Inferring and Explaining

111 explanation. Gore himself is very careful in how he articulates t 0 . It’s a complicated relationship, but the most impor- tant part of it is this: When there is more CO 2 in the atmosphere, the temperature increases because more heat from the Sun is trapped inside. 5 Causation and Explanation It’s hard to write a chapter on causal infer- ences without noting that many philosophers of science believe that the notion of causation is the fundamental building block of any sort of explanation. According to the causal model of explanation, to explain a phenomenon is simply to give information about its causal history or, where the phenomenon itself is a causal regularity, to explain it is to give information about the mechanism linking cause to efect. 6 We should expect to see causal reasoning deeply involved in all inferences to the best explanation. Recall poor Connie. She noticed a correlation between two events—her boyfriend’s extended absence and the lipstick stain on his collar when he returned. Almost immediately there- afer she observed a second correlation—the all-too-obvious lipstick stain and Mary Jane’s lipstick being a mess. Te heart and soul of Con- nie’s inference regarding what happened is a causal account of the lipstick stain as well as the causes of the absence and Mary Jane’s cosmetic disaster. Te simple A -caused- B or B -caused- A accounts of the correlations all seemartifcial or convoluted. t 1 . The extended absence caused the lipstick stain. t 2 . The lipstick stain caused the extended absence. t 3 . The lipstick stain caused the Mary Jane’s lipstick to be all a mess. t 4 . Mary Jane’s lipstick being all a mess caused the lipstick stain. But of course, Connie knew exactly what had happened, there was a common cause of the lipstick stain, the extended absence, and Mary Jane’s messed up lipstick. CorrelatIons and Causes t 0 . Connie’s boyfriend had been smooching Mary Jane. The smooching caused the lip- stick stain on his collar, as well as causing him to be gone for half an hour or more at the record hop and causing Mary Jane’s lip- stick to get all messed up. Or consider Semmelweis’s predicament. He recognized a correlation between his colleague’s being cut while conducting an autopsy and his colleague dying with symptoms very similar to childbed fever. He was led to a straightforward causal explanation: t ′ 0 . The laceration introduced cadaveric particles into his colleague’s bloodstream, which then caused his colleague’s death. Almost simultaneously with this inference, he noticed the key correlation between the high death rate from childbed fever in the First Maternity Division and the fact that autopsies were routinely conducted by the physicians and medical students in the FirstMaternityDivision.