Re: Hugo Shortlist 2008 (Sawyer)

mimus <tinmimus99@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>But let's take the extreme opposed case (in my view), which is
>_astoundingly_ more common than you might think:
>
>Would you feel any unease at claiming A causes B where B follows A less
>than one percent of the time?

It depends. Does B never occur at all, except after A? Does B occur about
one
percent of the time whether or not A occurs at all? Does B normally occur
ten percent of the time, except when A happens, in which case it only
occurs
one percent of the time? The answers and the amount of unease vary
tremendously
between these three simple cases.

Probabilities are _conditional_. And just saying "A causes B because B
happens after A does" is a specific sort of logical fallacy ... as is
saying "A cannot cause B because B does not ALWAYS follow A".

Dave
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