Wesley C. Salmon, Logic (1984).
CHAPTER THREE
Induction
Induction
Inductive arguments, unlike deductive arguments, provide conclusions whose content exceeds that of their premises. It is precisely this characteristic that makes inductive arguments useful; at the same time, it gives rise to extremely difficult philosophical problems in the analysis of the concept of inductive support. In spite of these difficulties we can -- without becoming involved in great philosophical subtleties -- set out and examine some important forms of inductive argument and some common inductive fallacies. Beginning with the simplest kind of inductive generalization, we shall consider a number of different types of inductive arguments, including analogy, causal reasoning, and the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Arguments of these sorts underlie almost all of our knowledge, from the most basic levels of common sense to rather sophisticated realms of science.
The fundamental purpose of arguments inductive or deductive, is to establish true conclusions on the basis of true premises. We want our arguments to have true conclusions if they have true premises. As we have seen, valid deductive arguments necessarily have that characteristic. Inductive arguments, however, have another purpose as well. They are designed to establish conclusions whose content goes beyond the content of the premises. To do this, inductive arguments must sacrifice the necessity of deductive arguments. Unlike a valid deductive argument, a logically correct inductive argument may have true premises and a false conclusion. Nevertheless, even though we cannot guarantee that the conclusion of an inductive argument is true if the premises are true, still, the premises of a correct inductive argument do support or lend weight to the conclusion. In other words, as we said in section 4, if the premises of a valid deductive argument are true, the conclusion must be true; if the premises of a correct inductive argument are true, the best we can say is that the conclusion is probably true.
As we also pointed out in section 4, deductive arguments are either completely valid or else totally invalid; there are no degrees of partial validity. We shall reserve the term "valid" for application to deductive arguments: we shall continue to use the term "correct" to evaluate inductive arguments. There are certain errors that can render inductive arguments either absolutely or practically worthless. We shall refer to these errors as inductive fallacies. If an inductive argument is fallacious, its premises do not support its conclusion. On the other hand, among correct inductive arguments there are degrees of strength or support. The premises of a correct inductive argument may render the conclusion extremely probable, moderately probable, or probable to some extent. Consequently, the premises of a correct inductive argument, if true, constitute reasons of some degree of strength, for accepting the conclusion.
There is another diflerence between inductive and deductive arguments that is closely related to those already mentioned. Given a valid deductive argument, we may add as many premises as we wish without destroying its validity. This fact is obvious. The original argument is such that, if its premises are true, its conclusion must be true; this characteristic remains no matter how many premises are added as long as the original premises are not taken away. By contrast, the degree of support of the conclusion by the premises of an inductive argument can be increased or decreased by additional evidence in the form of additional premises. Since the conclusion of an inductive argument may be false even though the premises are true, additional relevant evidence may enable us to determine more reliably whether the conclusion is, indeed, true or false. Thus, it is a general characteristic of inductive arguments, which is completely absent from deductive arguments, that additional evidence may be relevant to the degree to which the conclusion is supported. Where inductive arguments are concerned, additional evidence may have crucial importance.
In the succeeding sections of this chapter we shall discuss several correct types of inductive argument and several fallacies. Before beginning this discussion, it is important to mention a fundamental problem concerning inductive correctness. The philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1749) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), pointed to serious difficulties that arise in trying to prove the correctness of inductive arguments. At the present time there is still considerable controversy about this problem -- usually called "the problem of the justification of induction." Experts disagree widely about the nature of inductive correctness, about whether Hume's problem is a genuine one, and about the methods of showing that a particular type of inductive argument is correct.1 In spite of this controversy, there is a reasonable amount of agreement about which types of inductive argument are correct. We shall not enter into the problem of the justification of induction: rather, we shall attempt to characterize some of the types of inductive argument about which there is fairly general agreement.
1 My dialogue, "An Encounter with David Hume," in Joel Feinberg, ed.. Reason and Responsibility, 3rd ed. (New York: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1975) attempts to set forth in elementary terms Hume's problem of the justification of induction and place it in a modern context. See also my Foundations of Scientific Inference (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967) for an introductory treatment of this and other problems lying at the basis of inductive logic.
By far the simplest type of inductive argument is induction by enumeration. In arguments of this type, a conclusion about all of the members of the class is drawn from premises that refer to observed members of that class.
| a] | Suppose we have a barrel of coffee beans. After mixing them up, we remove a sample of beans, taking parts of the sample from different parts of the barrel. Upon examination, the beans in the sample are all found to be grade A. We then conclude that all of the beans in the barrel are grade A. |
This argument may be written as follows:
| b] | All beans in the observed sample are grade A. |
| ∴ | All beans in the barrel are grade A. |
The premise states the information about the observed members of the class of beans in the barrel; the conclusion is a statement about all of the members of that class. It is a generalization based upon the observation of the sample.
It is not essential for the conclusion of an induction by enumeration to have the form "All F are G." Frequently, the conclusion will state that a certain percentage of F are G. For example,
| c] | Suppose we have another barrel of coffee beans, and we take a sample from it as in a. Upon examination, we find that 75 percent of the beans in the sample are grade A. We conclude that 75 percent of all of the beans in the barrel are grade A. |
This argument is similar to b.
| d] | 75 percent of the beans in the observed sample are grade A. |
| ∴ | 75 percent of the beans in the barrel are grade A. |
Both b and d share the same form. Since "all" means "100 percent," the form of both arguments may be given as follows:
| e] | Z percent of the observed members of F are G. |
| ∴ | Z percent of F are G. |
This is the general form of induction by enumeration. If the conclusion . "100 percent of F are G" (i.e., "All F are G") or "0 percent of F are G" (i.e., "No F are G"), it is a universal generalization. If Z is some percentage other than 0 or 100, the conclusion is a statistical generalization.
Here are some additional examples of induction by enumeration.
| f] | A public opinion pollster questions 5,000 people in the United States to ascertain their opinions about the desirability of a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion. Of those questioned, 62 percent are opposed. The pollster concludes that approximately 62 percent of the people in the United States oppose adoption of such an amendment. |
| g] | In a certain factory, there is a machine that produces can openers. An inspector examines one-tenth of all the can openers produced by this machine. In this sample, the inspector finds that 2 percent of the can openers are defective. The management concludes, on the basis of this information, that 2 percent (approximately) of the can openers produced by the machine are defective. |
| h] | A great deal of everyday commonsense learning from experience consists in making inductions by enumeration. All observed fires have been hot; we conclude that all fires are hot. Every instance of drinking water when one is thirsty has resulted in the quenching of thirst; future drinking of water when thirsty will result in the quenching of thirst. Every lemon so far tasted has been sour; future lemons will taste sour. |
It is evident that induction by enumeration can easily yield false conclusions from true premises. For example,
| i] | Europeans had, for centuries before the discovery of Australia, observed countless swans, and all that they had ever seen were white. They concluded, quite reasonably that all swans are white. This inductive generalisation turned out to be false, for black swans were found in Australia. |
We should not be surprised that such failures of induction by enumeration sometimes occur, for this possibility is characteristic of all types of inductive argument. All we can do is try to construct our inductive arguments in a way that will minimize the chances of false conclusions from true premises. In particular, there are two specific ways to lessen the chances of error in connection with induction by enumeration; that is, there are two inductive fallacies to be avoided. They will be taken up in the next two sections.
The fallacy of insufficient statistics is the fallacy of making an inductive generalization before enough data have been accumulated to warrant the generalization. It might well be called "the fallacy of jumping to a conclusion."
| a] | In examples a and c of the preceding section, suppose the observed samples had each consisted of only four coffee beans. These surely would not have been enough data to make a reliable generalization. On the other hand, a sample of several thousand beans would be large enough for a much more reliable generalization. |
| b] | A public opinion pollster who interviewed only ten people could hardly be said to have enough evidence to warrant any conclusion about the general climate of opinion in the nation. |
| c] | A person who refuses to buy an automobile of a certain make because he knows someone who owned a "lemon" is probably making a generalization, on the basis of exceedingly scanty evidence, about the frequency with which the manufacturer in question produces defective automobiles. |
| d] | People who are prone to prejudice against racial, religious, or national minorities are often given to sweeping generalizations about all of the members of a given group on the basis of observation of two or three cases. |
It is easy to see that the foregoing examples are all too typical of mistakes made every day by all kinds of people. The fallacy of insufficient statistics, is a common one indeed. It is closely related to the post hoc fallacy (see section 29).
It would be convenient if we could set down some definite number and say that we always have enough data if the examined instances exceed this number. Unfortunately, this cannot be done. The number of instances that constitute sufficient statistics varies from case to case, from one area of investigation to another. Sometimes two or three instances may be enough; sometimes millions may be required. How many cases are sufficient can be learned only by experience in the particular area of investigation under consideration.
There is another factor that influences the problem of how many cases are needed. Any number of instances constitutes some evidence; the question at issue is whether we have sufficient evidence to draw a conclusion. This depends in part upon what degree of reliability we desire. If very little is at stake -- if it does not matter much if we are wrong -- then we may be willing to generalize on the basis of relatively few instances. If a great deal is at stake, then we require much more evidence.
It is important not only to have a large enough number of instances but also to avoid selecting them in a way that will prejudice the outcome. If inductive generalizations are to be reliable, they must be based upon representative samples. Unfortunately, we can never be sure that our samples are genuinely representative, but we can do our best to avoid unrepresentative ones. The fallacy of biased statistics consists of basing an inductive generalization upon a sample that is known to be unrepresentative or one that there is good reason to suspect may be unrespresentative.
| a] | In example a of section 20; it was important to mix up the beans in the barrel before selecting our sample; otherwise there would be danger of getting an unrepresentative sample. It is entirely possible that someone might have filled the barrel almost full of low-quality beans, putting a small layer of high-quality beans on top. By mixing the barrel thoroughly we overcome the danger of taking an unrepresentative sample for a reason of that kind. |
| b] | Many people disparage the ability of the weather forecaster to make accurate predictions. Perhaps the forecaster has a legitimate complaint when she says, "When I'm right no one remembers; when I'm wrong no one forgets." |
| c] | Racial, religious, or national prejudice is often bolstered by biased statistics. An undesirable characteristic is attributed to a minority group. Then all cases in which a member of the group manifests this characteristic are carefully noted and remembered, whereas those cases in which a member of the group fails to manifest the undesirable characteristic are completely ignored. |
| d] | Francis Bacon (1561-1626) gives a striking example of biased statistics in the following passage: "The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of, those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, -- 'Aye,' asked he again, 'But where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?' And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass then by."2 |
What Bacon noticed centuries ago still happens frequently today:
| e] | The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on June 22, 1982, carried a front-page story about a couple who had won a large prize in the Pennsylvania lottery. "Dorothy Thomas had discovered earlier in the day that she and her husband were the winners of last week's Pennsylvania Lotto game and its $5.5 million prize, the largest sum ever won in a lottery in the United States. |
"Mrs. Thomas literally consulted the stars in selecting the six winning numbers.
" 'I just picked the birth dates for our four kids, my husband and myself,' she said.
"For the record, it was a combination of two Capricorns and one each Gemini, Libra, Taurus and Virgo. . . . So much for the disrepute of astrology and its practitioners." (Italics added.)
| f] | In 1936 the Literary Digest conducted a pre-election poll to predict the outcome of the Roosevelt-Landon contest. About ten million ballots were sent out and over two-and-a-quarter million were returned. The Literary Digest poll did not commit the fallacy of insufficient statistics, for the number of returns constitutes an extremely large sample. However, the results were disastrous. The poll predicted a victory for Landon and forecast only 80 percent of the votes Roosevelt actually received. Shortly thereafter, the magazine and its poll, which had cost about a half-million dollars, folded. There were major sources of bias. First, the names of people to be polled were taken mainly from lists of telephone subscribers and lists of automobile registrations. Other studies showed that 59 percent of telephone subscribers and 56 percent of automobile owners favored Landon, whereas only 18 percent of those on relief favored him. Second, there is a bias in the group of people who voluntarily returned questionnaires mailed out to them. This bias probably reflects the difference in economic classes which was operating in the first case. Even in those cases in which the Literary Digest used lists of voter registrations, the returns showed a strong bias for Landon.3 |
The most blatant form of the fallacy of biased statistics occurs when one simply closes one's eyes to certain kinds of evidence, usually evidence unfavorable to a belief one holds. Examples b and c illustrate the fallacy in this crude form. In other cases, especially f, subtler issues are involved. However, there is one procedure generally designed to lessen the chances of getting a sample that is not representative. The instances examined should differ as widely as possible, as long as they are relevant. If we are concerned to establish a conclusion of the form "Z percent of F are G," then our instances, to be relevant, must all be members of F. One way to attempt to avoid a biased sample is to exarmine as wide a variety of members of F as possible. In addition, if we can know what percentage of all the members of F are of various kinds, we can see to it that our sample reflects the makeup of the whole class. This is what many public opinion polls try to do.
| g] | In order to predict the outcome of an election, a public opinion poll will interview a certain number of rural voters and a certain number of urban voters; a certain number of upper-class, middle-class, and lower-class voters; a certain number of voters from the different sections of the country; etc. In this way a variety of instances is accumulated, and furthermore, this variety in the sample reflects the percentages in the makeup of the whole voting population. |
We have discussed the fallacies of insufficient statistics and biased statistics as errors to be avoided in connection with induction by enumeration. Essentially the same sort of fallacy can occur with any sort of inductive argument. It is always possible to accept an inductive conclusion on the basis of too little evidence, and it is always possible for inductive evidence to be biased. We must, therefore, be on the lookout for these fallacies in all kinds of inductive arguments.
