PHIL 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Fetus, Argumentum Ad Baculum, Animal Rights Movement

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 105
• Professor: All

Document Summary

Sometimes, scientists cannot assign people randomly to each group. This can be for ethical or for practical reasons. Then, the experimental group is chosen by self-selection . Scientists don"t decide who is a control and whom isn"t- the people themselves do. Think about what else that can effect the causation that matters. Common errors in causal reasoning: if a causes b, everything that has a, gets b. If a causes b, that all as are bs [in p] Example: falling from five storeys up cause up causes dying even if sometimes someone survives. If all things with e have c, then c causes e [in p] All things that have lung cancer are things that have kidneys. It does not follow that having kidneys causes having lung cancers. Both these errors arise from failing to note that general causal claims are supported by correlations.