Cause and Effect in Populations

Chapter 15 discusses how cause and effect can support a claim. The example given in the chapter about smoking is a good example. The claim is that smoking causes cancer. Although researchers can not directly link the cause of cancer to smoking but only link that smoking increases lung cancer there is no definite proof. There are other causes of cancer that are lifestyle choices including diet and exercise. Although there is no direct link to cancer and smoking researchers can only claim that there is a high probability of cancer if a person is smoking. This is an example of how a population that has no direct proof of result but only a high probability can lead to a cause and effect claim. I thought this was useful because although there I never thought that something like high probability and having a direct proof is different. As I read and thought about this section in the chapter I realized that there is a big difference but both methods work in supporting a claim.