2 Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, aphorism xlvi. Italics added.
3 See Mildred Parten, Surveys, Polls, and Samples (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1950), pp. 24f and 392f. Adapted by permission.
If often happens that a conclusion established by one argument is used as a premise in another argument. In example a of section 20 we concluded, using induction by enumeration, that all the coffee beans in a certain barrel are grade A. Using that conclusion as a premise of a quasi-syllogism (section 14), we may conclude that the next coffee bean drawn from the barrel will be grade A.
| a] | All beans in the barrel are grade A.
The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is a bean in the barrel. |
| ∴ | The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is grade A. |
In this example, the conclusion of the previous induction by enumeration is a universal generalization. However, if the conclusion of the previous induction is a statistical generalization, we obviously cannot construct the same type of deductive argument. In this case, we can construct an inductive argument of the type called statistical syllogism (because of a resemblance to categorical syllogism). In example c of section 20 we concluded, using induction by enumeration, that 75 percent of the coffee beans in a certain barrel are grade A. We can use this conclusion as a premise and construct the following argument:
| b] | 75 percent of the beans in the barrel are grade A.
The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is a bean in the barrel. |
| ∴ | The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is grade A. |
Obviously, the conclusion of argument b could be false even if the premises are true. Nevertheless, if the first premise is true and we use the same type of argument for each of the beans in the barrel, we will get a true conclusion in 75 percent of these arguments and a false conclusion in only 25 percent of them. On the other hand, if we were to conclude from these premises that the next bean to be drawn will not be grade A, we would get false conclusions in 75 percent of such arguments and true conclusions in only 25 percent of them. Clearly it is better to conclude that the next bean will be grade A than to conclude that it will not be grade A. (Even if we are not willing to assert that the next bean will be grade A, we could reasonably be prepared to bet on it at odds somewhere near three to one.) The form of the statistical syllogism may be represented as follows:
| c] | Z percent of F are G.
x is F. |
| ∴ | x is G. |
The strength of the statistical syllogism depends upon the value of Z. If Z is very close to 100, we have a very strong argument; that is, the premises very strongly support the conclusion. If Z equals 50, the premises offer no support for the conclusion, for the same premises would equally support the conclusion "x is not G." If Z is less than 50, the premises do not support the conclusion; rather, they support the conclusion "x is not G." If Z is close to zero, the premises offer strong support for the conclusion "x is not G."
The first premise of a statistical syllogism may be stated in terms of an exact numerical value for Z, but in many cases it will be a less exact statement. The following kinds of statement are also acceptable as first premises in statistical syllogisms:
| d] | Almost all F are G.
The vast majority of F are G. Most F are G. A high percentage of F are G. There is a high probability that an F is a G. |
You may feel uneasy about arguments like b in which the conclusion is given without qualification; perhaps you feel that the conclusion should read, "The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is probably grade A." In order to deal with this problem, reconsider argument a, which might be rendered less formally:
| e] | Since all of the beans in the barrel are grade A, the next bean to be drawn from the barrel must be grade A. |
Obviously, there is no necessity in the mere fact of the next bean being grade A. As we noted earlier, a verb form like "must be" serves to indicate that a statement is the conclusion of a deductive argument. The necessity it indicates is this: If the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. The conclusion of the deductive argument is "The next bean to be drawn from the barrel is grade A", not "The next bean to be drawn from the barrel must be grade A." "Must be" signifies a certain relationship between premises and conclusion; it is not part of the conclusion by itself. Similarly, argument b might be informally stated,
| f] | Since 75 percent of the beans in the barrel are grade A, the next bean to be drawn from the barrel is probably grade A. |
In this case, the term "probably" indicates that an inductive conclusion is being given. Just as "must be" signifies a deductive relation between premises and conclusion in e, so does "probably" signify an inductive relation between premises and conclusion in f. Just as "must be" is not part of the conclusion itself, so is "probably" not part of the conclusion itself.
This point can be further reinforced. Consider the following statistical syllogism:
| g] | The vast majority of 35-year-old American men will survive for three more years.
Henry Smith is a 35-year-old American man. |
| ∴ | Henry Smith will survive for three more years. |
Suppose, however, that Henry Smith has an advanced case of lung cancer. Then we can set forth the following statistical syllogism as well:
| h] | The vast majority of people with advanced cases of lung cancer will not survive for three more years.
Henry Smith has an advanced case of lung cancer. |
| ∴ | Henry Smith will not survive for three more years. |
The premises of g and h could all be true; they are not incompatible with each other. The conclusions of g and h contradict each other. This situation can arise only with inductive arguments. If two valid deductive arguments have compatible premises, they cannot have incompatible conclusions. The situation is not noticeably improved by adding "probably" as a qualifier in the conclusions of g and h. It would still be contradictory to say that Henry Smith probably will, and probably will not, survive for three more years. Given two arguments like g and h, which should we accept? Both arguments have correct inductive form and both have true premises. However, we cannot accept both conclusions, for to do so would be to accept a self-contradiction. The difficulty is that neither g nor h embodies all the relevant evidence concerning the survival of Henry Smith. The premises of g state only part of our evidence, and the premises of A state only part of our evidence. However, it will not be sufficient simply to combine the premises of g and h to construct a new argument:
| i] | The vast majority of 35-year-old American men will survive for three more years.
The vast majority of people with advanced cases of lung cancer will not survive for three more years. Henry Smith is a 35-year-old American man with an advanced case of lung cancer. |
| ∴ | ? |
From the premises of i we cannot draw any conclusion, even inductively, concerning Henry Smith's survival. For all we can conclude, either deductively or inductively, from the first two premises of i, 35-year-old American men may be an exceptional class of people with respect to lung cancer. The vast majority of them may survive lung cancer, or the survival rate may be about 50 percent. No conclusion can be drawn. However, we do have further evidence. We know that 35-year-old American men are not so exceptional; the vast majority of 35-year-old American men with advanced cases of lung cancer do not survive for three more years. Thus, we can set up the following statistical syllogism:
| j] | The vast majority of 35-year-old American men with advanced cases of lung cancer do not survive for three more years.
Henry Smith is a 35-year-old American man with an advanced case of lung cancer. |
| ∴ | Henry Smith will not survive for three more years. |
Assuming that the premises of j embody all the evidence we have that is relevant, we may accept the conclusion of j.
We can now see the full force of the remark in section 19 to the effect that additional evidence is relevant to inductive arguments in a way in which it is not relevant to deductive arguments. The conclusion of a deductive argument is acceptable if (1) the premises are true and (2) the argument has a correct form. These two conditions are not sufficient to make the conclusion of an inductive argument acceptable; a further condition must be added. The conclusion of an inductive argument is acceptable if (1) the premises are true, (2) the argument has a correct form, and (3) the premises of the argument embody all available relevant evidence. This last requirement is known as the requirement of total evidence. Inductive arguments that violate condition 3 commit the fallacy of incomplete evidence.
A frequent method of attempting to support a conclusion is to cite some person, institution, or writing that asserts that conclusion. This type of argument has the form
| a] | x asserts p. |
| ∴ | p. |
As this form stands, it is clearly fallacious. Nevertheless, there are correct uses of authority as well as incorrect ones. It would be a sophomoric mistake to suppose that every appeal to authority is illegitimate, for the proper use of authority plays an indispensable role in the accumulation and application of knowledge. If we were to reject every appeal to authority, we would have to maintain, for example, that no one is ever justified in accepting the judgment of a medical expert concerning an illness. Instead, one would have to become a medical expert oneself, and one would face the impossible task of doing so without relying on the results of any other investigators. Instead of rejecting the appeal to authority entirely, we must attempt to distinguish correct from incorrect appeals.
As a matter of fact, we frequently do make legitimate uses of authority. We consult textbooks, encyclopedias, and experts in various fields. In these cases the appeal is justified by the fact that the authority is known to be honest and well informed in the subject under consideration. We often have good grounds for believing that the authority is usually correct. Finally -- and this is a crucial point -- the expert is known to have based his or her judgment upon objective evidence which could, if necessary, be examined and verified by any competent person. Under these conditions, we shall say that the authority is reliable. The appeal to a reliable authority is legitimate, for the testimony of a reliable authority is evidence for the conclusion. The following form of argument is correct:
| b] | x is a reliable authority concerning p.
x asserts p. |
| ∴ | p. |
This form is not deductively valid, for the premises could be true and the conclusion false. Reliable authorities do sometimes make errors. It is, however, inductively correct, for it is a special case of the statistical syllogism. It could be rewritten as follows:
| c] | The vast majority of statements made by x concerning subject S are true.
p is a statement made by x concerning subject S. |
| ∴ | p is true. |
There are a number of ways in which the argument from authority can be misused.
1. The authority may be misquoted or misinterpreted. This is not a logical fallacy but a case of an argument with a false premise; in particular, the second premise, of b is false.
| d] | The authority of Einstein is sometimes summoned to support the theory that there is no such thing as right or wrong except insofar as it is relative to a particular culture. It is claimed that Einstein proved that everything is relative. As a matter of fact, Einstein expounded an important physical theory of relativity, but his theory says nothing whatever about cultures or moral standards. This use of Einstein as an authority is a clear case of misinterpretation of the statements of an authority. |
When a writer cites an authority, the accepted procedure is to document the source so that the readers can, if they wish, check the accuracy of transmission.
2. The authority may have only glamour, prestige, or popularity; even if he or she has competence in some related field of learning, that does not constitute a requirement that such an "authority" must fulfill.
| e] | Testimonials of movie stars and athletes are used to advertise breakfast cereals. |
The aim of such advertising is to transfer the glamour and prestige of these people to the product being advertised. No appeal to evidence of any kind is involved; this is a straightforward emotional appeal. It is, of course, essential to distinguish emotional appeals from logical arguments. Although some athletes who make claims about the nutritional superiority of breakfast foods may have considerable knowledge of human physiology and nutrition, by no means all of them do. What is more important, whether they have knowledge of this sort or not, such expertise is not a qualification for making these endorsements, and the advertising appeal is to athletic prowess rather than scientific knowledge. Insofar as any argument is involved in such testimonials, it is fallacious, for it has the form a rather than the form b. Likewise, when an appeal to authority is made to support a conclusion (rather than to advertise a product), it may be merely an attempt to transfer prestige from the authority to the conclusion.
| f] | As the president of Consolidated Amalgamated said in a recent speech, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, far from being a safeguard of freedom, is a threat to the very legal and political institutions that guarantee us our freedoms. |
An industrial magnate like the president of Consolidated Amalgamated is a person of great prestige but one who can hardly be expected, by virtue of that position, to be an expert in jurisprudence and political theory. Transferring personal prestige to a conclusion is not the same as giving evidence that it is true. This misuse of the argument from authority is clearly an appeal to emotion.
3. Experts may make judgments about something outside their special fields of competence. This misuse is closely akin to the preceding one. The first premise required in b is "x is a reliable authority concerning p." Instead, a different premise is offered, namely, "x is a reliable authority concerning something" (which may have nothing to do with p).
| g] | Einstein is an excellent authority in certain branches of physics, but he is not thereby a good authority in other areas. In the field of social ethics he made many pronouncements, but his authority as a physicist does not carry over. |
Again, a transfer of prestige is involved. Einstein's great prestige as a physicist is attached to his statements on a variety of other subjects.
4. Authorities may express opinions about matters concerning which they could not possibly have any evidence. As we pointed out, one of the conditions of reliable authorities is that their judgments be based upon objective evidence. If p is a statement for which x could not have evidence, then x cannot be a reliable authority concerning p. This point is particularly important in connection with the pronouncements of supposed authorities in religion and morals.
| h] | Moral and religious authorities have often said that certain practices, such as sodomy, are contrary to tfye will of God. It is reasonable to ask how these persons, or any others, could possibly have evidence about what God wills. It is not sufficient to answer that this pronouncement is based upon some other authority, such as a sacred writing, a church father, or an institutional doctrine. The same question is properly raised about these latter authorities as well. |
In this example, also, there is great danger that the appeal to authority is an emotional appeal rather than an appeal to any kind of evidence. In any case, the point is that appeals to authority cannot be supported indefinitely by further appeals to other authorities. At some stage the appeal to authority must end, and evidence of some other sort must be taken into account.
5. Authorities who are equally competent, as far as we can tell, may disagree. In such cases there is no reason to place greater confidence in one than in the other, and people are apt to choose the authority that gives them the answer they want to hear. Ignoring the judgment of opposed authorities is a case of biasing the evidence. When authorities disagree it is time to reconsider the objective evidence upon which the authorities have supposedly based their judgments.
A special form of the argument from authority, known as the argument from consensus, deserves mention. In arguments of this type a large group of people, instead of a single individual, is taken as an authority. Sometimes it is the whole of humanity, sometimes a more restricted group. In either case, the fact that a large group of people agrees with a certain conclusion is taken as evidence that it is true. The same considerations that apply generally to arguments from authority apply to arguments from consensus.
| i] | There cannot be a perpetual motion machine; competent physicists are in complete agreement on this point. |
This argument may be rendered as follows:
| j] | The community of competent physicists is a reliable authority on the possibility of perpetual motion machines.
