Inferences and Conditional Logic

[megm7267]

How is a causal relationship different from a conditional relationship?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Really good question. A conditional relationship represents a correlation between two events. A causal relationship implies that one event is responsible for another. Correlations between two events could occur even though one event was not actually responsible for the other event's occurrence.

Understanding the difference between correlation and causation is really important because an argument that finds a correlation between two events and then posits a causal relationship between those two events is a really common form of flawed reasoning on the LSAT.

An example of causation would be a baseball player hitting a home run, causing the crowd to erupt with cheers.

Now those two events were correlated with each other too. That means that they co-occurred. And while it's highly unlikely, it's possible that the crowd actually cheered right after the baseball player hit the home run for some other reason. Let's say the baseball player actually plays for the away team. And that right after the home run, what was a dreary and gray day, all of a sudden became bright and full of sunshine! Maybe the crowd cheered about the weather and not the home run.

So it's tricky. Be careful about positing (concluding) causation simply from correlation. And always think about alternative causes.

Does that answer your question?

[megm7267]

It does - Thank you!