and effect: reversing cause and effect and looking too hard for a cause. Post hoc reasoning falls under looking too hard for a cause, and the definition was, after this, therefore because of this. I found the kind of confusing but once I read the website, I understood it so much better! Post hoc reasoning means that just because A precedes B, that doesn’t mean that A caused B. In other words, we have to look at all the possibilities before we can identify if A really cause B. Lastly, the website and exercises really helped me understand that in casual arguments, there is only one significant difference or significant commodity. What this means is that there is only one cause to the effect. We could go back and find other causes and differences, but that would be too difficult. So we try to find in the casual argument, if there is a strong likelihood of the causation, by identifying one significant commodity or difference. :)