Effect and Cause, Part 2

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (attributed to Mark Twain)

My friend Randy loaned me a book. I read a chapter or two, then gave it back to him. Why?

The obvious reason would be that I did not like the book. A theory that fits the facts so far, but wrong. I liked it very much.

Or maybe Randy asked me to return it, he wanted to look at something in the book. Wrong again.

Was I too busy to read the book. Nope, that is not the reason either.

Any one of those possible reasons might explain the fact that I returned the book, yet none is correct.

The real reason? I liked that book so much that I went out and bought my own copy.

Knowing a possible cause for something does not prove that to be the actual cause. For most events, there are many possible causes, and the most obvious suspect may or may not be the real cause. We often find ourselves in the position of a detective trying to determine who committed a murder. Was it the man seen fleeing the scene? Should the detective fixate on that one suspect, he may miss the real criminal. That fleeing man may be quite innocent, perhaps running in fear for his own life. Are there other possible suspects? The beneficiary of his life insurance? Someone who held a grudge against the victim? A suspect not yet even on the radar?

In the early stages of the investigation, any competent detective will keep an open mind. If he jumps to conclusions, he will be victim of the blind spot of assuming that one possible villain must be the villain. In most cases, there are many possible villains and he must find the right one.

Likewise, when we seek the cause of some problem, there may be multiple “suspects,” even some we may not know about. Our task is to find the “guilty” party and gather enough evidence to get a “conviction.” Indeed, the first step is sometimes to determine if what we see is really a problem, or just random fluctuations in how things happen.

Just because a theory makes sense does not make that theory true. There may be other theories, as good or better that also fit the facts. And there may be important facts yet unknown that would blow the theory to bits.

For example, I belong to an organization of nearly 100 members. Those members include not a single black person. What can you conclude about that organization? Why the racial imbalance? Many in today’s world would scream “racism,” but could there be other reasons? There are, though I do not claim to know all of them. First this is a mountain rescue team. To do our job, we must recruit from among competent mountaineers, and there are few Blacks with the requisite skills. In my entire life I’ve only met one black person who enjoyed mountaineering, a man who learned the skill as a ranger in the army.

Of course, that raises another question: why are black people so underrepresented in mountaineering. To that I must respond as does Tevye in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” “That I can answer. I don’t know.” Surely the mountains and woods care not a bit about the skin color of people enjoying their beauty, nor have I ever seen any evidence that any mountaineering organization is prejudiced. And Blacks in many sports have demonstrated tremendous physical ability, ability that could transfer to mountaineering.

Why are there so few black mountaineers? A good question. I wish I had a good answer.

Part of the answer may be cost, since the gear and training for mountaineering can be moderately expensive, but that cannot be the entire answer. Nor can accessibility. There are plenty of Blacks living near mountains. I can only conclude that, for some reason, Blacks are not as interested in mountaineering as are Whites. That lack of interest might also explain why we have no Blacks on our rescue team. Why are they are not interested? I have no idea.

I do know that anyone accusing our team of racism or sexism would be wrong.