This is great. (I feel like the scansion could be improved slightly, but it’d be great as top level post)
But, reminds me that there’s one more option here. Sometimes, instead of A causing B, or C causing A-and-B, A prevents B. This is similar (in some sense identical to “B causing A”, but it prompts a different series of followup questions.
i.e. When crime happens, cops show up. When a disease happens, white blood cells show up. This isn’t (quite) because the crime causes cops or disease causes white-blood cells. B does cause A, here, but, I think asking “is A’s proximate ‘goal’ to prevent B” is a useful question to ask and check for, to help find models of what’s going on.
Did one cause the other? Did the other cause the one?
I’m not 100% sure I grok the meter, but I think this lines reads better in the new scansion if it’s “Did one thing cause the other? Or the other cause the one?”
(fake edit: oh, I parsed the syllable emphasis wrong the first thing. For some reason it felt like “did” wasn’t the downbeat syllable, so I started counting/feeling at “one”)
I vote we abandon correlation does not imply causation in favor of connection does not imply direction. Or even better:
connection alone, direction unknown
But I’d like it best if we had a positive version.
Correlation does imply some sort of causal link.
For guessing its direction, simple models help you think.
Controlled experiments, if they are well beyond the brink
Of .05 significance will make your unknowns shrink.
Replications prove there’s something new under the sun.
Did one cause the other? Did the other cause the one?
Are they both controlled by something already begun?
Or was it their coincidence that caused it to be done?
This is brilliant.
This is great. (I feel like the scansion could be improved slightly, but it’d be great as top level post)
But, reminds me that there’s one more option here. Sometimes, instead of A causing B, or C causing A-and-B, A prevents B. This is similar (in some sense identical to “B causing A”, but it prompts a different series of followup questions.
i.e. When crime happens, cops show up. When a disease happens, white blood cells show up. This isn’t (quite) because the crime causes cops or disease causes white-blood cells. B does cause A, here, but, I think asking “is A’s proximate ‘goal’ to prevent B” is a useful question to ask and check for, to help find models of what’s going on.
Thanks for the push, I think the scansion is better optimized now.
I’m not 100% sure I grok the meter, but I think this lines reads better in the new scansion if it’s “Did one thing cause the other? Or the other cause the one?”
(fake edit: oh, I parsed the syllable emphasis wrong the first thing. For some reason it felt like “did” wasn’t the downbeat syllable, so I started counting/feeling at “one”)