Mills Methods

Phil 12: Logic and Decision Making Winter 2010 UC San Diego 2/22/2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

Review
Distinguish necessary and sufcient causes Most causes are neither necessary nor sufcient - Rather, contributory/partial Increase or decrease the likelihood of an
effect

Example: Attending class increases the

likelihood of doing well on the exam

Distinguish proximate and ultimate causes

Monday, February 22, 2010

Clicker question 1
Plentiful rainfall is: A. A sufcient cause of wildowers blooming B. A contributory cause of wildowers blooming C. Not a cause of blooming because it is not sufcient to cause blooming D. Too ultimate to count as a cause of wildowers blooming

Monday, February 22, 2010

John Stuart Mill

Methods for selecting actual causes among possible causes (before the development of statistics!)

Start with variables assumed to include the possible causes Use correlation to separate actual causes from possible causes

Monday, February 22, 2010

Mill did not have modern statistics available, so he used simple, eye-ball correlations

Failure of a putative cause to correlate with the effect in the right way indicates lack of causation Or better, our inability to nd the cause!

Mills methods
Method of agreement Method of difference Method of residues Method of concomitant variation

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of agreement
If two or more instances of the phenomenon
under investigation have only one circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances agree, is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon.

Find cases in which the effect has occurred - Determine if there is only one thing that they
all share

Monday, February 22, 2010

If there is, that is (the likely) cause

Method of agreement

A C D

B E

H G

C E K

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of Agreement
Example: some cities have markedly lower rates
of tooth decay

Is there anything these cities share in common?

If so, that is the likely cause of lower rates

of tooth decay

Monday, February 22, 2010

Table for Method of Agreement

Dental Free Fluoride Education Dental in Water Program Clinics Dullsville Bedroom Town Golfville Megacity Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes High salaries for dentists No Yes No No Low rates of tooth decay Yes Yes Yes Yes

Monday, February 22, 2010

Table for Method of Agreement

Dental Free Fluoride Education Dental in Water Program Clinics Dullsville Bedroom Town Golfville Megacity Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes High salaries for dentists No Yes No No Low rates of tooth decay Yes Yes Yes Yes

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of Agreement at Work

Five patients all show amnesia after brain injury:

Patient 1--damage to the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus Patient 2--damage to the hippocampus, amygdala, and entorhinal cortex Patient 3--damage to the thalamus and hippocampus Patient 4--damage to the prefrontal cortex, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and amygdala Patient 5--damage to the hippocampus and amygdala

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of difference
If an instance in which the phenomena under
investigation occurs and an instance in which it does not occur, have every circumstance in common save one, that one occurring only in the former, the circumstance in which alone the two instances differ, is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of difference - 2
Find two things that differ in that one has the
effect and the other doesnt

A C

If there is only one factor on which they differ, that is the likely cause
B D E D

A B

X
E

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of Difference - 3
Example: four people apply for a loan, and only
two get are approved for a loan

Is there anything that differs between the people who got the loan and the people who didnt?

If so, thats the likely cause of their not

getting the loan

Monday, February 22, 2010

Table of Method of Difference

Loan College Earn over Own Declared Education $80K Business Bankruptcy Approved Victor Crystal Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes

Tad

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Chin

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Monday, February 22, 2010

Example of Yellow Fever

Once Walter Reed suspected mosquitoes as the transmitter of yellow fever He had one set of volunteers sleep on the soiled clothes and beds of yellow fever patients in a room screened so that no mosquitoes could get in. None of these people contracted the disease.

He had another group of volunteers stay completely away from sick patients, except he let mosquitoes that had been allowed to feast rst on people sick with the disease bite the patients. These volunteers did get sick.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Joint method of agreement and difference

The methods of agreement and difference can be used jointly:

Monday, February 22, 2010

Find something in common amongst all cases where the effect appears Find matches for all these cases except that they lack the effect and the common ingredient

Example: Five factory workers are found to be inefcient relative to others who are doing the same work. The efcient workers and the inefcient workers were found to be similar in all relevant ways except one: the inefcient workers were not part of a prot sharing plan. Conclusion: prot sharing causes efciency.

