tiberio (01/21/83)
there is no reason to assume just because you always see two events happen in the same order that one event causes the next. the falicy of cause and effect can best be described like this. if our view of the universe can be likened to looking through a picket fence with one slat out (and why not since we have after all only a few fallible senses), then if a cat walks by the other side of the fence first we see the head then the body and finally the tail. the cat could turn around and we would see the same progression. after a while some faulty thinkers might get the impression that the head causes the body which causes the tail. of course nothing could be further fron the truth. the head body and tail are all part of the same thing. so please don't try and prove the existance of god through some contorted cause and effect chain that goes back through time to the `creation'.
CSvax:mab (01/26/83)
Daryl Huff (I'm not too sure about the first name, but the last one's right), in his book How To Lie With Statistics, cites as an example of mistaking cause for effect a belief of one primitive tribe. Seems these people normally had a lot of lice. When they got ill, the lice went away. Their conclusion? Having lice is good for your health. (What actually happened was the increase in body heat made the lice too uncomfortable to stick around ...) Incidentally, I do recommend Huff's book; he has a very good chapter on relating a cause and an effect (whether or not there is some relation!) Matt Bishop mab@purdue, ...!decvax!pur-ee:csvax:mab