Conditioning 360

Cause and Effect refers to the philosophical concept of causality, which denotes a necessary relationship between one event (the cause), and another event (the effect), which is the direct consequence of the first. This two event type of causality is known as accidental causality. Another type, essential causality, has one event seen in two ways.

Aristotle wrote, “All causes are beginnings…”, “… we have scientific knowledge when we know the cause…”, and “… to know a thing’s nature is to know the reason why it is…”. This formulation set the guidelines for subsequent causal theories by specifying the number, nature, principles, elements, varieties, order of causes as well as the modes of causation. Additionally, things can be causes of one another, reciprocally causing each other, as hard work causes fitness, and vice versa – although not in the same way or by means of the same function: the one is as the beginning of change, the other is as its goal.

What this means to us as humans living in a natural world, is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It teaches us that we can make a choice to live a certain way, and by doing so, set off a chain of events that will determine an outcome. Lifestyle, health, wealth, wellness, and dare I say it, happiness, are all a product of choice. I’m not saying that if you are genetically predisposed to diabetes, that living a healthy and positive lifestyle will guarantee you are never inflicted with the disease, but it will decrease your chances of becoming sick, and should you get sick, your body and mind will be in a state to be able to fight. (See my previous blogs on Chaos and The Reward (and punishment) of conditioning).

In the field of Biology and Medicine, Austin Bradford Hill built upon the work of Hume and Popper and suggested in his paper “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?” that the following aspects of an association be considered in attempting to distinguish causal from non-causal associations in the epidemiological situation:

1) strength, 2) consistency, 3) specificity, 4) temporality, 5) biological gradient, 6) plausibility, 7) coherence, experimental evidence, and 9) analogy.

Strength refers to the numerical strength of the correlation, expressed as relative risk or odds ratios. Strong correlation is much more convincing that a causal effect is at work.

Consistency refers to phenomena that have been observed in many places at many times by many different observers in different circumstances.

Specificity is where the effect is limited to certain workers in certain specific situations and where there is no other association between the work and other modes of dying.

Temporality is to do with the direction of causality. Which is the cart and which is the horse? This is particularly relevant where slowly progressing disease is concerned. Does the patient’s diet cause the disease or does the disease alter the patient’s diet?

Biological gradient, otherwise known as a dose-response relationship, when more of the alleged cause is associated with more of the response (or disease). For example, not only do smokers have a higher prevalence of lung cancer than non-smokers, but also heavy smokers have a higher prevalence than light smokers.

Plausibility refers to the scientific credibility of the relationship. In the case of smoking, cigarette smoke is known to contain many established toxins, which makes it a plausible cause of cancer.

Coherence is the idea that the possibility of the causal relationship should not conflict with what is known about the natural history and biology of the disease.

Experimental evidence may be relevant. For example, if it is suspected that dust is causing the disease then an experiment in which dust filters are fitted would be appropriate and, if successful, would bolster the theory that dust was a causal factor in the incidence of the disease.

Analogy is where we reason from similar phenomena, causes and diseases to the disease at hand.

At the end of the day, we are all a product of our choices, and thus, our current situations are a product of choice.  We have the ability to enhance or diminish our circumstance by changing the ways we think, act, and perceive things to be. When we open communication lines with those around us without prejudice and are able to see clearly and create people in our lives clearly, our lives will change, the people in our lives will change, and we will change, as we will finally be able to see ourselves without prejudice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Diet, Exercise, Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.