tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307187040250193857.post8876916150575589728..comments2024-03-20T03:33:22.357-07:00Comments on Skeptophilia: The illusion of causalityGordon Bonnethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06003472005971594466noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4307187040250193857.post-89107740250275611992021-01-20T06:54:07.619-08:002021-01-20T06:54:07.619-08:00Of course many people illegitimately infer a causa...Of course many people illegitimately infer a causal relation when y shortly follows x. However, if one has never before encountered either x or y, and one experiences x then shortly afterwards experiences y, and x and y are contiguous, then often we can judge that x was highly likely to be a crucial ingredient for the manifestation of y. This is so even if no causal mechanism can be discerned.<br /><br />Attacking the weakest cases isn't interesting. Of course, if any symptom abatement would have occurred with or without a homeopathic "remedy", then this isn't interesting. But what if throughout history and across differing cultures homeopathy seems to have an effect greater than simply doing nothing? How many reports of the efficacy of homeopathy would it take before a skeptic might think there's something to it?( admittedly, disentangling from the placebo effect is challenging though). No amount I would guess! A skeptic would ALWAYS assign it to peoples' propensity to assign causality where we only have correlation. (incidentally, I know nothing about homeopathy and I would imagine there's nothing to it, but I'm only guessing!). <br /><br />One of the problems with skeptics is that they have this unshakable conviction that reality can only operate in certain ways. Hence, if no conceivable causal mechanism can be dreamt (dreamed) up, then no amount of contrary evidence will ever be sufficient to overturn this conviction. They will always prefer conventional explanations *no matter how convoluted*.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Ian Wardellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05999029760897196102noreply@blogger.com