Saturday, October 04, 2008

On causality

One of our Vice Presidential candidates believes that, without worrying about what causes global warming—after all, that is living in the past and everyone knows that the past is utterly irrelevant to the present or, heavens, what we really care about: the future—we can come up with a solution for it. Many other people might have thought that to stem the effect one would need to eliminate or alter the cause. Could her lack of basic causal reasoning abilities help explain why she also doesn't believe in evolution or seem to have a grasp of scientific method? What else might she be unable to fathom?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think she's just read her Hume.

Tyler Hower said...

You've taken the principle of charity too far. I realize you feel that you are doing your Christian duty, but surely you are shirking your philosophical duty. And, even Hume thought that we naturally added causality in, she seems to think not only that there is no philosophical underpinning for causality but that we need not even see it in the world.

Anonymous said...

What else might she be unable to fathom? Common sense - you betcha! I am dying to know how in her position she can advance the campaign for special needs children.