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.

Effect and Cause, Part 1

Suppose you drive by a bar and see two men fighting. What would you guess caused that fight? Maybe it is over a woman, an argument over a pool game, or maybe they have a preexisting dispute, or any of a myriad of other possible causes. The fact that there is a fight does not tell you what caused it. That is part of a general rule: knowing about the effect does not usually tell you the cause. In fact it is common for more than one cause to work together to create an effect.

Now let's change things just a bit. Again two men are going at it tooth and nail, but now one is white, one is black. Does that change our conclusion? It should not. Every possible cause of a fight between two white men is also a possible cause of a fight between a white man and a black man. True, there is one more possible cause in this case, but the operative word is possible. For all we know, the two men may have had a previous dispute, an argument over a woman, a disagreement over a bet, etc. Racism may or may not have had anything to do with it.

The sad fact is that, in today's world, too many assume that any dispute between people of different skin colors must be due to racism. It ain't necessarily so! It is quite possible for a white and a black man to fight over a woman, over who won a bet, over which football team is better, etc.

This knee-jerk reaction causes a lot of turmoil today. For example, we are now afflicted with demonstrations, mob action, even looting, all blamed on the murder of George Floyd. All reasonable people can agree that Floyd's death was terrible, but was racism involved? Probably not. We have no evidence of racist motives on the part of Officer Chauvin. Instead, we know that they had a previous dispute because Floyd accused Chauvin of being too harsh when they worked together in a security job. Barring new evidence, we should not blame racism for that murder. It is of course possible that racism was involved in the dispute, but that is speculation, and we should not make policy on the basis of speculation and guesswork, nor should we riot on that basis.

The Race Card

My favorite football team, the BYU Cougars, just fired Jaime Hill. Mr. Hill had coached the defensive backfield, then was promoted to defensive coordinator. He had that job for a couple of years before being fired. Now he happened to be a black man at a mostly white university so I'm sure you can guess what some people are saying. To Hill's credit he has not played the race card, at least as far as I know. However others have, accusing BYU of picking on the minority coordinator.

In thus playing the race card those accusers ignore a few facts. First, BYU is off to a 1-4 start, its worst in many years and the defense has given up way too many points. Then there are the comments from former BYU defensive players. According to them, Hill was a great position coach before being promoted to coordinator. However he seemed out of his depth in the coordinator position. This seems to be a manifestation of the Peter Principle, he was apparently promoted to a job he could not do well. His play calling was suspect at best. Worse, his volatile personality drove several players to quit the team and others nearly left. He simply was not a good fit for that particular job.

I'm sure Mr. Hill will get another job soon and I wish him well there (unless he's coaching against BYU). However the reports I've seen lead me to believe that it was wise to dismiss him from the BYU program. I doubt the color of his skin had anything to do with that dismissal. In sports, coaches who don't get good results are fired regularly.

Hill’s firing is only one manifestation of the tendency of many in the media and elsewhere to play the race card. Any time someone from a minority group or a woman is fired, some people assume that it was because of race or sex. The examples are myriad. Van Jones left the Obama administration after his communist background and blaming of Bush for the 9-11 attacks came to light. However Jones is black and many assume he was targeted for his skin color. Even more common is the tendency to call anyone who opposes Obama's programs racist. It is common for Obama supporters to overlook the fact that some people just don't like his czars, his profligate spending, his increasing of government power, etc.

There are many reasons people oppose Obama. While some do not like his skin color, there are many more who don't like his politics. Playing the race card may score political points but it is simply wrong unless there is actual evidence of racism.

Illegal aliens are another issue often creating false accusations of racism. Surely there are some who want to keep out specific races. However there are many others who want border control because of the number of gang members and drug dealers entering the country illegally, or because of the jobs illegal aliens take away from citizens. Opposition to illegal aliens is not automatically racist.

How effective is playing the race card in politics? Unquestionably it does get people riled up. However it is not at all clear that it changes votes. The people who get riled up probably already oppose the alleged racist. Meanwhile the supporters of that target will also get energized. And I think voters are getting wiser in this regard. The undecideds seem to be becoming skeptical about the race card. It has been overused and is wearing thin. The leftist news media and others still swallow it but they are becoming isolated in that regard. That is a positive sign.

I hope we can all continue to regard accusations of racism with skepticism. While racism does exist so do false accusations of racism. We must ask for solid evidence and look to see if there are other explanations for events that may appear racist.