The community of competent physicists agrees that a perpetual motion machine is impossible. |
| ∴ | A perpetual motion machine is impossible. |
The argument from consensus is seldom as reasonable as j. More often it is a blatant emotional appeal.
| k] | Every right-thinking American knows that national sovereignty must be protected against the inroads of international organizations like the United Nations. |
The force of the argument, if it merits the name, is that a person who supports the United Nations is not a right-thinking American. There is a strong emotional appeal for many Americans to be members of the group of right-thinking Americans.
The classic example of an argument from consensus is an argument for the existence of God.
| l] | In all times and places, in every culture and civilization, people have believed in the existence of some sort of deity. Therefore, a supernatural being must exist. |
Two considerations must be raised. First, is there any reason for regarding the whole of humanity as a theological authority, even if the alleged agreement exists? Second, on what evidence has the whole of mankind come to the conclusion that God exists? As we have seen, reliable authorities must base their judgment upon objective evidence. In view of this fact, the argument from consensus cannot be the only ground for believing in the existence of God, for if it were it would be logically incorrect.
To sum up, arguments of form b are inductively correct, and those of form a are fallacious. Fallacious appeals to authority are usually appeals to emotion rather than appeals to evidence.
25. ARGUMENT AGAINST THE PERSON
The argument against the person4 is a type of argument that concludes that a statement is false because it was made by a certain person. It is closely related to the argument from authority, but it is negative rather than positive. In the argument from authority, the fact that a certain person asserts p is taken as evidence that p is true. In the argument against the person, the fact that a certain person asserts p is taken as evidence that p is false.
In analyzing the argument from authority, we saw that it could be put into an inductively correct form, a special case of the statistical syllogism. To do so, it was necessary to include a premise of the form "x is a reliable authority concerning p." We discussed the characteristics of reliable authorities. The argument against the person can be handled similarly. To accomplish this end we need an analogous premise involving the concept of a reliable anti-authority. A reliable anti-authority about a given subject is a person who almost always makes false statements about that subject. We have the following inductively correct argument form:
| a] | x is a reliable anti-authority concerning p.
x asserts p. |
| ∴ | Not-p (i.e., p is false). |
Like the argument from authority, this is also a special case of the statistical syllogism. It could be rewritten:
| b] | The vast majority of statements made by x concerning subject S are false.
p is a statement made by x concerning subject S. |
| ∴ | p is false. |
It must be emphasized that a reliable anti-authority is not merely someone who fails to be a reliable authority. A person who is not a reliable authority cannot be counted upon to be right most of the time. This is far different from being consistently wrong. An unreliable authority is a person who cannot be counted upon at all. The fact that such a person makes a statement is evidence for neither its truth nor its falsity.
Schema a is, as we have said, inductively correct, but whether it has any utility depends upon whether there are any reliable anti-authorities. It will be useless if we can never satisfy the first premise. Although there are not many cases in which we can say with assurance that a person is a reliable anti-authority, there does seem to be at least one kind of reliable anti-authority, namely, scientific cranks.5 They can be identified by several characteristics.
- They usually reject, in wholesale fashion, all of established science or some branch of it.
- They are usually ignorant of the science they reject.
- The accepted channels of scientific communication are usually closed to them. Their theories are seldom published in scientific journals or presented to scientific societies.
- They regard opposition of scientists to their views as a result of the prejudice and bigotry of scientific orthodoxy.
- Their opposition to established science is usually based upon a real or imagined conflict between science and some extrascientific doctrine -- religious, political, or moral.
A "scientific" theory propounded by a person who has the foregoing characteristics is very probably false.
Great scientific innovators propose theories that are highly unorthodox and they meet with strenuous opposition from the majority of scientists at the time. Nevertheless, they are not cranks, according to our criteria. For instance, highly original scientific theorists are, contrary to characteristic 2, thoroughly familiar with the theories they hope to supersede. Furthermore, we must note, deductive validity has not been claimed for schema a. The fact that a statement is made by a reliable anti-authority does not prove conclusively that it is false. We cannot claim with certainty that no scientific crank will ever produce a valuable scientific result.
Although the argument against the person does have the inductively correct form a, it is frequently misused. These misuses are usually substitutions of emotional appeal for logical evidence. Instead of showing that someone who makes a statement is a reliable anti-authority, the misuser vilifies the person by attacking that person's personality, character, or background. The first premise of a is replaced by an attempt to arouse negative feelings. For example,
| c] | In the 1930s the Communist party in Russia rejected the genetic theories of Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk, as "bourgeois idealism." A party orator who said "The Mendelian theory must be regarded as the product of a monkish bourgeois mind" would be guilty of a fallacious use of the argument against the person. |
Clearly, the national, social, and religious background of the originator of a theory is irrelevant to its truth or falsity. Being an Austrian monk does not make Mendel a reliable anti-authority in genetics. The condemnation of the Mendelian theory on these grounds is an obvious case of arousing negative emotions rather than providing negative evidence. It is also an instance of the genetic fallacy (section 3). A subtler form of the same fallacy may be illustrated as follows:
| d] | Someone might claim that there is strong psychoanalytic evidence in Plato's philosophical writings that he suffered from an unresolved oedipal conflict and that his theories can be explained in terms of this neurotic element in his personality. It is then suggested that Plato's philosophical theories need not be taken seriously because they are thus explained. |
Even if we assume that Plato had an Oedipus complex, the question still remains whether his philosophical doctrines are true. They are not explained away on these psychological grounds. Having an Oedipus complex does not make anyone a reliable anti-authority.
Just as the argument from consensus is a special form of the argument from authority, similarly there is a negative argument from consensus which is a special form of the argument against the person. According to this form of argument, a conclusion is to be rejected if it is accepted by a group that has negative prestige. For example,
| e] | Chinese Communists believe that married women should have the right to use their own family names. |
| ∴ | Married women should be compelled to adopt the family names of their husbands. |
This argument is clearly an attempt to arouse negative attitudes toward some aspects of women's liberation.
There is one fundamental principle that applies both to the argument from authority and to the argument against the person. If there is objectively, a strong probability relation between the truth or falsity of a statement and the kind of person who made it, then that relation can be used in a correct inductive argument. It becomes the first premise in a statistical syllogism. Any argument from the characteristics of the person who made a statement to the truth or falsity of the statement, in the absence of such a probability relation, is invariably incorrect. These fallacious arguments are often instances of the genetic fallacy (section 3). Example c of section 3, as well as example c of this section, illustrates this point.
4 The argument against the person is closely related to, but not identical with the traditional arsumentum ad hominem. This departure from tradition is motivated by the symmetry between the argument from authority and the argument against the person, and by the fact that the argument against the person is reducible to statistical syllogism.
5 For interesting discussions of many scientific cranks, see Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1957).
Analogy, a widely used form of inductive argument, is based upon a comparison between objects of two different types. This is how it works. Objects of one kind are known to be similar in certain respects to objects of another kind. Objects of the first kind are known to have a certain characteristic; it is not known whether objects of the second kind have it or not. By analogy we conclude that, since objects of the two kinds are alike in some respects, they are alike in other respects as well. Therefore, objects of the second kind also have the additional property that those of the first kind are already known to possess. For example,
| a] | Canadian medical researchers conducted experiments upon rats to determine the effects of saccharin upon humans. They found that a significantly greater percentage of rats that had been given large quantities of saccharin developed cancer of the bladder than did those that had not been given any saccharin. By analogy, many experts have concluded that, since rats and humans are physiologically similar in various respects, saccharin poses a threat of bladder cancer to humans who use it as an artificial sweetener. It is for this reason that your favorite diet soft drink carries a warning.6 |
This kind of argument may be schematized as follows:
| b] | Objects of type X have properties G, H, etc.
Objects of type Y have properties G, H, etc. Objects of type X have property F. Objects of type Y have property F. |
In argument a, rats are objects of type X, and humans are objects of type Y. G, H, etc., are the physiological properties rats and humans have in common. F is the property of developing bladder cancer upon consumption of large quantities of saccharin. (The fact that only some, but not all, rats developed bladder cancer does not undermine the analogy; saccharin increases the chances of bladder cancer in rats, and so it is a reasonable inference that it will have the same effect upon humans.)
Like other kinds of inductive arguments, analogies may he strong or weak. The strength of an analogy depends principally upon the similarities between the two types of objects being compared. Any two kinds of objects are alike in many respects and unlike in many others. The crucial question for analogical arguments is this: Are the objects that are being compared similar in ways that are relevant to the argument? To whatever extent there are relevant similarities, the analogy is strengthened. To whatever extent there are relevant dissimilarities, the analogy is weakened. Rats and humans are very dissimilar in many ways, but the question at issue in a is a physiological one, so that the physiological similarities are important and the nonphysiological dissimilarities are unimportant to the particular argument.
It is not easy to state with precision, in a general way, what constitutes relevance or irrelevance of similarities or differences. The question is, what kinds of similarities or differences are likely to make a difference to the phenomenon under consideration? Our common sense tells us that the fact that both rats and humans are mammals is apt to be an important similarity where the physiological effects of saccharin are concerned. We might well wonder whether the fact that rats are four-legged animals whereas humans are two-legged could be relevant. We might be fairly confident that the possession of tails by rats and the lack of them in humans is irrelevant. We can be pretty sure that the fact that male rats do not wear neckties whereas some human males do is totally irrelevant. Of course, the scientists who conduct physiological experiments have a considerable body of background knowledge and experience that enables them to make informed judgments regarding relevance and irrelevance. Experimentation with laboratory animals is an established procedure in the biomedical sciences; its values and limitations are well known.
Here are some additional analogies.
| c] | Archaeologists, excavating a site where prehistoric people lived, find a number of stones that are similar in shape, and which could not have acquired that shape unless they had been fashioned by humans. Although these stones do not have attached handles, the archaeologists notice that they have about the same shape as axheads used by primitive people today. It is inferred, by analogy, that these stones served the prehistoric people as axheads. The handles are missing because the wood has rotted away. |
Archaeologists who make analogical inferences of this sort must attempt to evaluate both the similarities between the ancient stones and the modern axheads and also the similarities between the prehistoric culture and the primitive culture in which stone axes are used today.
| d] | Some pacifists have argued, along the following lines, that war can never be a means for bringing about peace, justice, or brotherhood. If you plant wheat, wheat comes up. If you plant corn, you get corn. If you plant thistles, you don't expect to get strawberries. Likewise, if you plant hatred and murder, you can't expect to get peace, justice, and brotherhood. "Fighting for peace is like fornicating for chastity" seems to be a concise formulation of this argument. |
The enormous dissimilarities between the kinds of "planting" in this example make a very weak analogy.
The design argument -- probably the most widely used argument for the existence of God -- is often given explicitly in the form of an analogy.
| e] | "I [Cleanthes] shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look around the world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of men; though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work, which he has executed. By this argument . . . alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence."7 |
The evaluation of this analogy is a complex matter which we shall not undertake. Hume's Dialogues provide an extremely illuminating analysis of this argument. In the same place, Hume gives some additional examples.
| f] | "... whenever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of cases, you diminish proportionately the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes place in Titius and Maevius; but from its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker, when we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our experience, that the blood circulates in animals; and those, who hastily followed that imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments, to have been mistaken."8 |
Analogical arguments abound in philosophical literature. We shall conclude by mentioning two additional examples of great importance.
| g] | Plato's dialogues contain an abundance of analogical arguments; the analogy is one of Socrates' favorite forms. In The Republic, for example, many of the subsidiary arguments that occur along the way are analogies. In addition, the major argument of the whole work is an analogy. The nature of justice in the individual is the main concern of the book. In order to investigate this problem, justice in the state is examined at length -- for this is justice "writ large." On the basis of an analogy between the state and the individual, conclusions are drawn concerning justice in the individual. |
| h] | Analogy has often been used to deal with the philosophical problem of other minds. The problem is this. One is directly aware of one's own state of consciousness, such as a feeling of pain, but one cannot experience another person's state of mind. If we believe, as we all do, that other people have experiences similar in many ways to our own, it must be on the basis of inference. The argument used to justify our belief in other minds is regarded as an analogy. Other people behave as if they experience thought, doubt, joy, pain and other states of mind. Their behavior is similar to our own manifestations of such mental states. We conclude by analogy that these manifestations are due, in others as in ourselves, to states of consciousness. In this way we seek to establish the existence of other minds besides our own. |
The argument by analogy illustrates once more the important bearing upon inductive arguments of information in addition to that given in the premises. To evaluate the strength of an analogy it is necessary to determine the relevance of the respects in which the objects of different kinds are similar. Relevance cannot be determined by logic alone -- the kind of relevance at issue in analogical arguments involves factual information. Biological knowledge must be brought to bear to determine what similarities and differences are relevant to a biological question such as example a. Anthropological information is required to determine the relevant similarities and differences with respect to an anthropological question such as example c. These arguments, like most inductive arguments, occur in the presence of a large background of general knowledge, and this general knowledge must be brought into consideration to evaluate the strength of analogies. Failure to take it into account is a violation of the requirement of total evidence.
6 For an excellent analysis of this example, see Ronald N. Giere, Understanding Scientific Reasoning (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1979), chap. 12.
