CHAPTER 7 CAUSE AND EFFECT

REMOTE CAUSE a cause distant in time from the effect; an event in the distant past that helps cause some effect.

"one might say that the fall of the Bastille was the cause of the French Revolution, but a remote cause was the peasants' suffering in the decades leading up up to that event." Sometimes the remote cause is called the ultimate cause.

COINCIDENCE when two events occur together, perhaps unexpectedly, but not because one causes the other.

"the winning lottery numbers were the same as the first six digits of my social security number: what a coincidence!" "it was a lucky coincidence that i went to the PTA meeting, because i wanted to talk to Becky's parents and they were there."

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMMEDIATE AND REMOTE CAUSE

Everything that happens is connected in many ways with other events, both before and after. some events earlier in time caused the parachute to fail to open, and the spacecraft will have further consequences for NASA. the terms immediate cause and remote cause remind us of those connections.

IMMEDIATE CAUSE

a cause close in time to the effect. "the immediate cause of the explosion was a spark created by faulty wiring." sometimes the immediate cause is called the proximate cause

SUFFICIENT CONDITION

a condition or event which guarantees the occurrence of some other condition or event. "A sufficient condition for the water to freeze was that the temperature fell below 0 degrees centigrade." in other words, if the temperature fell below 0 degrees, then you know that the water froze.

NECESSARY CONDITION

a condition or event which has to be present before some other condition or event can occur. "the paper in the vacuum chamber wouldn't burn because there was no oxygen, and oxygen is a necessary condition for fire." in other words, if something burns, you know that oxygen had to be present.

LONG-TERM EFFECT

an effect of some cause that occurs long after cause has already happened. "a long-term effect of taking cocaine is becoming dependent on the drug and feeling panicky and desperate without it."

SHORT-TERM EFFECT

an effect of some cause that occurs soon after the cause. "a short-term effect of taking cocaine is feeling confident and energetic."

the main thing to keep in mind in thinking about causes and effect is that they are not simple. the relation of cause and effect is almost always more complicated than it first appears.

if you get into the habit of keeping those complications in mind, and not oversimplifying matters, you will be a better thinker

it's true that if we aren't being careful we can say something like "Elizabeth caused the team to win" or "Elizabeth is responsible for the win today."but what we really mean is that Elizabeth's action--hitting a home run or scoring a goal-caused the team to win.

it's true that, since we can compare any two things, we can compare events, so similarity and difference can be a relation between events, as well as between other things. but cause and effect is always a relation between events, not between people or objects.

WHY IS THE WORD COINCIDENCE IS A NEGATIVE WORD?

like odorless, unqualified, or irrelevant. it tells us what something is not. specifically, it tells us that an event is not a cause or effect of some other event, even though it may appear to be.

CONTRIBUTING FACTOR

one event or condition out of several that all together produce some effect. "the weather was a contributing factor in the plane crash." other factors were pilot fatigue and poor maintenance of the aircraft." "one contributing factor to heart disease is too much saturated fat in the diet."

CAUSE AND EFFECT is a different kind of relationship. For one thing, cause and effect are related in time. A cause always comes before its effect.if the attack on the World Trade Center caused the United States to invade Afghanistan, then the attack had to come first, before the invasion.

or we can think about changes over time, and look for patterns in those changes. cause and effect is a relationship in time. Another difference between these two kinds of relationships is that cause and effect is a relationship between events, not people or objects.