Method of residues
Subduct from any phenomenon such part as is
known by previous inductions to be the effect of certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the remaining antecedents.
C1 E1

C2

C1

E1

E2

Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of residues - 2

Distinguish three features of a plant's growth pattern: The development of large, healthy green leaves The development of strong stems and root structure The production of fruit and owers Applying a 10-10-10 fertilizer (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) results in all three. What causes what? We know that: Nitrogen promotes the healthy growth of leaves Potassium encourages the development of stronger stems and roots In addition to these, our fertilized plants also produce fruit and owers more prolically than usual.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Since we know what caused the improved growth of leaves, stems, and roots we infer that the "residue", the increase in the number of fruit and owers, was caused by the phosphorus

Method of concomitant variation

Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon or is connected with it through some fact of causation.

Amount Amount Amount of of of Water Fertilizer Sunlight Plot A Plot B Plot C

Monday, February 22, 2010

Crop Yield 8 12 16

13 14 12

2 3 4

51 45 46

What is Mill saying?

Once you have identied the plausible candidate causes: Correlation (of a simple matching sort) can isolate the actual (or at least a good candidate) cause Assumption behind Mills methods: one and only one factor is the cause, and it is one you have considered But beware, this can sometimes backre:

A man drank rye and water on the rst night and became drunk. On the second night, he drank scotch and water and became drunk again. On the third night, he got drunk on bourbon and water. He therefore decided that the water was the cause of his getting drunk because it was the common element each time. (Christiansen, 1994, p. 76)

Monday, February 22, 2010

Mills Methods: Probative, but not Denitive

As the alcohol and water example shows, Mills methods do not always correctly identify the cause

Something might correlate with the effect but not be the cause The causal structure might be complex, involving interactions of multiple factors

Nonetheless, Mills methods are useful in clarifying our understanding of cause and how we test for it The development of modern statistics came after Mill and provided a much more potent tool for identifying the factors Mill was seeking to identify

Monday, February 22, 2010

Clicker question 2
Which of Mills methods is illustrated in this example: You call Tom and Ray because your car makes a funny noise. They inquire and learn that you always drive with your pet bird in the back seat. They ask you to leave the bird at home while you drive and you nd there is no noise. You conclude the bird is the cause of the funny noise. A. Method of agreement B. Method of difference C. Method of residues D. Method of concomitant variation
Monday, February 22, 2010

Clicker question 3
Which of Mills methods is illustrated in this example: In the past when you have gone to the beach, you have gotten a sun burn. Also, when you have smoked cigarettes you have developed a headache. Today you went to the beach, smoked, and ate shrimp, and got sun burned, developed a headache, and had a bad stomach ache. You conclude that eating shrimp is the cause of your stomach ache. A. Method of agreement B. Method of difference C. Method of residues D. Method of concomitant variation
Monday, February 22, 2010

Clicker question 4
Which of Mills methods is illustrated in this example: In January 1997, 2001, and 2004 San Diego had unusually high rainfall. Each of those years there was a strong El Nio. You conclude that El Nio causes lots of rain. A. Method of agreement B. Method of difference C. Method of residues D. Method of concomitant variation

Monday, February 22, 2010

Clicker question 5
Given the following data, which of Mills methods can be used to draw a conclusion about causal inuences on Phil 12 grades?
Hours spent studying Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Overall GPA Grade in Phil 12

4 7 11

3.1 2.5 9.0

70% 80% 90%

A. B. C. D.
Monday, February 22, 2010

Method of agreement Method of difference Method of residues Method of concomitant variation

Diagramming causal relations

To use correlational evidence in assessing causation, it helps to portray clearly what causal relations are being hypothesized Using causal diagrams we can evaluate

Whether correlational evidence does support causation What manipulations we need to perform when conducting an experiment What factors must be controlled for when experiments are not possible

Use nodes (boxes) and arrows to represent actual and possible causal relations

Monday, February 22, 2010

Nodes represent variables Arrows represent causal relations between variables

Developing causal graphs

Representing relations between a battery, a switch, and a fan Three variables, each in a box with its possible values
Battery [uncharged, charged] Switch [open, closed] Fan [off, on]

Use arrow to represent hypothesized causal relation between variables

If the value of the switch causally affects the fan, put an arrow between them
Switch [open, closed] Fan [off, on]

Monday, February 22, 2010