7 David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part II.
8 Ibid.
Our general background of scientific and commonsense knowledge includes information about a great many causal relations. Such knowledge serves as a basis for inferences from what we directly observe to events and objects that are not available for immediate observation, it enters into causal explanations, and it is a necessary adjunct to rational action. For example,
| a] | A body is fished out of the river, and the medical examiner performs an autopsy to determine the cause of death. By examining the contents of the lungs and stomach, analyzing the blood, and inspecting other organs, she finds that death was caused, not by drowning, but by poison. Her conclusion is based on extensive knowledge of the physical effects or various substances, such as arsenic and water. |
This is a case of inferring the causes when the effects have been observed. Conversely, there are cases in which effects are inferred from observed causes.
| b] | A ranger observes lightning striking a dry forest. On the basis of his causal knowledge, he infers that a fire will ensue. |
Causal knowledge also enables us to exercise some degree of control over events that occur in the world. Sometimes, for example, it is within our power to bring about a cause that will, in turn, produce a desired effect.
| c] | The highway department spreads salt on icy roads to cause the ice to melt, thereby reducing the risk of highway accidents. |
In other cases, our aim is to prevent occurrences of an undesirable sort. Causal knowledge makes this possible as well.
| d] | Careful investigations are conducted to ascertain the causes of airline crashes in order to prevent such accidents from happening in the future. In a recent case, for example, an airplane taking off from Washington National Airport failed to gain sufficient altitude to clear a bridge and crashed into the Potomac River. Preliminary investigation suggested that the cause was a buildup of ice on the surfaces of the wings. Since airplanes derive their lift from the passage of air over wings having the shape of airfoils, an accumulation of ice that radically alters the shape of the wing surfaces can deprive the airplane of its lift. It is not, incidentally, the weight of the ice that causes the problem; it is the change in shape of the cross-section of the wing that is at fault. More careful de-icing immediately before take off could prevent accidents of this type in the future. |
In example c, as in b, there is an inference from cause to effect on the basis of a knowledge of causal relations. In example d, as in a, the inference is from effect to cause. Moreover, in each of the foregoing examples we have an explanation of the effect. The victim died because poison was ingested, the fire broke out because lightning struck, the ice on the road melted because salt was spread upon it, and the airplane crashed because ice had collected on its wings.
Regardless of the purposes of such inferences, the reliability of the conclusions depends upon the existence of certain causal relations. If, for purposes of logical analysis, we transform these inferences into arguments, we must include premises stating that the appropriate causal relations hold. Consider the following argument:
| e] | Mrs. Smith was frightened by bats during her pregnancy. |
| ∴ | Mrs. Smith's baby will be "marked." |
As it stands, this argument is neither deductively valid nor inductively correct, for it needs a premise stating that there is a causal relation between being frightened and having a "marked" baby. '
| f] | If an expectant mother is frightened, it will cause her baby to be "marked."
Mrs. Smith was frightened by bats during her pregnancy. |
| ∴ | Mrs. Smith's baby will be "marked." |
Now the argument is logically correct; in fact, it is deductively valid. Let us give a similar reconstruction of example b.
| g] | If a bolt of lightning strikes a dry forest, it will ignite the dry wood and cause a fire to start.
A bolt of ligtning has just struck a dry forest. |
| ∴ | A fire will start. |
This argument is also deductively valid
It will be useful for our discussion of causality to note that arguments f and g have premises of two different kinds. The first is a general causal assertion about what happens whenever a condition of a certain kind occurs.
In example f, the first premise makes a claim (which is, of course, false) about what happens when a pregnant woman is frightened. It is stated in a conditional form, but to emphasize the fact that it is not just an ordinary material conditional, the causal relation is explicitly mentioned. The second premise is a particular statement about something that happened to a particular person. Example g has premises of the same two types, but in this latter example, the general premise is at least plausible.
In all of the examples that have been considered so far, it has been supposed that the general causal relations were given, and attention was focused upon the particular cause. In example a, there are many possible causes of death; the medical examiner wants to know which one was present in this particular case. In example d, again, there are many possible causes of an airplane crash, but the investigators want to know which one was responsible for this particular crash.
One striking difference between examples f and g is the fact that the former has an obviously false general premise, whereas the general premise in the latter might well be true. We have reiterated many times that logic is concerned, not with the truth or falsity of the premises, but with the logical structure of the arguments. Nevertheless, it is clear that the reliability of such causal arguments depends upon the existence of causal relations of the sort described by the general causal premise. Given the enormous practical and theoretical importance of knowledge of such causal relations, we must consider the logical character of the kinds of arguments that can be used to establish them. The main purpose of many scientific investigations is to establish just such general causal relations. An interesting historical case illustrates the point.
| h] | During the years 1844-1848, Ignaz Semmelweis was a member of the medical staff of the First Maternity Division of the Vienna General Hospital. He was alarmed to discover that a high percentage of women who had their babies in that division became ill with a serious disease, known as "childbed fever," and many of them died. In 1844, 8.2 percent of the new mothers -- that is, 260 women -- died; in 1845, the death rate was 6.8 percent; and in 1846, 11.4 percent succumbed to the disease. In the Second Maternity Division, located next to the First, the death rate was surprisingly low by comparison -- 2.3 percent, 2.0 percent, and 2.7 percent for the corresponding years. After careful investigation, Semmelweis ascertained that the problem was connected with the fact that the women in the First Division -- unlike those in the Second -- were examined by medical students and physicians who came there directly from the autopsy room, where they had been performing dissections of cadavers. Although the germ theory of disease had not been established at that time, Semmelweis concluded that the disease was caused by the transfer of "putrid matter" on the hands of the examiners from the corpses to the mothers. He believed that the foul odor of this material was a sign of some harmful component, and he knew that chlorinated lime was commonly used to eliminate the odor of decaying matter. Thus he recommended a program of careful hand-washing in chlorinated lime (which, we know today, is a powerful disinfectant) for the examiners. When this program was instituted, the death rate declined to that of the Second Division. This is another case in which knowledge of a causal relation helped to prevent an undesirable effect.9 |
This example illustrates the fundamental distinction between the problem of ascertaining which particular cause was operative and the problem of establishing a general causal relation. In the case of the airplane crash, the investigators are aware of the fundamental physical relationship between the shape of the wing and the lift produced when it moves through air, as well as many other general causal relations that might have been involved. We may say that the general causal laws are known. In this case the problem is to find out which particular cause happened to be operative. In the case of childbed fever, in contrast, Semmelweis did not know any general causal relationship that would connect a particular fact with the effect that concerned him. In this situation it was the ascertainment of the general causal law that was needed.
It would be nice if, at this point, we could produce some rules for the discovery of general causal relations, but as we recall from section 3, Discovery and Justification, logic simply cannot provide any such thing. The best we can hope to do is to furnish methods for the evaluation of arguments designed to justify the claim that a general causal relation exists. A set of methods that serve this purpose is available.
9 A fascinating discussion of this example can be found in Carl G. Hempel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc. [Foundations of Philosophy Series], 1966), chap. 2.
The basic methods for establishing general causal relations that we shall study were propounded in the middle of the nineteenth century by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill. He offered five methods; we shall discuss four of them. They constitute an excellent point of departure for the topic with which we are concerned. After presenting them in their traditional forms, we shall suggest important modifications to bring them up to date.
The first is known as the method of agreement. Consider the following example:
| a] | Suppose you operate a fruit store, and you find that some oranges that look fine on the outside are pulpy and juiceless. You try to learn what causes this condition. You find that it sometimes happens to navel, Valencia, and other varieties of oranges, and sometimes not. You find that it sometimes happens to oranges that have been hauled by truck and sometimes to those that have been transported by train. It happens sometimes to those grown in Florida and sometimes to those from California. You have several different wholesale suppliers, and it sometimes happens to oranges that come from each of them. The one thing they always have in common is that they were subjected to freezing temperatures. You conclude that being frozen is the cause of the defect. |
The general idea behind Mill's method of agreement is this. There is a certain effect whose cause you wish to ascertain. You look for instances of this effect arising in as wide a variety of circumstances as you can find. In this case the effect is the dryness in the oranges. The variety of circumstances refers to the different varieties of oranges, the different modes of transport, the different suppliers, and the different states in which they were grown. The one thing these various cases have in common is the fact that they were subjected to freezing temperatures. We might schematize the method of agreement as follows:
| b] | ABCD → X
ABCE → X ABDF → X ACDG → X where X is the effect whose cause is sought, and A, B, C, D, E, F, G, are the various circumstances.Since A is the only circumstance common to all of the different instances, it is concluded that A is the cause of X. |
The method of agreement must be used with considerable caution. There is an old joke that illustrates the danger:
| c] | A man wants to find out what causes him to get drunk. One night he drinks scotch and soda, another night he drinks bourbon and soda, another night he drinks rye and soda, etc. He concludes that the soda is causing his intoxication. |
What is the problem? The use of Mill's methods (not just the method of agreement) requires us to make certain assumptions. In the first place, we presume that there is some cause of the phenomenon we are investigating, and that we have identified it as one of the items in our schematization. In example a, it was crucial that being subjected to freezing temperatures was among the factors considered. If it had not been included in the list, Mill's method of agreement could never have revealed it as the cause. This shows, incidentally, why Mill's method of agreement is not a method for discovering causes. We have to think of the various conditions that might be causally relevant. If we have included the item in the list, Mill's method of agreement could pick it out of the list of possible candidates. Moreover, as example c shows, causal factors do not come labeled in nature. If we do not realize that alcohol is a possible cause of intoxication and is contained in all different varieties of whiskies, the method of agreement cannot possibly locate the real cause.
Mill's second method is known as the method of difference. Consider the following example:
| d] | You wonder whether drinking coffee in the evening keeps you awake at night. In order to answer this question you perform a small experiment. On two successive Wednesdays you try to do everything the same except for one thing. You attend the same classes during the day, you have exactly the same meals, you do the same amount of studying in the evening, and you watch the same television shows. On one of these two days you have several cups of coffee after dinner, but on the other you cut out the evening coffee. On the night following the evening coffee drinking you have a great deal of trouble getting to sleep, but on the night after omitting the evening coffee you fall asleep immediately after going to bed. You conclude that drinking coffee in the evening does interfere with your sleep. |
The basic idea behind the method of difference is this: We seek the cause of a particular phenomenon -- in this case sleeplessness. We try to find, or we deliberately set up, two similar situations -- one in which the effect is present, the other in which the effect is absent. Suppose it turns out that all factors, except one that might be causally relevant to the effect in question, are the same in both cases, but that one factor is present in the case in which the effect occurs and absent in the case in which the effect does not occur. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the factor that is present in the one case and absent in the other is a cause of the phenomenon under investigation. The method of difference is so called because the factor present in the one case and absent in the other makes the difference between the occurrence and nonoccurrence of the effect.
The method of difference can be represented by the following schema:
| e] | ABCD → X
(not-A) BCD → not-X |
If this schema is applied to example d, "X" stands for sleeplessness, "A" represents the consumption of coffee in the evening, and "B," "C," and "D" stand for such factors as attending the same classes during the day, having the same food to eat during the day, and spending the evening engaged in the same activities. The conclusion is that drinking coffee in the evening does cause a problem in going to sleep at night.
Before going on to consider the next of Mill's methods, it will be worthwhile to pause for a brief comparison of the methods of agreement and difference. The method of agreement should seem rather familiar, for it is very much like induction by enumeration (section 20). We notice that in many cases A is iollowed by X, and we conclude inductively that in all cases, A will be followed by X. The fact that we insist that other factors such as B, C, D, . . . must be varied from one case to another is designed to avoid committing the fallacy of biased statistics (section 22). We say, roughly, that in a large number of instances found in a wide variety of different circumstances A has, without exception, been followed by X; therefore, in all likelihood, future instances of A will be followed by instances of X.
The method of difference does not seem to resemble the method of agreement at all closely. When we apply the method of difference, we show that B, C, D, . . . cannot be causes of X, for those factors can be present even when X is absent. Therefore, we reason, neither B nor C nor D can produce X. This method of approaching causal relations is often called induction by elimination. Neither the evening's study and television, for example, nor the food you had for dinner are the causes of difficulty in going to sleep, for that problem was absent on one of the nights when those factors were present. The elimination of B, C, D, . . . can be regarded as deductive, for we have counterexamples to the statements that B is always followed by X, C is always followed by X, etc. It does not follow deductively that A is always followed by X. The use of the method of difference, like the use of the method of agreement, requires us to suppose that the phenomenon we are investigating has a cause, and that the cause has been included as one of the items represented in the schema. At best, then, A is only established inductively as the causal factor we were seeking.
Toward the end of section 11, we defined the concepts of sufficient condition and necessary condition. We can introduce an analogous (but different -- they must not be confused) distinction between sufficient cause and necessary cause. If A always produces X, we say that A is a sufficient cause of X. If exposure to freezing temperatures always results in pulpy juiceless oranges, then exposure to freezing temperatures is a sufficient cause of pulpy juicelessness. We say that A is a necessary cause of X if X cannot occur in the absence of A. Having an adequate supply of water is a necessary cause for the growth of high-quality oranges; if there is not enough water, the oranges will not be good. Indeed, as we can see from this latter consideration, exposure to freezing temperatures is not a necessary cause of pulpy juicelessness, for that same effect can be a result of an inadequate amount of water.
In many everyday situations, what we would normally regard as a cause is a necessary cause. Turning the switch is necessary to turn on your desk lamp, for example, but it certainly is not sufficient. Turning the switch will not make the light go on if the bulb has burnt out or if the lamp is not plugged in.
