Causal Reasoning
&
Reasoning Through Analogy
Causal Reasoning
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Expressing or indicating cause
Establishing a cause and effect relationship between two
different things
“…you must show that one actually causes the other.”
Cause and Effect?
• The facts:
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More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users
More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed
within 24 hours of eating bread
Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived
of bread and given only water begged for bread after as
little as two days
The conclusion:
• Abuse of bread is the cause of most crimes
Good Use of Causal Reasoning?
NO!!!
Correct Use Causal Reasoning
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Distinguish between cause-and-effect and correlations
• Bread abuse correlates to crime
• Break abuse does not cause crime
Text Examples
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Arguing for increased equipment and maintenance of regulations for
commercial airlines in order to reduce airline accidents
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Must prove that faulty equipment and maintenance causes
airline accidents
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New equipment and regulations must cause a decrease in airline
accidents
Social IQ is important to business success
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“Look at those who’ve made it in business: Jack Welch, Bob Lutz,
Geoff Bible, and Oprah Winfrey. They all are outstanding
communicators.”
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“Now, how about those who never really reached their potential
in business: John Akers, Chris Steffen, Bill Agee and Jim
Robinson? All good people but they all have communication
deficits.”
Tests for Causal Reasoning
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“You must show that the cause is sufficient to produce the
effect.”
Text Example
• Crime rate went down in your city six months after hiring
a new police chief
• Are there specific policies the chief implements that
can be shown to directly affect the rate?
• Were there programs in place before the chief was
hired that also had an effect?
• Did the particular changes the new chief implements
affect the types of crimes that declined?
Alternative Causes
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“…other causes might also produce the same effect…you must
rule out all other causes.”
Text Example
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Improved Grades in School
• Better study habits
• Better teachers
• Better books
• Better learning resources
Must be able to identify the controlled aspects of a scenario
Bread Example
• Endless alternative causes
Superstitions
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Correlations can often create superstitions
Example
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Black cat crosses your path
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Your boss calls you to inform you that you have been fired
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Correlation or Cause?
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Alternative Causes?
Example
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You lost your lucky pencil
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You fail your math test the next day
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Correlation or Cause?
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Alternative Causes?
Analogy
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inference that if two or more things agree with one
another in some respect they will probably agree in
others
“…an extended comparison.”
an extended metaphor
“It’s a way to explain something the members of an
audience don’t understand in terms of something they
do understand.”
The 25 Funnies Analogies (Collected
by High School English Teachers)
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He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy
who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those
boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at
high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it.
He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of
his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly
surcharge-free ATM machine.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with
vegetable soup.
Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that
had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a
while.
Let’s Utilize Reasoning by Analogy!
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He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
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He was as tall as a tree, therefore he must be as strong as a tree
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with
vegetable soup.
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McBride hit “like” a Hefty bag, therefore he/she must weigh as much
as a Hefty bag
Good Reasoning by Analogy?
NO!!!
Correct Use of Analogies
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Can be either figurative or literal
• abstract or concrete
Main Rule
• both scenarios or examples must correlate in all aspects
Text Examples
• arguing for a change in a school lunch-hour policy based
on a successful open lunch-hour policy at another school
• Same size?
• Same access to restaurants?
• Both rural/urban?
• successful football coach uses same techniques with a
new football team
• Size
• Talent
• Basic Skills
Try This Analogy!
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Scenario
• no drinking age in Europe
• lower alcohol-related fatalities in Europe than America
• American drinking age should be eliminated!!!
Test for Reasoning by Analogy
• Similar in all major respects
• All aspects that influence conclusion must be similar
Problems with Analogy
• difference in attitudes towards alcohol assumption
• different history with alcohol
• maturity level of teenagers
• more American teenagers driving
Let’s Review!
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What is the difference between a cause and a
correlation?
• A cause directly results in the effect. A correlation
occurs at the same time as the effect but does not
directly influence it.
What are the two types of analogies?
• Figurative and Literal
What are multiple causes that could all result in the
same effect?
• Alternative Causes
Congratulations!
• You have mastered causal reasoning
because Kasey taught it to you!*
• You have mastered reasoning by
analogy like Roger Federer has
mastered tennis!*
* Incorrect usage of causal reasoning
and reasoning by analogy.