It is very easy to see that not all sufficient conditions are sufficient causes, and not all necessary conditions are necessary causes. When we defined sufficient conditions, it will be recalled, we simply used the material conditional p ⊃ q (p. 47), which is true in all cases except that in which p is true and q is false. The material conditional "If Mars is a planet, then grass is green" is true -- Mars being a planet is a sufficient condition of grass being green -- but by no stretch of the imagination could it be considered a sufficient cause. In a parallel fashion, we defined necessary conditions in terms of the material conditional ~p ⊃ ~q. The material conditional "If coal is not black, then Alaska is not a state" is true -- coal being black is a necessary condition of Alaska being a state -- but it obviously is not a necessary cause. There is no causal connection whatever between the motion of Mars and the color of grass, and none between the color of coal and the statehood of Alaska. No one would be likely to become confused in such cases.
If we are talking about cause-effect relations, it is particularly important to be clear about the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions on the one hand and necessary and sufficient causes on the other. If, for example, lighting a fuse is a sufficient cause of the explosion of a bomb, then it is also a sufficient condition for that explosion. Because of the relation of contraposition (p. 24), if p is a sufficient condition of q, then q is a necessary condition of p. You should recall the definition of contraposition and make sure you understand why this relationship between sufficient and necessary conditions holds. By virtue of this fact, then, the explosion of the bomb is a necessary condition of the lighting of the fuse. But the explosion certainly cannot be considered any kind of cause of the lighting of the fuse; it is, instead, an effect. Similarly, if planting seeds in the spring is a necessary cause of harvesting corn in July, it is also a necessary condition. But the corn harvested in July is surely not a sufficient cause of the seed being sewn in April.
With these words of caution about not confusing necessary and sufficient conditions with necessary and sufficient causes firmly in mind, let us return to Mill's methods of agreement and difference. Consider, once again, the example of coffee drinking and sleeplessness, which we used to illustrate the method of difference. You will recall that it was called a method of induction by elimination, for it ruled out as possible sufficient causes of sleeplessness all factors, other than evening coffee drinking, that were mentioned. Thus, if there is a sufficient cause of sleeplessness among the circumstances mentioned, evening consumption of coffee must be it. Sleeplessness failed to occur in one of the cases in which each of the other factors was present. Notice, however, that none of these factors -- other than evening coffee drinking -- was ruled out as a necessary cause, for we did not even consider what would happen if any of them was absent. We might claim to have a slight amount of evidence that evening coffee drinking is a necessary cause of sleeplessness, for we did find one case in which this condition was absent and sleeplessness was also absent, but we would need to consider many more cases in many different circumstances in order to have any reasonable confidence in that conclusion. Perhaps you could say, on the basis of further evidence about your own sleeping patterns, whether difficulty in getting to sleep occurs only after you have been drinking coffee during the evening.
Let us now take another look at the example of pulpy juiceless oranges which we used to illustrate the method of agreement. In that case, we said that we had used something akin to induction by enumeration to establish freezing as a sufficient cause of the defect. It is worth noting, however, that each of the factors mentioned in our schema -- other than exposure to freezing temperatures -- was ruled out as a necessary cause. Being shipped by truck, for example, is not a necessary cause, for some of the pulpy juiceless oranges were transported by train. Similarly, neither the variety of orange, nor the wholesaler from whom they were obtained, nor the state in which they were grown could possibly be a necessary cause. However, as I noted previously, it is not very plausible, in view of additional information that we have, to suppose that exposure to freezing temperatures is the only cause that can produce the defect we are considering.
Although the methods of agreement and difference can be represented by means of neat and simple schemas, I am inclined to believe that most serious investigations of causal relations are somewhat more complicated. As Mill realized, it is possible to combine the two methods to construct a much more sophisticated method. He called it the joint method. Consider the following example:
| f] | It has been found that behind all airplanes, whether jet or propeller driven, there is severe air turbulence. This can be a serious danger to smaller airplanes, especially in the vicinity of major airports where larger aircraft arrive and depart frequently. It is known as wing-tip turbulence, for it consists of a pair of vortices (something like small tornadoes) following behind the tips of the wings. A small private airplane attempting to land soon after a large commercial jetliner could be thrown completely out of control if it encountered the wing-tip turbulence of the jet. The crucial factor in wing-tip turbulence, it has been discovered, is whether the aircraf is actually airborne. Before an airplane leaves the ground -- so that it is being supported by the landing gear rather than the wings -- there is no wing-tip turbulence, and as soon as it touches down in landing -- so that again it is supported by the ground rather than the air -- the turbulence ceases.
We may investigate this phenomenon in the following way. Begin by considering a wide variety of cases in which the turbulence is present. It occurs with different types of aircraft -- large or small planes, jet or propellor planes, different altitudes, different weather conditions, with engine power on or gliding, etc. We find that in all such cases, if the aircraft is being supported by its wings, the turbulence is present. This is an application of the method of agreement, entirely similar in structure to example a. Now, we do the same thing again, but in this phase of the investigation we consider a wide variety of cases in which the phenomenon is absent. We find that they all agree in the circumstance that the weight of the aircraft is not supported by the wings (normally because it is on the ground). This constitutes a second application of the method of agreement. In this part of the investigation it is the fact that the craft is not airborne that is always present when the wing-tip turbulence does not occur. So, we have used the method of agreement twice. When we compare the two uses of the method of agreement, we find that we are essentially using the method of difference. Taken together, all of the cases in which the phenomenon of wing-tip turbulence is present are exactly similar to all of the cases, taken together, in which that phenomenon is absent, except for the fact that in the latter set of cases there is one difference -- the aircraft is not airborne. |
The joint method, which this example illustrates, can be schematized as follows:
| g] | ABCD → X | (not-A) BCD → not-X |
| ABCE → X | (not-A) BCE → not-X | |
| ABDF → X | (not-A) BDF → not-X | |
| ACDG → X | (not-A) CDG → not-X |
Note that each of the two columns is an instance of the method of agreement, and each one of the four horizontal rows is an instance of the method of difference. This is why it is called the joint method.
As I said, it seems to me that the methods of agreement and difference are usually oversimplifications of what actually occurs when causal relations are being investigated. In the case of the defective oranges, for example, we would naturally compare a variety of instances in which the dry pulpy condition did not occur as well as a variety of instances in which it did occur. So example a would naturally be expanded into an application of the joint method. Similarly, if you were interested in determining whether coffee drinking caused you difficulty in going to sleep at night, you would not make just one comparison of two days, as much alike as possible except for the evening consumption of coffee. You would make the same sort of comparison on a number of different kinds of days -- days when you had classes and days on which you had no classes, days when you had meals in the school cafeteria and days on which you ate elsewhere, days on which you stayed home in the evening and days when you went out, etc. Again, the example we introduced to illustrate the method of difference is readily expanded into an instance of the joint method. Schemas b and e, which represent the methods of agreement and difference, respectively, are mainly useful, I think, in showing what goes into the joint method. The joint method is by far the most important of the three.
The fourth of Mill's methods is known as the method of concomitant variation. Here is an interesting historical example of its use:
| h] | A mercury barometer can be made in the following way. Take a long glass tube -- say 36 inches in length -- closed at one end. Fill it with mercury, invert it, and submerge the open end in a dish of mercury. Some of the mercury will run out of the tube, leaving a space of about six inches at the top. In other words, a column of mercury about 30 inches high will remain in the tube. This type of barometer was invented around 1643 by Evangelista Torricelli. Soon after, to prove that the air pressure on the mercury in the dish is what causes the mercury to stay at that height in the tube, Robert Boyle placed a Torricelli barometer in a large container to which he attached a vacuum pump. As the air was pumped out of the container, the level of the mercury in the tube dropped until it finally reached the level of the mercury in the dish. The fact that the mercury is caused to rise in the tube by the pressure of the air is demonstrated by showing that the height of the mercury in the tube varies concomitantly with the changes in air pressure brought about by evacuating the container in which the barometer had been placed. Before the time of Torricelli and Boyle, the behavior of the liquid in such a tube was explained by saying that "nature abhors a vacuum." Today, we often use inches of mercury as a measure of atmospheric pressure. |
Using the method of concomitant variation, we show that one condition is causally related to another by showing that when one of them is varied the other varies in a corresponding way. This method is familiar from many everyday uses.
| i] | We know that there is a causal relation between the speed of an automobile and the amount of pressure applied to the accelerator; the more you push down on the gas pedal, the faster the car goes. |
Sometimes there is an inverse relation: an increase in one variable results in a decrease in the other. For instance,
| j] | The amount of time a piece of meat is cooked is causally related to its color.
The longer it is cooked, the less red it becomes. |
Although Mill's methods give us important insights into reasoning about causal relations and the kinds of arguments that are helpful in this regard, there are some further refinements that must be added if we are to bring the discussion up to date. In particular, we must take account of the fact that statistical considerations often play an indispensable role in studies of causal relations. We shall return to this point in the next section after discussing a basic causal fallacy The controlled experiment, which will be introduced in section 29, is a natural extension of Mill's methods and a powerful antidote for several causal fallacies.
29. CAUSAL FALLACIES AND CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS
Now that we have discussed some standard types of arguments used in connection with investigations of causal relations, it is time to turn our attention to some common mistakes in reasoning about causes -- in other words, causal fallacies. The first of these had traditionally been called post hoc; ereo, propter hoc (which may be translated, "after this; therefore, because of this"); we shall call it the post hoc fallacy. This is the fallacy of concluding that X was caused by A just because X followed A. Popular medical ideas are often based upon this fallacy.
| a] | Uncle Harry felt a cold coming on, so he took several stiff shots of whiskey.
That cleared it up in a hurry. |
In this case drinking whiskey is supposed to be the cause of the recovery, but all we have observed is that the cold cleared up after he took it. The fact that colds generally last only a few days, regardless of treatment -- indeed, many incipient colds never develop -- makes it easy to attribute curative powers to all sorts of things that are actually worthless. The fallacy is psychologically reinforced, of course, if the conclusion is a pleasant one, that is, if Uncle Harry is happy to have any excuse to take a few stiff shots.
The post hoc fallacy is often combined with the fallacy of insufficient statistics, as it is in a. However, it need not be.
| b] | It is reported that the ancient Chinese believed that a lunar eclipse occurred when a dragon tried to devour the moon. They set off fireworks to scare the dragon away, leaving the moon behind. Their attempts were successful, for the moon always reappeared. They concluded that there was a causal relationship between shooting off fireworks and the reappearance of the moon. |
This example involves many instances, so it is not a case of insufficient statistics, as in a; nevertheless, it exemplifies the post hoc fallacy.
The post hoc fallacy consists in ascribing a causal relation on the basis of inadequate evidence; it leads to the error of mistaking a coincidence for a causal relation. The problem of distinguishing between genuine causal relations and mere coincidences is a tricky one, and it has vast practical importance. The widespread practice of psychotherapy provides a good example.
| c] | Many people undertake lengthy and expensive psychotherapy in order to be freed of troublesome psychological problems, and many of the people who undergo such treatment experience noticeable lessening or complete disappearance of their neurotic symptoms. One might therefore argue that psychotherapy is responsible for the improvement. It is well known, however, that many neurotic symptoms disappear spontaneously, regardless of treatment. The question, then, is whether the symptoms went away because of the treatment, or whether they would have gone away anyhow. |
The post hoc fallacy has a strong psychological appeal in this context. If an individual undertakes psychotherapy and experiences noticeable improvement, it is natural to attribute the improvement to the treatment. Most people would prefer to believe that the outcome resulted from their expenditure of time, effort, and money in psychotherapy rather than to entertain seriously the possibility that the improvement would have occurred regardless. In addition, the therapist is likely to reinforce the conviction, for the vast majority of psychotherapists sincerely want to believe that they are doing worthwhile work. And when the former patients talk to their friends they are apt to report, "I went to Dr. Jones for two years, and he helped me a great deal," or "I spent four years in psychoanalysis, and I benefitted enormously from it."
The problem of the causal efficacy of psychotherapy obviously has great import for anyone contemplating spending much time and thousands of dollars on extensive psychiatric treatment. Moreover, the federal government has recently commissioned a large study of just this question, because it is concerned about the advisability of expending federal funds on psychiatric aid for such groups as veterans and medicare patients.
The fundamental technique used to ascertain whether a causal relation -- rather than a mere coincidence -- does obtain is the controlled experiment.10 Let us see how that works.
Hardly a week goes by without some story appearing in the newspaper about a suspected causal relationship -- very often one that involves our health. During the past twenty to thirty years, we have been told that heavy cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, that exposure to radiation causes leukemia, that use of oral contraceptives causes thrombosis (blood clots), and that saccharin causes cancer of the bladder (in rats, at least). The striking feature of all of these claims is that they fall far short of constituting either sufficient or necessary causes. Neither all nor only heavy smokers contract lung cancer, neither all nor only those who have been subjected to unusually strong radiation contract leukemia, etc. Indeed, in example h of section 27 (the investigation of childbed fever by Semmelweis), the same was true. In fact, that example is typical of causal studies. The basic situation involves two groups; in the Semmelweis example, there were the women in the First Maternal Division and the women in the Second Maternal Division. The fundamental fact was that childbed fever occurred in a noticeably higher percentage of cases in the one group than in the other. By using an approach that has some resemblance to Mill's joint method, Semmelweis established the connection between the contaminated hands of the examiners and the occurrence of childbed fever. However, it was not that every woman examined by a student or physician who had been performing dissections contracted childbed fever, or that every woman who was not examined by such persons avoided the disease. What did happen was that the frequency of the disease differed markedly between the two groups.
In order to see clearly what is going on in the Semmelweis study, it will be helpful to introduce a schema analogous to the one we used (schema g, section 28) to explain Mill's joint method:
| d] | ABCD → X
ABCE → not-X ABDF → X ACDG → X . . . . . . . . . | (not-A) BCD → not-X
(not-A) BCE → not-X (not-A) BDF → X (not-A) CDG → not-X . . . . . . . . . |
This schema is, of course, quite incomplete, for it is meant to represent a large number of cases in which A is present and a large number of cases in which A is absent. Although X is not present in every case in which A is present, nor absent in each case in which A is absent, it does indicate that X is present in a distinctly larger percentage of cases in which A is present than it is when A is absent.
Schema d can appropriately be called the schema of the controlled experiment. It represents the most basic method for investigating causal relationships. The idea is this: If A is to be considered the cause of X, the presence of A must make a difference to the occurrence of X. Only in a few exceptional cases do we have the sort of situation found in example f of section 28, where X occurs if and only if A is present; in the usual case, the presence of A merely serves to enhance the probability that X will occur.
To determine whether psychotherapy has any curative value (example c) it is necessary to compare the proportions of people who improve during treatment (or shortly thereafter) with the spontaneous remission rate. More precisely, we should examine two groups of people: a group that receives psychotherapy (the experimental group) and one that does not (the control group). These two groups should be as similar to one another as possible. The types of psychological problems, and their severity, should be the same in the two groups. Each group should contain the same proportion of males and females. The ages of the members of the two groups should match closely. The setup should be similar to that represented by the schema for Mill's joint method (schema g of the preceding section). There is, however, no presumption that every person in the experimental group (those who receive treatment) will show improvement and that none of the people in the control group (those who do not receive treatment) will get better. In fact, then, it is schema d of this section that best represents what is to be done here. If it should turn out that the rates of improvement in the two groups are the same, this would be strong evidence against the claim that psychotherapy has causal efficacy in bringing about cures.
The use of experimental controls is further illustrated by the problem of cold remedies. Perhaps no one seriously believes that whiskey really works; however,
| e] | For some time there has been a controversy about the value of vitamin C for the prevention and/or cure of colds. Various studies seemed to show that it has no such therapeutic value, but Linus Pauling, a Nobel-laureate chemist, has argued strongly for the efficacy of vitamin C.11 Regardless of who is right, the matter has to be settled in the following way. Two similar groups of individuals are selected. One group is given vitamin C; the other is not. It is essential, of course, that the subjects not know whether they are getting the vitamin C, for great is the power of suggestion. The correct procedure is to give a placebo (a substance known to have no medicinal value) to the control group. Indeed, even the persons who administer the medication should not know which subjects are receiving the vitamin C and which the placebo, for they might unwittingly convey some hint to the subjects in the experiment. |
This experimental procedure is called double-blind, for neither the subject nor the person who gives out the pills knows which is which. We observe both groups to see whether the experimental group has a smaller frequency of colds or colds of less duration and severity. If the group that has been taking vitamin C is noticeably better off, this supports the claim that vitamin C really does help in the prevention, amelioration, or cure of colds. If the two groups are about the same, the evidence is against the causal efficacy of vitamin C.
The ancient Chinese could have conducted an experiment by refraining from the use of fireworks during one or more eclipses to learn whether their noise actually caused the reappearance of the moon. Of course, they might not have wanted to take that kind of chance on losing the moon forever. This illustrates one of the serious practical problems associated with controlled experiments. Who wants to be a member of the group that has more cavities?
The post hoc fallacy is one that is committed often, and it has a great deal of popular appeal in many contexts. Many superstitions probably arise from it. Example e of section 22 -- the case of the woman who explained her winning of the lottery in terms of astrological considerations -- is an excellent illustration of this point. She won the $5.5 million after choosing numbers on the basis of dates of birth of members of her family. The fact that she chose the numbers in that way had no causal relevance to the fact that her ticket was drawn. Another typical example was mentioned in e and f of section 27, where I referred to the belief that the appearance of a birthmark on a baby is a result of something frightening that the mother experienced while she was pregnant. If the birthmark is shaped even vaguely like a bat, and if the mother saw a bat during her pregnancy, then a causal connection is inferred. Such are the origins of many "old wives' tales."
Human beings seem generally to have an overwhelming desire to provide a causal explanation for any important or striking occurrence. In earlier days (before Isaac Newton), even highly educated people "explained" an epidemic of the plague on the basis of the appearance of a large comet shortly before. Now we have a fairly good scientific understanding of both comets and the plague. More recently, unusually severe weather has been "explained" in terms of detonations of nuclear bombs. (I am not for a moment suggesting that atmospheric nuclear tests have no harmful effects, but only that severe weather is probably not one of them.) It is, of course, desirable to try to find explanations for occurrences that interest us. The mistake is to jump to conclusions about causal relations on the basis of extremely inadequate evidence.
In dealing with the post hoc fallacy, we have been concerned with the problem of distinguishing cases in which a genuine causal relationship exists from cases in which there is merely some sort of coincidence. However, even if we have established the fact that a causal relationship exists, we may still possibly make an error about the type of causal relationship it is. Given that A and B are causally related, there are three basic relationships that might obtain: A causes B, B causes A, or both A and B have a common cause C.
The next causal fallacy consists of mistaking one kind of causal relation for another. It takes the form of concluding that A causes B on the basis of the fact that A and B are causally related. We shall call it the fallacy of confusing an effect with a cause.
There are two main ways in which this fallacy can occur. First, even when there is a direct causal relationship between two events, it is possible to regard the cause as the effect and the effect as the cause.
| f] | A young woman who was working for a master's degree, reading a study of sexual behavior, learned that intellectuals generally prefer to have the lights on during sexual intercourse, and nonintellectuals generally prefer to have the lights off. Since her master's examinations were about to occur, she insisted upon having the lights on in the hope that it would improve her chances of passing the examinations. |
Common sense tells us that she was confusing an effect with a cause. Other cases are not quite so obvious.
| g] | A nineteenth-century English reformer noted that every sober and industrious farmer owned at least one or two cows. Those who had none were usually lazy and drunken. He recommended giving a cow to any farmer who had none, in order to make him sober and industrious. |
Our immediate reaction to this example might be to say that the farmers who were lazy and drunken must have lost whatever cows they had because of those character defects, but that is not necessarily the actual situation. It is possible that some of them never had any cows in the first place. It may be, in other cases, that adverse circumstances over which they had no control caused them to lose their animals, and that their laziness and drinking resulted from the feeling of helplessness that ensued. We would need to have a good deal more information about the actual situation in order to choose between these alternatives. If, however, a controlled experiment had been performed at the time, it might have provided an answer to the question. By selecting two groups of cowless farmers who were lazy and drunken, and by giving a cow to each member of one group but none to any member of the other group, it would have been possible to see whether there was an increase in sobriety and industry among the farmers who received cows as compared to those who did not. Those who received cows might have renewed their hopes and worked hard to take advantage of the new opportunity, or they might have sold the cow without much delay in order to buy additional supplies of strong drink.
We were fairly sure, in example f, that a cause had been confused with an effect, but if there were any serious doubt, the issue could be settled by means of a controlled experiment. Among a class of students taking a given type of examination, we might get some volunteers to take part in an experiment. Those in the control group would agree to keep the lights out during intercourse; those in the experimental group would agree to have the lights on. We must, of course, use some random method to choose which volunteers go into which group. To let the volunteers decide would obviously undermine the very purpose of the study. Comparison of the examination scores should furnish the evidence needed to determine what is the cause and what is the effect.
Let us turn to the second way in which the fallacy of confusing an effect with a cause can occur. Two events may be causally related even though neither is the cause of the other; instead, both may be effects of a third event, which is the cause of both of them (see Fig. 15). For example,
| h] | Storm conditions can cause the reading on the barometer to fall and the river to rise. The falling barometric reading does not cause the rising of the river. The rising of the river does not cause the barometric reading to go down. |
The error that may occur is to suppose that one of the effects of the common cause is the cause of the other, all the while ignoring the third event, which is the common cause of both. No one would be likely to make this mistake in the case of the barometer and the river, but in other cases it does occur.
| i] | John, a freshman in college, stutters badly and is very shy with girls. His roommate suggests that he take speech correction lessons so that he will be cured of stuttering and, as a result, will feel less uneasy with girls. The roommate believes that stuttering is the cause of shyness with girls. According to many professional psychologists, however, both the stuttering and the shyness may be symptoms of another underlying psychological problem. |
As example i shows, the fallacy of confusing an effect with a cause can have serious practical consequences. It sometimes leads people to confuse symptoms with underlying causes.
| j] | In newspapers and magazines we are frequently reminded that genital herpes has reached epidemic proportions. No cure for this disease is known, though there is an effective treatment for the painful sores that are its main symptom. However, removing the symptom does not remove the disease. The sores can recur in persons who have the disease, and they can transmit it to sexual partners or -- in the case of expectant mothers -- to their newborn babies (in normal deliveries while the disease is active). |
This example shows, incidentally, that knowing what causes a phenomenon does not necessarily make it possible for us to prevent it. The virus that causes genital herpes has been identified, but no cure has yet been found. This is not to say the treatment of symptoms is unimportant -- quite the contrary. It is just that we should not suppose that relieving the symptoms is the same thing as curing the disease.
In closing this discussion of causal reasoning, I want to offer some words of warning. First, the concept of causality is extremely difficult, and it is surrounded with long-standing philosophical controversy. I have deliberately tried to avoid entanglement with deep philosophical issues. Instead, the discussion has been conducted at a fairly commonsense level. We do not need to enter into great philosophical subtleties in order to deal with the basic forms of argument and the simple causal fallacies.
Second, the causal relationships that exist in the real world are usually more complicated than the simple cause-effect relation.
| k] | An automobile accident may be a result of a combination of circumstances. The road, for example, may have been wet because of rain. One of the cars might have had faulty brakes. One of the drivers might have been distracted by an unruly child. Vision at the intersection might have been restricted by an untrimmed bush. |
In most cases, as in the foregoing example, there are many different causal factors involved. Oftentimes, moreover, there are complicated causal interconnections. The familiar feedback loop provides a simple example.
| l] | Many homes are heated by a furnace that is controlled by a thermostat; the thermostat is set to keep the house at a certain temperature -- say 68 degrees. When the house temperature falls below that point, the thermostat is activated and it turns the furnace on. The furnace then heats the house. When the temperature reaches the desired level, the thermostat turns the furnace off. The fact that the furnace is not operating allows the temperature in the house to fall, and then the thermostat again turns the furnace on. The thermostat turns the furnace on in order to keep the house at the desired 68 degree temperature. It seems as if the achievement of the correct temperature is what causes the furnace to turn on or off. |
Feedback loops are sometimes confusing because they can give the appearance of involving two events, each of which is the cause of the other, and each of which is the effect of the other. The temperature in the house seems to control the furnace, by means of the thermostat, and the operation of the furnace determines the temperature in the house.
Although some philosophers have found subtle reasons to doubt that causes can never follow their effects, it will be safe to make the common-sense assumption in the sorts of examples we are discussing that causes do not come after their effects. It is true that the furnace operates in order to bring the house temperature up to 68 degrees, but the fact that the temperature later rises to that point is not the cause of the furnace beginning to operate now. The furnace turns on now because the temperature has already fallen below 68 degrees. The fact that the furnace is operating now will cause the house temperature to rise in the near future. That, in turn, will cause the thermostat to turn the furnace off. Because the furnace is off, the temperature in the house will again fall below 68 degrees, and another similar cycle will take place. But each event in the sequence is caused by a prior event; in no case does a later event cause an earlier one.
If events happen in a clear temporal succession, it is usually easy to avoid the mistake, exemplified in f, of taking the effect to be the cause and the cause to be the effect. The same consideration enabled us to sort out the cause-effect relations in l. Example g -- which concerns the farmers and their cows -- is more difficult, because we have not been given any such temporal information, and also because a large number of causal factors may be involved. Moreover, the situation may be further complicated by the presence of feedback loops. A farmer's drinking may, for example, irritate his wife and produce family tensions which, in turn, lead him to drink even more. Or his pessimistic outlook may reinforce the pessimism of his neighbors who are in the same situation, and their response may serve to deepen his feelings of discouragement.
Even in such complex cases, an experimental approach is often helpful. If a circumstance A is a causal factor in bringing about an event B, then a change in A may bring about a change in B. This is an important application of Mill's method of concomitant variation. If A is even a partial cause of B, and if A is varied, then we may be able to observe a variation mB. If, however, B is a cause of A, then a'variation in A will not bring about any change in B.
There is one important kind of variation which Mill did not mention explicitly in connection with his method of concomitant variation, namely, variation in the frequency with which a phenomenon occurs. As we have seen, this sort of statistical variation plays a prominent role in controlled experiments. By varying one condition in the childbed fever investigation -- i.e., handwashing in chlorinated lime -- Semmelweis produced a variation in the frequency with which childbed fever occurred in the First Maternity Division. By varying the amount of saccharin ingested by experimental animals, scientists produced varying frequencies of bladder cancer. If humans are exposed to varying amounts of radiation, as were the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, the incidence of leukemia is found to vary.
As I said, causal relations often are extremely complex. Unless we have some idea of what is related to what, we cannot get far in our efforts to establish general causal laws We need to be able to make some reasonable guesses even to get started, and a fair amount of background information is usually required in order to come up with any plausible candidates. Such guesses are known as hypotheses. If we have some causal hypotheses, the methods that have been discussed in sections 28 and 29 provide basic tools for testing these notions. In the next section, we shall move on to a more general discussion of the use and testing of causal hypotheses -- and hypotheses of other sorts as well.
10 For an excellent introductory survey of the nature of controlled experiments, their uses, and their limitations, see Giere, Understanding Scientific Reasoning, chap. 11-12.
11 Linus Pauling, Vitamin C and the Common Cold (San Francisco, Calif.: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1970).
People, nowadays, hold a wide range of attitudes toward science. Some extol the benefits that come from breathtaking technological advances; others decry the nuclear weapons and ecological dangers that intrude so insistently upon the present scene. It is not our business, in this book, to pass judgment upon the fruits of modern science; our concern is with the nature of scientific knowledge. We must begin by making a clear distinction between pure science as a knowledge-seeking venture and applied science as the practical application of such knowledge. It is one thing to understand nuclear fusion, the process by which the sun produces incredible amounts of radiant energy; it is quite another to decide to put that knowledge to use in the construction of hydrogen bombs. We must be careful not to confuse science with technology. For better or for worse, science seems unquestionably to provide the most comprehensive and most systematic knowledge we have about our world. We shall attempt to analyze the kind of reasoning involved in establishing such knowledge. It is only when we look at the way induction is used in science that we can fully appreciate the power and importance of inductive reasoning.
It is a commonplace that the essence of science rests in its ability to establish, on the basis of observational evidence, far-reaching hypotheses about nature. Our task in this section will be to examine the kinds of inductive argument that occur when observational evidence is used to confirrn or disconfirm scientific hypotheses. These arguments are often complex and subtle in detail, but they exhibit an overall logical structure that is simple enough to be examined profitably in a relatively short treatment. At the same time, it is important to realize that we shall be treading on controversial territory, for the full analysis of arguments of this sort is one of the most vexing problems of contemporary inductive logic.12
From the outset, we should be clear about the meaning of the word "hypothesis." Various distinctions are sometimes made among hypotheses, theories, and laws. For our purposes, it will be safe to ignore these distinctions and use the term "hypothesis" broadly enough to comprehend all of them. In our usage, then, Kepler's laws of planetary motion and Einstein's theory of relativity will qualify as hypotheses. As we shall use the term, a statement is functioning as a hypothesis if it is taken as a premise, in order that its logical consequences can be examined and compared witn facts that can be ascertained by observation. When the comparison is favorable, that is, when a consequence of the hypothesis turns out to be true, it is a confirmatory instance of the hypothesis. When a consequence turns out to be false, it is a disconfirmatory instance of the hypothesis. A hypothesis is confirmed if it is adequately supported by inductive evidence. There are degrees of confirmation; a hypothesis may be highly confirmed, moderately confirmed, or slightly confirmed. Likewise, there are degree to which a hypotEesis is confirmed by a confirmatory instance. A given confirmatory instance may add considerable support or only slight support to a hypothesis; indeed, in certain special cases a confirmatory instance may not actually confirm the hypothesis at all. These are matters we shall investigate.
Statements of many different types may occur as hypotheses; for instance, some hypotheses are universal generalizations and some hypotheses are statistical generalizations.
| a] | According to Hooke's law, the force required to produce a distortion in an elastic object (such as a steel spring) is directly proportional to the amount of distortion. A particular spring has been observed to elongate by one inch when a force of five pounds is applied. A force of ten pounds is now applied. It follows that the spring will be elongated by two inches. If the spring is, indeed, elongated by two inches, this constitutes a confirmatory instance of Hooke's law. |
| b] | If a fair coin is tossed repeatedly, heads and tails occur randomly and equally often in the long run. It can be shown that there is a probability of 0.95 that 100 tosses of such a coin will contain between 40 and 60 heads. Consider the hypothesis that a particular coin is fair. Several experiments are made with this coin, each experiment consisting of 100 tosses. In each case, the number of heads is between 40 and 60. Under suitable conditions, these results would confirm the hypothesis that the coin is fair. |
These examples are similar in certain respects, but there are important differences. The hypothesis in a is a universal generalization: it permits us to deduce that the spring will be elongated by two inches. The hypothesis in b is a statistical generalization; in this case, the conclusion that 40 to 60 heads will be obtained is inductive. The deduction in a can be put into the form of affirming the antecedent (section 7); the induction in b can be represented as a statistical syllogism (section 23).
Having suggested that there are important similarities between the confirmation of statistical and universal hypotheses, we shall forego further discussion of the confirmation of statistical hypotheses. Mathematical statistics provides powerful methods for dealing with problems of this kind.13 From here on, we shall confine our attention to the confirmation of hypotheses in terms of their deductive consequences. This kind of argument is often called the hypothetico-deductive method; it is exemplified by a. As it is frequently characterized, the hypothetico-deductive method consists of (1) setting up a hypothesis, (2) deducing consequences from the hypothesis, and (3) checking by observation to see whether these consequences are true. Calling the deduced consequences observational predictions, we have the following schema:
| c] | Hypothesis |
| ∴ | Observational prediction |
The argument from the hypothesis to the observational prediction is supposed to be deductive; the_argument from the truth of the observational prediction to the truth of the hypothesis is supposed to be inductive.
The first thing to notice is that the hypothesis of a, Hooke's law, is a general statement about the behavior of elastic bodies under the influence of deforming forces. As such, it does not, by itself, entail the occurrence of any particular events. The hypothesis is not the only premise in the deduction. It does not follow from the hypothesis alone that the spring will be elongated by two inches; in addition, premises are needed to say how stiff the spring is and how much force is being applied. These are the conditions under which Hooke's law is being tested, and the premises that state these facts are called statements of initial conditions. In every case, not just example a, the deduction of observational predictions for the confirmation of a general hypothesis requires premises formulating initial conditions. Schema c is incomplete; if the deduction is to be valid it must take the following form:
| d] | Hypothesis (Hooke's law).
Statements of initial conditions (a force of five pounds elongates the spring by one inch; a force of ten pounds is being applied). |
| ∴ | Observational prediction (the spring will be elongated by two inches). |
In the simple example a there is no trouble in ascertaining the initial conditions, and there is no trouble in finding out whether the observational prediction is true. In more complicated examples, these matters would present more difficulty.
| e] | Using his general theory of relativity as a hypothesis, Einstein deduced that light rays passing near the sun would be bent. During the solar eclipse of 1919, observations were made that proved to be in close agreement with the predicted deflection. Einstein's theory was dramatically confirmed by these findings. |
Example e, like example a, has the form d. In this case, however, the verification of the statements of initial conditions and the verification of the deduced observational prediction are much more complicated. For instance, the amount of the deflection depends upon the mass of the sun, so the statements of initial conditions must include a statement about the mass of the sun. This cannot be ascertained by direct observation; it must be calculated by using well-established theoretical methods. Similarly, the deflection of the light ray cannot be observed directly; it must be inferred by well-established methods from the relative positions of certain spots on photographic plates.
The inferences used in e to establish the statements of initiaj_conditions involve auxilian hypotheses. The inference used to determine the truth of the observational prediction involves other auxiliary hypotheses. In this respect, example e is quite typical. These auxiliary hypotheses are hypotheses that have previously and independently been confirmed by scientific investigation. Among the auxiliary hypotheses used to establish the truth of the observational prediction are hypotheses concerning the photochemical effects of light upon photographic emulsions andoptical hypotheses concerning the behavior of light passing through telescopes. The auxiliary hypotheses can be used because they have been highly confirmed, but this does not assure absolutely that they can never be disconfirmed by future scientific findings.
Since we are dealing with the logical structure of the hypothetico-deductive method, let us examine schema d under some simplifying assumptions. To begin with, let us assume that any auxiliary hypotheses used to establish statements of initial conditions, or to establish the truth or falsity of the observational prediction, are true. Indeed, let us further assume that the statements of initial conditions are true and that we have correctly determined the truth or falsity of the observational prediction. Under these assumptions, we have a valid deductive argument with only one premise, a hypothesis, whose truth is in question. Suppose, now, that the argument has a false conclusion. What can we say about the questionable premise?
The answer to this question is easy. A valid deductive argument with a false conclusion must have at least one false premise. Since the hypothesis is, according to our assumptions, the only premise that could possibly be false, we must conclude that the hypothesis is false. In this case, the hypothesis is conclusively disconfirmed. We have an instance of denying the consequent (section 7).
| f] | If the hypothesis is true, then the prediction is true (since we are assuming the statements of initial conditions are true).
The prediction is not true |
| ∴ | The hypothesis is not true. |
The conclusiveness of this disconfirmation rests, of course, upon our simplifying assumptions. The only way a hypothesis can validly be maintained in the; face of a disconfirming instance is either by rejecting a statement of initial conditions or by deciding that the observational prediction came true after all. Either of these alternatives might, of course, involve rejection of one or more auxiliary hypotheses. By our simplifying assumptions we ruled out both of these possibilities. In practice, however, there are cases in which we would retain the hypothesis and modify our judgments about initial conditions or about the falsity of the observational prediction. There are famous examples in the history of science that illustrate the successful adoption of this course.
| g] | Prior to the discovery of the planet Neptune, it was found that Uranus moved in an orbit that differed from the orbit predicted on the basis of Newton's theory and the initial conditions involving the known bodies in the solar system. Instead of rejecting Newrnn's theory. Adams and Leverrier postulated the existence of the planet Neptune to account for the perturbations of Uranus. Neptune was subsequently discovered by telescopic observation. Revised initial conditions, incorporating facts about Neptune, made possible the deduction of the correct orbit of Uranus. A similar procedure later led to the discovery of Pluto. |
This procedure is not always so successful.
| h] | Leverrier attempted to account for known perturbations in the orbit of Mercury by postulating a planet Vulcan which has an orbit smaller than that of Mercury. Every attempt to locate Vulcan failed. It was only when Newton's theory was superseded by Einstein's general theory of relativity that Mercury's orbit was more satisfactorily explained. Observed facts concerning the motion of Mercury turned out, in the view of most theorists, to be a genuine disconfirmation of Newton's theory. |
One important moral to be drawn from the foregoing examples is this. An apparent disconfirmation of a hypothesis is not satisfactorily dealt with until we have good grounds for making a correct prediction. If the hypothesis is rejected, it must be replaced by a hypothesis for which there is other evidence. For example, general relativity is not confirmed merely by its ability to account for the orbit of Mercury. Its ability to predict the results of observations during solar eclipse (example e) is independent evidence. If the statements of initial conditions are amended, there must be independent evidence that the revised statements are correct. For example, the planet Neptune had to be located telescopically. If auxiliary hypotheses are to be revised, there must be independent evidence for the correctness of the revised hypotheses.
Example g shows, incidentally, that hypotheses need not be universal statements. When Adams and Leverrier attempted to explain the perturbations of Uranus, they made the hypothesis that a previously undiscovered planet exists. This hypothesis, in conjunction with Newton's theory and other initial conditions, permitted deduction of the observed positions of Uranus. The truth of Newton's theory was assumed, and the observed facts were taken to confirm the hypothesis that Neptune exists. Having noted that singular statements may be treated as hypotheses, we shall continue to focus attention upon the confirmation of universal hypotheses.
The second question we must consider is far more difficult. Given a valid deductive argument with only one premise (a hypothesis) whose truth is in question, and given that this argument has a true conclusion, what can we conclude about the questionable premise? Deductively, we can draw no conclusion whatever. The following argument is an instance of the fallacy of affirming the consequent (section 7):
| i] |
If the hypothesis is true, then the prediction is true.
The prediction is true. |
| ∴ | The hypothesis is true. |
It is, nevertheless, very tempting to suppose that i is a correct inductive argument. We do not want to say that arguments like i prove conclusively that hypotheses are true, but there does seem to be good reason for thinking that they support the hypothesis, lend weight to it, or confirm it to some extent. It appears that scientists make frequent use of arguments of the form i, and it would be most unreasonable to deny the correctness of the inductive arguments upon which science rests.
Unfortunately, appearances are deceiving. Arguments of form i are, as a matter of fact, extremely weak -- if not wholly incorrect -- even when we regard them as inductive arguments. The trouble is that i is a gross oversimplification of the inductively correct argument used in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. In particular, i omits two essential aspects of the argument. In view of this fact, it should now be noted that the presentation of examples a and b was incomplete.
The first additional aspect of confirmation that must be considered is the bearing of alternative hypotheses upon the case. The question is: What are the chances that the deduced prediction would be true if the hypothesis we are testing is false and some other hypothesis is true? The same question may be reformulated: Are there other hypotheses that would be strongly confirmed by the same outcome? Consider another example.
| j] | Small boys are often told that warts can be made to disappear if they are rubbed with onions. Such "cures" often work. The hypothesis is that rubbing with onions cures warts. The initial conditions are that Johnny has warts and he rubs his warts with onions. The observational prediction is that Johnny's warts will disappear. Johnny's warts do, in fact, disappear, and this constitutes a confirmatory instance for the hypothesis. |
Has the hypothesis been confirmed by this observation? It is important to realize that there is an alternative explanation of the "cure" which is at least equally supported by the same results. It has been argued that warts are psychosomatic symptoms that can be cured by suggestion. Any method of treatment the patient sincerely believes to be effective will be effective. It is the belief in the treatment, rather than the treatment itself, that brings about the cure. If this alternative hypothesis is correct, then rubbing with grapes would be equally effective, and so would daily recitation of "Mary had a little lamb," provided the patient believes in these treatments. The fact that the observed result is a confirmatory instance of another hypothesis detracts from the confirmation of the hypothesis that onions cure warts. This situation calls for the use of controlled experiments of the sort| discussed in section 29.
Example j illustrates what is perhaps the most serious problem in the logic of the confirmation of hypotheses. The concept of a confirmatory instance of a hypothesis is defined by schema d; any instance of d in which the conclusion is true provides a confirmatory instance of the hypothesis that stands as its first premise. If we write the schema containing only the statements whose truth has presumably been ascertained, we have the following incomplete deduction, which requires an additional premise to be valid:
| k] | Statements of initial conditions. |
| ∴ | Observational prediction. |
Generally speaking, a variety of statements can be added to an incomplete deduction to make it valid. Any such statement could, therefore, be taken as a hypothesis, and it would have a confirmatory instance in the fact that the observational prediction is true. Moreover, there are other statements of initial conditions, just as true as those actually used, which could have appeared in k. When the statements of initial conditions in k are replaced by alternative statements of initial conditions, additional alternative hypotheses become available to allow the valid deduction of the same observational prediction. The fact that the observational prediction is true is, therefore, a confirmatory instance of these alternative hypotheses as well. There are, in fact, an infinite number of hypotheses for which any observed fact constitutes a confirmatory instance. The problem is to select the hypothesis, among all those that could have been used to deduce the observational prediction, that is most likely to be true.
The same situation holds for any finite number of confirmatory instances. Consider Hooke's law once more, and suppose it has been tested a number of times. The results for one elastic object, the steel spring of example a, are presented graphically in Fig. 16. The fact that Hooke's law applies to all elastic objects at all times and places, not just to one steel spring reinforces the point. Graphically, Hooke's law says that the plot of deformation against distorting force is a straight line, so the solid line in Fig. 16 represents Hooke's law. The encircled points represent the results
Figure 16
of testing. The broken line represents an alternative hypothesis for which these same results are confirmatory instances. An unlimited number of other curves could have been drawn through the encircled points. Of course, we can always perform additional tests to disconfirm the hypothesis represented by the broken line in the diagram; but for any finite number of additional tests, there will always be an infinite number of additional hypotheses. The problem is: On what grounds can Hooke's law be accepted and the alternative hypotheses be rejected, in view of the fact that the alternatives cannot all be discontinued by any finite amount of testing?
This problem leads to the consideration of the second aspect of confirmation that must be added to arguments of form i. In order to determine the extent to which a confirmatory instance actually supports a hypothesis, it is necessary to assess the prior probability of that hypothesis. The prior probability of a hypothesis is the probability, without regard for its confirmatory instances, that it is true. The prior probability is logically independent of the testing of the hypothesis by way of deduced consequences. In this context, the term "prior" has no temporal connections. The prior probability may be assessed before or after confirmatory instances are examined; the point is that the examination of confirmatory instances does not affect the assessment of prior probability.
We have now entered the most highly contested area of the controversial territory of this section, for there is serious disagreement among experts concerning the exact nature of prior probabilities.14 It seems clear, nevertheless, that scientists take them into account when they are considering the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Scientists often speak of the reasonableness or plausibility of hypotheses; such judgments constitute assessments of prior probabilities. Prior probabilities are not merely measures of someone's subjective reaction to hypotheses, for some hypotheses have objective characteristics that make them antecedently more likely to be true than other hypotheses. Instead of attempting a general analysis of prior probabilities, let us examine a few examples of characteristics that have some bearing upon the prior probabilities of various hypotheses.15
| l] | Simplicity is an important characteristic of Hooke's law, and this characteristic does not depend in any way upon its cofmrmatory instances. In this respect, Hooke's law is far more plausible than the alternative represented by the broken line in Fig. 16. To be sure, we would not continue to accept Hooke's law if it were disconfirmed by experimental test, but among those possible hypotheses for which the test results are confirmatory instances, Hooke's law has the highest prior probability. In the physical sciences, at least, experience has shown that simplicity is a characteristic of successful hypotheses. |
| m] | Medical research scientists know enough in general about onions and warts to regard it as highly unlikely that onions contain any substance that would have any curative power when applied directly to warts. They would know this whether or not they had proceeded to examine confirmatory instances of the hypothesis of example j. This hypothesis has a low prior probability. |
| n] | Hypotheses that are incompatible with well-established scientific hypotheses have low prior probabilities. It has sometimes been maintained that mental telepatriv occurs in the form of instantaneous thought transfer from one mind to another. This particular telepathic hypothesis has a low prior probability, for it is incompatible with the requirement of relativity theory that no causal process (and, consequently, no process that transmits information) can be propagated with a velocity exceeding that of light. |
| o] | The argument from authority and the argument against the person in their correct forms (sections 24 and 25) may be used to assess prior probabilities. In particular, a scientific hypothesis proposed by a "crank" will usually have a very low prior probability on this and other grounds. The prior probability may be so low that reputable scientists are properly unwilling to spend time subjecting such hypotheses to test. |
| p] | During the thirteenth century A.D., a fairly large rggion surrounding the "four corners" (where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona meet) was rather densely populated, but in the latter part of the fourteenth century, much of this area was quite suddenly abandoned. Archaeologists are trying to figure out why this abandonment occurred. One possible hypothesis is that the people -- who depended to a great extent upon agriculture for their food -- left because of a drought. There is, in fact, strong evidence in tree rings that several years of very low rainfall occurred at the end of the fourteenth century. Most archaeologists, however, do not accept the drought as the entire causal explanation. For a variety of reasons, they are convinced that a much more complex explanation is required, and that the drought hypothesis is almost surely an oversimplification. Although the lack of rain played some role, no doubt, many other factors were probably involved. As we noted in the preceding section, causal relations are often quite complicated, and this consideration sometimes allows us to assign low prior probabilities to hypotheses that are too simple. |
The assessment of prior probabilities is often a difficult and subtle matter. Fortunately, in many cases a very rough estimate may be sufficient; in fact, in many cases it is enough to know that the prior probability of a hypothesis is not negligibly low -- that our hypothesis is not utterly implausible and unreasonable. If the prior probability of a hypothesis is virtually zero, a confirming instance supplies virtually no support for the hypothesis. Otherwise, a confirming instance may supply a significant amount of weight. As a result of the foregoing discussion, it turns out the schema i does not adequately characterize the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. Although schema i does represent an indispensable part of the argument, it must be expanded by the addition of other premises. To be inductively correct, the hypothetico-deductive method must assume the following form:
| q] | The hypothesis has a nonnegligible prior probability.
If the hypothesis is true, then the observational prediction is true. The observational prediction is true. No other hypothesis is strongly confirmed by the truth of this observational prediction; that is, other hypotheses for which the same observational prediction is a confirming instance have lower prior probabilities. |
| ∴ | The hypothesis is true. |
This is an inductively correct form, and it correctly schematizes many important scientific arguments.
Although any group of experimental data constitutes confirmatory instances for an infinity of possible alternative hypotheses, it does not follow that alternative hypotheses with nonnegligible prior probabilities can always be found. Quite the contrary. Thinking up a plausible hypothesis to cover a particular set of observed facts is the most difficult part of creative scientific work, and it often requires genius. This is a problem of discovery, and logic has no royal roads to solve such problems. The result is that there is seldom a large number of competing hypotheses, for the alternative hypotheses with negligible prior probabilities are not really in the competition. They are the implausible -- even preposterous -- hypotheses. Thus, when a hypothesis that has an appreciable prior probability is found, it can be highly confirmed by its confirmatory instances. In the rarer cases in which there are several competing hypotheses with appreciable prior probabilities, disconfirmation assumes considerable importance.
Suppose we have a hypothesis H for which there are confirmatory instances. There is an unlimited supply of alternative hypotheses for which the same facts are also confirmatory instances. It is, therefore, hopeless to try to disconfirm all possible alternative hypotheses, leaving H as the only one that is not disconfirmed. We consider the prior probabilities. Suppose H has an appreciable prior probability, and furthermore, we can think of only one alternative hypothesis, H', which also has an appreciable prior probability. If H and H' are genuinely different, not merely different ways of saying the same thing, there will be some situations in which they will yield different observational predictions. A crucial test can be performed by examining such a situation in order to determine which hypothesis, H or H', yields the correct observational prediction. Since H and H' lead to incompatible observational predictions, the observational prediction deduced from at least one of them must be false. Finding that H' leads to a false observational prediction disconfirms it. If H leads to a true observational prediction, we have good reason to accept H as the only hypothesis that is significantly confirmed by the observational eviidence. H' was discontinued, and all other alternatives fail to be substantially confirmed by their confirmatory instances because of their negligible prior probabilities.
| r] | At the beginning of the nineteenth century an important controversy concerning the nature of light occurred. Sonne physicists; supported the hypothesis that light consists of corpuscles (particles), whereas others maintained that it consists of waves. The French mathematician S. D. Poisson was able to demonstrate that, if the wave theory were true, a bright spot should appear in the center of the shadow of a small disk. As a supporter of the corpuscular theory, he regarded this as a reductio ad absurdum (section 8), but when the experiment was actually performed the bright spot was observed. This outcome was a dramatic confirmation of the wave theory, since there was no way for the corpuscular theory to account for this phenomenon. According to the corpuscular theory the shadow should be uniformly dark. |
It should be re-emphasized that the whole procedure of confirmation of hypotheses is inductive This means that no scientific hypothesis is ever completely verified as absolutely true. No matter how carefully and extensively a hypothesis is tested, there is always the possibility that it may later have to be rejected because of new disconfirming evidence. In inductive arguments, no matter how much evidence the premises present, it is always possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false. There are various sources of difficulty in the confirmation of scientific hypotheses. We may make errors in assessing prior probabilities by supposing that a hypothesis has a negligible prior probability when, in fact, its prior probability is quite high. There may be a hypothesis with higher prior probability that has not yet occurred to anyone. A hypothesis with a very low prior probability may turn out to be true; "improbable" does not mean "impossible." Observational and experimental errors are possible. False auxiliary hypotheses may be accepted and used.
In the confirmation of scientific hypotheses, as in other kinds of inductive argument, the best insurance against error is to take steps to avoid accepting conclusions on the basis of insufficient or biased evidence (see sections 21 and 22). This means that hypotheses must be tested many times and under a wide variety of conditions if they are to become highly confirmed. Our discussion, so far, has concentrated upon the logical characteristics of the hypothetico-deductive method, schema q, much as if we were dealing with a single application and a single confirmatory instance. To do justice to scientific method, it is necessary to emphasize the repeated application of this method to build up a large and heterogeneous body of confirming evidence or to find disconfirming evidence if there is any. A familiar classic example will illustrate the point.
| s] | Newton's theory is a comprehensive hypothesis concerning the gravitational forces among masses. It has been confirmed by an extremely large number of observations of the motions of the planets in the solar system and their satellites. It has likewise been confirmed by an extremely large number of observations of falling objects. There are vast numbers of observations of the tides, and these constitute additional confirmatory instances. Torsion balance experiments, which measure the gravitational attraction between two objects in the laboratory, have been performed repeatedly, and these constitute further confirmations. Even with this impressive quantity and variety of confirmatory instances, which does not exhaust the supporting evidence, Newton's theory is not regarded as literally correct. Disconfirming evidence has been found, as illustrated by example h. It does serve, however, as an excellent approximation in limited domains of application, and as such, it is extremely highly confirmed. |
To a large extent, the importance of Newton's theory lies in its comprehensiveness. It explains a wide variety of apparently diverse phenomena. Before Newton, Kepler had established laws of planetary motion and Galileo had established a law of falling bodies. The laws of Kepler and Galileo had seemed distinct until they were subsumed under Newton's theory, which explained many other facts as well. The unification of restricted hypotheses by means of more comprehensive hypotheses leads to the possibility of hypotheses that can be confirmed by vast amounts and varieties of evidence. Such hypotheses are rich in predictive and explanatory power.
In order to examine the logical characteristics of the confirmation of hypotheses, we have dealt mainly with scientific examples. Similar issues are involved in everyday life as well as in science, for we do make extensive use of hypotheses in the conduct of practical affairs. It does not matter much whether we call them "scientific hypotheses," for there is no sharp dividing line between science and common sense; and we all use a certain amount of scientific knowledge in guiding our decisions and actions. In sections 27 through 29 we discussed causal arguments and their importance in practical situations. Causal statements are hypotheses. Insofar as we accept and use causal hypotheses, to that extent, at least, we have reason to be concerned with the logic of the confirmation of hypotheses. Such hypotheses often play a crucial role in decisions respecting the matters most significant to us: our personal health, our moral attitudes, our relations with other people, the affairs of government, and international relations. Surely there is as much reason to insist upon logical accuracy in matters of practical importance as there is in the abstract pursuit of scientific truth.
12 See Wesley C. Salmon, The Foundations of Scientific Inference (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), chap. VII.
13 Giere, Understanding Scientific Reasoning, chap. 11, provides an excellent introductory treatment of statistical hypothesis testing.
14 See Salmon, Foundations of Scientific Inference, chap. VII, for discussion of a wide variety of views on this subject.
15 Although these probabilities are often called "a priori probabilities," it should not be supposed that they are a priori in the philosophical sense, i.e., that they can be ascertained without recourse to experience. It is my firm conviction that they reflect our scientific experience in dealing with many types of hypotheses in a wide variety of circumstances.